A word wizard who has proved her worth time after time has done it again and become this year's Mensa Games Scrabble Champion.

It is the fifth time that Joyce Cansfield, 74, has won the prestigious title, beating off competition from Britain's brainiest club.

In her 45 years playing Scrabble she has also picked up the titles of National Scrabble Champion in 1980, competed in the World Championships in 1991, and featured in the Guinness Book of Records with the highest-ever triple word score of 301.

Mrs Cansfield, also compiles crosswords for The Times and has been a regular competitor on Channel Four's Countdown.

"I really enjoy the competitive side of the game," she said. "One of the competitors learned 14,000 new words specially for the competition, but I didn't do that! Players do swot up on words every day though."

The final was played between Mrs Cansfield and Roger Ordish, who hails from Lewes, Sussex. She took the first round 440 points to 366 and the second 485 to 296.

Her highest scoring word was "sapient", meaning 'wise' or 'shrewd', which scored 80, and her favourite words played in the games were "overgone", scoring 74, and "renature" - an American word permitted in Scrabble.

The Mensa Games finals were held in Birmingham and Mensa members from all over the UK gathered to play various games, including chess, Trivial Pursuit, Monopoly, whist, and the Brain of Mensa final which was hosted by Mastermind presenter Magnus Magnusson. Mrs Cansfield, who is a member of the Aireborough Scrabble Club, was introduced to the game by her cousins while staying in a log cabin in Canada and has been hooked ever since.

She said that while being older meant she had more words to hand, the younger competitors tended to be quicker against the clock. Each player is allowed 25 minutes in a game, using chess clocks.

But while the Otley resident vows to continue playing at a competitive level as long as she can, a controversial decision by the game makers announced yesterday may throw a spanner in the works.

"The owners of the Scrabble game have decided they are are changing to another dictionary after 40 years and this means players are going to have to unlearn a lot of words, and the permitted word lists will be completely different, " said Mrs Cransfield.