Brian Cappelletto (born 1969) is a ''

Scrabble ''Scrabble'' is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a Board game, game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, re ...

'' player who represents the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

in international competition. He was the runner-up at the inaugural

World Scrabble Championship The World Scrabble Championship (WSC) is played to determine the world champion in competitive English-language Scrabble. It was held in every odd year from 1991 to 2013; from 2013 onwards, it became an annual event. The most successful player i ...

1991 It was the final year of the Cold War, which had begun in 1947. During the year, the Soviet Union Dissolution of the Soviet Union, collapsed, leaving Post-soviet states, fifteen sovereign republics and the Commonwealth of Independent State ...

and won the event in

2001 The year's most prominent event was the September 11 attacks against the United States by al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror. The United States led a Participan ...

. He also won the American

National Scrabble Championship The Scrabble Players Championship (formerly the North American Scrabble Championship, and earlier the National Scrabble Championship) is the largest ''Scrabble'' competition in North America. The event is currently held every year, and from 2004 t ...

in 1998, and was the runner-up in 2008 and 2010. Cappelletto appeared in

Stefan Fatsis Stefan Fatsis ( ; born April 1, 1963) is an American author and journalist. He regularly appears as a guest on National Public Radio's '' All Things Considered'' daily radio news program and as a panelist on Slate's sports podcast '' Hang Up an ...

's book ''

Word Freak ''Word Freak'' is a nonfiction narrative by Stefan Fatsis published in 2001 (). The book is subtitled ''Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive SCRABBLE Players''. Fatsis, a sports reporter for ''The Wall Street ...

'', which follows the stories of several of Scrabble's top players in North America. Fatsis calls him "Scrabble's first child prodigy". The documentary '' Scrabylon'', about the 2001 World Championship, also features Cappelletto as a central character. Cappelletto first appeared as a Division 1 player at the 1987 National Scrabble Championship, winning 16 of his 21 games and finishing with a winning spread of 1300. He has since appeared at the Championship ten more times, finishing in the top 5 on seven occasions in addition to his 1998 victory. He has not appeared at the World Championship since winning it in 2001. As of June 2010, his

NASPA Games NASPA Games, formerly known as North American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA), is a nonprofit organization founded in 2009 to administer competitive Scrabble tournaments and clubs in North America. It officially took over these activities fr ...

rating was 2047, making him the top-rated player in Illinois and the second-highest rated player in the United States. NSA ratings searcher. Since beginning his career in 1985, he has played at least 2,700 tournament games, winning about 69%, and earning over $164,000 in prize money. Cappelletto lives in

Chicago, Illinois Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

. Outside ''Scrabble'', he works as an options trader and lists his interests as

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various Golf club, clubs to hit a Golf ball, ball into a series of holes on a golf course, course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standa ...

, impersonations and

fantasy baseball Fantasy baseball is a game in which the participants serve as owners and general managers of virtual baseball teams. The competitors select their rosters by participating in a draft in which all relevant Major League Baseball (MLB) players are ava ...

References

External links

Example game: Cappelletto vs Zev Kaufman at Can-Am 2002
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cappelletto, Brian 1969 births American Scrabble players Living people Game players from Chicago World Scrabble Championship winners