Bill Condon has taken two Scrabble trophies back to his Woonona home after victory at the Norfolk Island Scrabble Championship. Picture: SYLVIA LIBER
The word "cobzas" has helped Woonona's Bill Condon bring home not one but two trophies from an international Scrabble tournament.
Earlier this month, Mr Condon competed in the Norfolk Island Scrabble Championship and won the "Australian Champion" trophy, after finishing ahead of all the other Aussies in the competition.
The other trophy was for most unusual word, which Mr Condon scored for laying the C, O, B, Z, A and S tiles.
If you're curious, it's the plural of "cobza", a stringed instrument popular in Romanian and Hungarian folk music.
The Norfolk Island competition was held from October 9-12, with competitors playing six or seven games a day. Mr Condon said he "didn't take it too seriously; it was just a holiday".
He said he found Scrabble tournaments stressful, so much so that the Norfolk Island event was his first in almost a decade.
"It's all timed. Each game was only 25 minutes but if you run over time, you get penalties, if you put down a wrong word and someone challenges it and it's a wrong word, you lose that turn.
"And some people can get very tense or very aggressive and it's not pleasant to play against them.
"I find it very stressful, that's why I hadn't played in tournaments for over nine years."
Mr Condon still finds time for friendly games of online Scrabble with his wife - she on her computer and he on his.
A well-known writer of books for young adults, Mr Condon said Scrabble provided an excuse to get away from writing for a while.
He said being a writer had helped when it came to playing Scrabble.
"Strangely enough, a lot of Scrabble players aren't very good spellers. They stumble through and often make mistakes on very basic words."
