Darcy Davis, left, and Rebecca Rose of Cranston’s Park View Middle School concentrate yesterday in their matchup against two boys from Texas.

>

The Providence Journal / Bob Breidenbach

PROVIDENCE — Darcy Davis, a diminutive Cranston seventh grader who can solve a Rubik’s Cube in the blink of an eye, didn’t look fazed yesterday by the championship Scrabble team from Texas.

She furiously figured out word combinations with Park View Middle School teammate Rebecca Rose. They sat at table 20 at the Rhode Island Convention Center, where 200 fifth through eighth graders from 23 states began the two-day, sixth annual National School Scrabble Championship.

The competition in the popular board game will crown a winning team today.

Darcy and Rebecca spoke Scrabblese –– whispers, nods and other signals — as they squared off against two boys from Trinity Bend Christian School. Words such as C-R-E-A-T-I-N-G and S-I-E-G-E multiplied on the Scrabble board. In the end, this round went to the Texas team, which posted what a Park View coach said was a high score.

Yes, they still play on a board, even when Scrabble or similar knock-off games are on Facebook.com and other Internet sites. Some youngsters play similar games on laptops and cell phones.

“I play against people all around the world,” said Nate Micklautz, who is on a team from Louisville, Ill.

But several young people said Internet versions only supplement the board game because the competition calls for two players working shoulder to shoulder, and the board game trains for that. The game is now sold by Pawtucket-based Hasbro, which owns the Parker Bros. brand.

The competition — which included seven teams from Rhode Island — has gone high-tech in one vital area. When a team challenges another’s word, the ruling no longer falls to a lady with granny glasses who flips open a dusty dictionary. Each team walked up to a laptop computer, one of several stationed around the convention center ballroom, typed in the disputed word and braced for the news.

A message in green letters appeared on screen when a word was OK. A message in red meant the word was not allowed.

TEAMS FROM schools and libraries from coast to coast have descended on Providence. And for an hour or more before yesterday’s competition, each had its rituals.

At a table outside the competition hall, Ifay F. Chang, wearing a gray suit and a tie, looked as if he were leading a North Salem, N.Y., library team through a round of high-stakes poker. The boys wore serious faces but played a card game Chang said he invented to practice seeing words in a random slew of letters –– especially seven-letter words.

Over at New York City’s Dalton School table, students huddled with a coach around a laptop. A program kept posting new combinations of letters –– in Scrabble-style squares –– and the boys blurted out, rapid-fire at times, a word they saw.

Stakes are high: the winning team gets $5,000. And like high-stakes poker, parts of the Scrabble competition will air on ESPN later this year. Some youngsters are nationally rated –– with scores adults don’t muster on their best day –– such as Joey Krafchick of Georgia, who holds a 1,575 rating out of a maximum 2,100.

“Beat me three times,” said John D. Williams, the National Scrabble Association executive director and Scrabble book author.

Others said placing high would be terrific, but fun comes first. Karen Shore, a Park View Scrabble coach and school librarian, said the Cranston team has practiced playing with a timer, as rounds last 22 minutes.

“I actually wanted to try something new this year,” Park View competitor Alex Miguel said of joining the Scrabble club.

“I don’t really care that much about winning. I just want something to do –– the prize money is a bonus,” said Park View competitor Spencer Brown.

mmckinne@projo.com