Mr. Nigel Richards, a 57-year-old from New Zealand, has defeated numerous opponents to win the 2024 World Championship in the Spanish Scrabble competition, despite not speaking the language.
Nearly a decade ago, in 2015, Mr. Richards won the French Scrabble Championship even though he was completely unable to converse in French. His victory became international news at that time.
Nearly a decade ago, Mr. Richards won the French Scrabble Championship when he also could not speak the language. (Image source: Unplash).
Mr. Richards has gained fame as the best Scrabble player in the world and is considered a legend in the game. However, it is surprising that a person who does not speak French managed to outplay the best French Scrabble players to claim the world title. Some believe it was a stroke of luck, but he has since repeated this achievement. Recently, Richards has proven that he can excel in other languages that he does not speak.
Last month, Mr. Richards won the 2024 World Spanish Scrabble Championship in Granada, despite not speaking the language. So, how did he achieve this victory? Just like his win in the French Scrabble Championship, Mr. Richards memorized a vast number of Spanish words—without bothering to learn their meanings.
Mr. Yves Brenez, Vice President of the Belgian Scrabble Federation, commented on Mr. Richards in 2015: “This challenge is a bit crazy, but he learned the vocabulary of French in just nine weeks. He is a fighting machine. For Richards, words are just combinations of letters. Perhaps I am exaggerating a bit, but he thought of words to play (those with more than seven letters) that others would take ten years to figure out.”
Somehow, Mr. Richards has the ability to memorize hundreds of thousands of words and then use them effectively to defeat his opponents. John Baird, secretary of the Christchurch Scrabble Club, where Mr. Richards first played the game, stated that he could look at a page of text and remember all the words. Clearly, he has an exceptional talent for arranging letters.
Which language will Mr. Richards conquer next, as English Scrabble no longer poses a challenge for him?
| Scrabble is a word game played between two or more people. During their turn, players use letter tiles to create words on a square board so that the words formed both horizontally and vertically are meaningful. |
