New Zealander wins Scrabble world championship... in languages he doesn't speak

His name may not ring a bell with most of us, but Nigel Richards is a legend in his field. This 57-year-old New Zealander is considered the best Scrabble player of all time, capable of winning tournaments even in languages he doesn't speak.

Born in New Zealand, Nigel Richards has lived in Malaysia since 2000. According to several media outlets, he is an engineer by training and passionate about cycling. He discovered Scrabble at 28. Very discreet, Nigel Richards has never given a single interview.

Very discreet, Nigel Richards has never given a single interview. However, with around 76% of Scrabble tournament wins since 1998, he has undoubtedly mastered the art of words.

According to RFI, Nigel Richards is a five-time US Open champion, eight-time UK Open winner, eleven-time Singapore Open winner, and 15-time Brand's Crossword Game King's Cup winner. The latter is considered the largest English-language Scrabble tournament in the world. He is also a five-time English-language Scrabble world champion (2007, 2011, 2013, 2018, and 2019).

Photo: Clarissa Watson / Unsplash

However, playing Scrabble in his native English has become far too easy for Nigel Richards, so he has decided to take on new challenges.

Photo: Melinda Gimpel / Unsplash

On November 11, 2024, Nigel Richards won yet another Scrabble competition. This time, he beat his opponents at the Spanish-speaking World Championship in Granada (Spain). However, Nigel Richards does not speak Spanish

However, Nigel Richards does not speak Spanish! So how did he beat a range of native speakers at the tournament?

If this seems surprising to you, wait till you hear this: It's not the first time this Scrabble prodigy has won a world championship in a language other than his own. A few years ago, he already achieved this feat in French!

Photo: Phil Hearing / Unsplash

The New Zealander doesn't speak a word of French, yet in 2015 he won the French-speaking Scrabble World Championships against Gabonese Schélick Ilagou Rekawe in Leuven, Belgium. He repeated the feat in 2018 and also won three pairs titles.

But how did Nigel Richards manage to achieve such performances? Simply by memorizing dictionaries!

With an extraordinary photographic memory, the player thus memorized nearly 400,000 words validated in Scrabble, before registering for the French-speaking World Championships.

The method has proven to be more than effective. Therefore, the New Zealander registered for the Spanish-speaking World Championship in Granada. He studied the Spanish dictionary, "which is even more demanding than the French one, with more dialects and therefore more words, more entries as they say", the journalist Jean-Baptiste Morel says, quoted by RFI.

"I often say that he would make a good thesis subject for medical doctoral students because it is incomprehensible that one can have such a memory capacity in a language that one does not speak," declared Cameroonian Eric Salvador Tchouyo (right in the photo). "And if I speak of him with so much admiration, a champion myself, it is because he is someone exceptional." Tchouyo was world champion of French-speaking Scrabble in 2021.

Nigel Richards' cognitive abilities, including the ability to memorize hundreds of thousands of words whose meanings he doesn't understand, are impressive. "But it's also and above all his infallible grid technique," says Franck Maniquant, 2001 world champion and former president of the French Scrabble Federation, in L'Équipe.

"Whatever the problem imposed, the draw or the configuration of the grid, he can play on equal terms with a computer at all times."

Photo: Glenn Carstens-Peters / Unsplash

"Since he doesn't understand the meaning of words, he risks switching languages. Using an English term in French, or vice versa. This gymnastics makes his performances astonishing," explains Belgian Louis Eggermont, bronze medallist at the last French-speaking World Championships, quoted by the French sports daily.

Photo: Nick Fewings / Unsplash

So, what other language will Nigel Richards venture into for his next challenge?

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