He won the Spanish Scrabble championship, but does not speak a Spanish

He won the Spanish Scrabble championship, but does not speak a Spanish

A New Zealand who is celebrated as a scrabble phenomenon dominated the Spanish Scrabble World Championships-although he reports that he does not speak the language. Nigel Richards won the tournament in Granada, Spain, and again demonstrated his remarkable skills to surpass native speakers in their own language.

nigel Richards: The Scrabble-Titan

"This is an incredible humiliation," said Benjamín Olaizola, who landed as a second place behind Richards, opposite the Spanish radio station La Cadena Ser and described his opponent as a "gifted man" with "very special skills." Richards, who is in his 50s, prevailed against more than 145 opponents from all over the world, including participants from Argentina, Venezuela, Spain and Colombia, and won 22 consecutive matches, as the Federación Internacional de léxico en Español on Instagram.

The success of Nigel Richards

General known as the "Tiger Woods des Scrabble", Richards has won almost 200 tournaments, including several titles at World Championships and is classified by the World English Language Scrabble Player’s Association (WESPA) as number 1. However, his Scrabble talents go far beyond the knowledge of his own language.

international celebrity and language skills

Richards achieved international celebrity when he won the title in French Scrabble, despite the fact that he reported only "Bonjour". His girlfriend and long-time supporter Liz Fagerlund told CNN that Richards needed nine weeks to memorize the French Scrabble dictionary-the according to reports contains almost 400,000 words .

an extraordinary memory

"It is very likely that he is assessed differently; he does not learn to word for word by page," said Fagerlund. "He can watch a page full of words and understand them all." Fagerlund met Richards when he joined the Scrabble Club in Christchurch in New Zealand in 1996

The beginnings of his scrabble career

"He started playing Scrabble with his mother because she had enough that he defeated her in playing the card. She thought she could win because he was not in English at school," explains Fagerlund. "He came to the club and soon defeated everyone there." Richards rarely gives interviews and is described in the media as withdrawn; He is a cyclist, does not smoke, don't drink, don't watch TV and hear no radio.

strategic style of play

The second -placed Olaizola noticed that Richards had a tendency to use complex words, even in a foreign language, as well as a unique strategy to surprise his competitors. "He had a hand that was the most obvious that a computer would give you, and he didn't use it," Olaizola told La Cadena ser.

This remarkable performance by Nigel Richards underlines that exceptional skills and a passion for the game do not know any language barrier.