They brought customized boards, special tiles in personalized bags and a uncanny knowledge of some of the stranger words in the English language to Santa Nella last weekend.</p><p>But for the 93 tournament Scrabble players competing in the tourney held in the Ramada Inn Mission De Oro's Franciscan Room, knowing words like "whangee" and "tisane" exist is fundamental.</p><p>Peter Dolgenos, director of the Scrabble club in Sacramento said there are between 3,000 and 4,000 active tournament Scrabble players nationwide. One player he knows, Stu Goldman of San Francisco, has played 5,484 games in tournaments.</p><p>Dave Wiegand of Portland, Ore. was the higest ranked player at the open tourney with a national rating of 1,902. He was also the national champion in 2005 after recording the highest scores in 31 games against 600-700 other players.</p><p>Wiegand won the open in Santa Nella and its $3,000 top prize.</p><p>Bennett Jacobstein of Milpitas said the California Open was the first major tournament he's organized.</p><p>"We wanted to have it someplace in between southern and northern California," he said. "The Ramada Inn is a really nice venue and it's close to Interstate 5."</p><p>The tournament attracted many of the top Scrabble players from throughout the state and beyond. There were eight players with ratings above 1,800 and only 11 whose rating was below 1,000.</p><p>"Tournaments of 100 or more players are not that common," Wiegand said. "The $3,000 prize is big enough to attract some good players."</p><p>Wiegand said he is in the mortgage business, which he described as being slow right now.</p><p>"I'm doing a little better playing Scrabble this year," he said.</p><p>Winning at tournament scrabble takes consisently higher scores than the average player stacks up while playing a game with the family at the dining room table.</p><p>Wiegand said it usually takes a score greater than 400 to win at tournaments. His average score is</p><p>430.</p><p>Jacobstein said, for tournament Scrabble players, the tiles players keep in the rack are as important as those they put on the board to spell a word. There are certain combinations of letters - th, ou, ch for example - that occur more frequently in the language than others, and those "high probability" tiles are often retained, he said.</p><p>"The best spend hours and hours studying," Jacobstein said.</p><p>Doug Brockmeier of San Diego, who had a national rating of 1,825 going into the tournament, placed second and took home a check for $1,100. Jeff Widergren (1,815) placed third, winning a $750 prize.</p><p>The top three performers during the weekend were Andrea Michaels of San Fransisco, Henry Yeung of San Jose and Carlynn Mayer of Sparks, Nev. They received gold, siler and broze medals respectively.</p><p>"The tournament was very successful," Jacobstein said. "Many people asked if it will become an annual event. It probably will."