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Notes from the organizer: Three rounds down and we have an unsurprising sort of leaderboard with defending champion Tom C (434) and all-time great Zohaib R (442) sitting at the top.

Zohaib and Martin T posted a new record score for Start At The End with 142 usurping Florence’s previous best of 140. That helped Martin (408) sit 3rd with Harry FL (406) in 4th. Past winners Florence CL (405) and Matthew T (400) are the only other players over 400.

Tournament specialists, Richard Decker and Mike Lee, follow closely behind.

All to play for and three new rounds to get your teeth into.

Full leaderboard - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GbMgZiPM3Sf8HcUqhsfy3L4Fz4AQ_BTb/edit?gid=818273497#gid=818273497&range=A1:O1

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), to continue your game scoring, you must simply go back to the bottom of the staircase by declaring a one-letter word to start the climbing process again.

IMPORTANT - This is one of those rare rounds where you can still ‘bomb out’ early. Any invalid words, non-declarations or words to aren’t one letter longer than your previous word (or 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
THEM (GAME OVER - a three-letter word was needed, or a revert back to a one-letter word)

SCORE: 82 (77 game score + 5 point nine-letter word bonus)

Tom Cappleman hold the all-time high score for the Staircase with 86.

Good luck.

Runs from: 9 – 15 November 2026. Format: Letters Attack. Matches: One-off. Level scores: Tie-breakers played. Approved.

Matches: 54. Completed: 1.

Results and fixtures

Fixtures: 54. Played: 1. Unplayed: 53.

Fixtures: 54. Played: 1. Unplayed: 53.

Key. Green: winner. Red: loser.