Who is this guy?

That's what they were asking during the weekend at the Holiday Inn Select in Timonium, where 80 people competed in this year's Baltimore Scrabble Tournament.

Few regulars knew what to make of Yawo Ananga, a bookish civil engineer from Ghana. All they knew is that he could kick b-u-t-t.

Before the 14th and final game yesterday, the 28-year-old led in the expert category as he sat down to face Marlon Hill, a writer from Baltimore. By then, the only possible spoiler was Hill, ranked No. 9 by the National Scrabble Association.

"Nobody intimidates me," said Hill, a confident 37-year-old with gray-flecked dreadlocks. "That's like asking Mike Tyson when he was really Mike Tyson, was he intimidated by anybody?"

Scrabble might be just a board game in which players arrange letters into words, and the top prize yesterday was only $200. But the tournaments can get intense.

"This is a game consisting of many powerful egos -- Barry Bonds-type egos," said organizer Tim Maneth of Baltimore. "A lot of them have a problem with losing. Sometimes it gets violent."

Players have been known to throw boards in disgust, or shout four-letter words seldom seen in Scrabble games. This contest stayed calm -- which is not to say that people treated it lightly.

One player took his rack of letter tiles into the bathroom midgame, lest his opponent sneak a peak. Another wore a cap that read Capital Punishment, the name of his Washington team.

People in this crowd knew some of the English language's really obscure words -- na, ka, zooid, azo, wo, doat -- even if they could not define them.

The game's popularity is on the upswing, according to Maneth, thanks to Word Freak, a book by Wall Street Journal reporter Stefan Fatsis. "It has renewed interest tremendously," said Maneth, a former travel agent who organizes Scrabble and mah-jongg tourneys.

The book is why 9-year-old Sam Rosin and his family drove three hours from their home in Martinsville, N.J. After reading it last year, he begged his parents to let him join a Scrabble club, then begged them to let him try a tournament.

The fourth-grader did not have his best weekend, losing more games than he won in the novice category. But he handily dispatched Carolyn Meeker, 64, of Morristown, N.J.

"He smooshed me, the little brat," she said good-naturedly after the 422-287 drubbing.

Sam said he likes the adrenaline rush and the ability to use odd words. He began against Meeker with aalii, which he vaguely knew was a kind of tree.

Sam's parents, Larry and Debby, support his interest in Scrabble. But they don't push it, and his father noted that he scored four goals in a recent soccer game. "He's not a one-dimensional weirdo," he said.

If Sam might represent the future, the experts are the present. Eighteen were present during the weekend. Hill, a self-described unpublished author, is well-known among Scrabblers, and made it into Fatsis' book. He has entered tournaments since 1992.

Ananga is a relative unknown. He played Scrabble often while growing up in an upper-middle-class family in Ghana, where he learned English as well as five dialects of Ashanti. In 2000, he moved to North Carolina to earn a civil engineering degree, and now lives in Towson. He has skipped most tournaments.

"I don't know how he got so good, because he doesn't play in local clubs," Maneth said.

Before the crucial game, Ananga felt good. Even if Hill were to win, the pair would have identical 11-2 records. But because Ananga has beaten his foes by bigger spreads, Hill would need a rout of 100 points to steal the whole tournament.

"Damage control -- that's the name of the game," Ananga said, outlining his defensive strategy.

Hill, meanwhile, exuded confidence. "I'm having a really good year," he said. "I've gotten what I need, so I'll get what I need."

As the 50-minute game got under way, the conference room was quiet except for schmaltzy music from the hotel sound system and the rattling of players shaking the tile bags.

Hopes for a tight contest faded quickly. Ananga's first word was "quiz," worth 44 points. Next turn, he used all seven letters to spell "rangers." Add 83 points.

It was like a 10-run first inning in Game 7 of the World Series. The rout was on. Hill narrowed the gap but saw it was hopeless. "Embarrassing," he muttered. Final score: 461-351.

"Just got lucky," Ananga, said after Hill congratulated him. "I hit him with everything but the kitchen sink."

Ananga readily acknowledged that it felt good to beat Hill, the man who accounted for his only two losses. "My revenge," he said with a smile.