Last Saturday we competed in the Scrabble for Cheaters Tournament for 826 NYC tutoring center and the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co. Depending on how much money you raised for the tutoring center the rules allowed you to buy however many “cheats” you wanted, stuff like adding 10 points to a tile, adding Q or X or Z to a word. The big money cheat was to make up a word. This cheat would be our undoing.

We won our first round! And only used a minimal amount of cheats. I get heavily competitive at board games and it creates an atmosphere of tension that I enjoy but I realize probably makes a lot of people around me uncomfortable.

The spoils of victory. Alas, this would be as close as we ever got to cheating glory.

The bracket.

The game field.

The decimators. We got obliterated in the second round by these two folks, “Justice Mispelled,” they call themselves. They cheat like masters. Make sure not to tangle with these two if you find yourself in a back alley Scrabble match.

We lost, but the sting of failure was soothed by the balm of charity. We raised a little bit of money for a very cool place that helps a lot of kids. So we had a ball.

UPDATE: more photos of the whole day at the 826 NYC flickr.