Scrabble, a game of strategy and vocabulary, has long been a battleground for linguistic prowess.
Last month, the World Scrabble Championship in Spain attracted over 150 competitors from 20 countries to a hotel outside Granada, writes HotNews.
Weeks later, the tournament’s result sparked widespread discussion in Spain. The surprise? The winner, Nigel Richards, doesn’t speak Spanish, according to reports by The Guardian.
One Spanish news anchor called it "an incredible humiliation." Another Spanish article described the outcome as "the height of absurdity."
However, those familiar with Nigel Richards’ track record saw his victory as no shock at all. The New Zealander, often referred to as the “Tiger Woods” of Scrabble, has built a reputation as an unbeatable force.
Based in Malaysia, Richards has won numerous championships in English, including at least five world titles.
Benjamín Olaizola, who finished second in the Spanish-language competition, praised Richards’ skills.
“He’s an incredibly talented guy,” Olaizola told Cadena Ser. “He’s won several championships in English. Competing against him is an uphill battle.”
This isn’t the first time Richards has crossed language barriers with his Scrabble prowess.
In 2015, he won the Francophone World Championship without speaking or understanding French.
Instead, he memorized the French Scrabble dictionary in just nine weeks. “He doesn’t know what the words mean,” Richards’ friend Liz Fagerlund told the New Zealand Herald at the time. “I don’t think he could even hold a conversation in French.”
Richards went on to win the French championship again in 2018, proving his earlier success wasn’t a fluke.
After nearly 30 years of dominating Scrabble competitions, many regard him as the greatest player of all time.
Experts attribute his success to a photographic memory and an uncanny ability to calculate probabilities.
Despite his fame, Richards remains intensely private. He rarely gives interviews, adding to his mystique.
Eric Salvador Tchouyo, a Scrabble world champion from Cameroon, called him “a phenomenon.”
Tchouyo even joked that Richards could be the subject of a doctoral thesis for his extraordinary memorization abilities.
“When Nigel Richards sits at the table, everyone knows they’re playing for second place,” Tchouyo said. “Facing him is like playing against a computer.”
