 | David Holmes Is it necessary to start the staircase with a one letter word? If I were to start with (say) a three letter word and build each subsequent staircase with a three letter word, would that be allowed? |
 | Tom Cappleman Looks like the first staircase can start anywhere, but later ones always start at 1.
|
 | Dave Kempshall Correct Tom. Two scoring 9s in any round will count for bonus. David, start with whatever length word you like. |
 | Fiona T that went well... |
 | Ian Volante This tourney has it in for me. |
| Ian Volante This tourney has it in for me. And I totally forgot to start again. |
 | Jon Stammers Oh no!! Didn't spot my error at all until the scores showed on spreadsheet. Skipped from 4 to 6 letters... Grrr... Thought I was playing it all SO safe too... |
 | Dan Southwell Dave - just in case you aren't aware, R6 on the spreadsheet says A LA MODE instead of the STAIRCASE... ? |
| Dave Kempshall Hey Dan - thanks. Yes, I did mention it in the game notes on this page. A la Mode had a fatal gameplay flaw after I started testing it out. |
| Dan Southwell Lol! at least I read the most important part of the notes!!!! |
| Show all comments | |
 | Stu Harkness STAIRCASE was the conundrum in my cancelled Octochamp game! Didn't get it tho cos I'm shit. |
 | Mark Jeary-Fairbairn I fell down the stairs and broke my neck after seeing imaginary letters |
| Tom Cappleman Matthew B's first round score in the spreadsheet has got messed up for some reason |
| Dave Kempshall Thanks Tom. Fixed. |
 | Keith C Williams as if being American weren't already bad enough, I had to go and put what's apparently an American word in R1 |
Notes from the organizer: What’s the last thing you want if you’re leading an Apto tournament at the midway point? Probably a chasing pack headed by Matthew B and Tom C and tournament specialist Mike L breathing down your neck. Welcome to Miram, Adam and Stu’s world. Miriam leads having safely navigated round 5, with Adam and Stu yet to tackle it.
Full leaderboard - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YSYOdmZKGElwGkMRG89M4PBvmvH6vu-9/edit?gid=1911279472#gid=1911279472&range=A1:M1
In a slight alteration to the advertised schedule (I spotted a fundamental flaw with A LA MODE) we now enter three new rounds for 2025.
Played across a Standard Letters Attack, the aim of The Staircase is to build words round-by-round that are consecutively one letter longer than the last.
You can start in round 1 with any length word you want, then you simply have to increase your word length by exactly one letter each round. So if you start in round 1 with a four-letter word, round 2 would need to be five, round 3 six, round 4 seven etc.
When you reach a point where you feel you can no longer keep climbing the staircase (or you get to and successfully play a nine-letter word), you can keep your game scoring going by simply reverting to the bottom of the stairs by declaring a one-letter word instead to start the climbing process again.
Any invalid words, non-declarations or words to aren’t one letter longer than your previous word (i.e. not reverting back to a one letter word when necessary) will see your game score end.
A 5 point bonus is on offer for making it all the way up to the top of the staircase and playing a valid nine-letter word once.
An additional bumper 25 point bonus is on offer for scaling the staircase twice and playing two valid nine-letter words.
Example game:
RELATION
A (no nine-letter word spotted, so I decided to revert back to one)
TO
BUT
MAIM
EXTRA
DEBATE
DECODED
RAINIEST
TRIANGLES (5 point bonus for the nine-letter word)
E
TO
AND
BARK
MOTOR
ARDENT
A (couldn’t find a 7 letter word so kept game going by reverting back to one-letter word)
BY
THE
WHO (GAME OVER - a four-letter word was needed, or a revert back to a one-letter word)
SCORE: 85 (80 game score + 5 point nine-letter word bonus)
Good luck.
Ran from: 16 November – 2 December 2025. Format: Letters Attack. Matches: One-off. Level scores: Drawn. Approved.
Matches: 49. Completed: 48.
Fixtures: 49. Played: 48. Unplayed: 1.
Fixtures: 49. Played: 48. Unplayed: 1.
Key. Green: winner. Red: loser.
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