In the world of competitive Scrabble, Nigel Richards is a name that commands awe. The 57-year-old New Zealander, often described as the greatest Scrabble player of all time, has done it again—this time in a language he doesn’t speak. Last November, Richards won the Spanish World Scrabble Championship in Granada, Spain, defeating native speakers with words like ENRUGASE (“to wrinkle up”) and SABURROSA (an obscure term for the coated residue of the tongue).
Here’s the kicker. Richards doesn’t know what these words mean. He can barely order a sangria and tapas.
For Richards, Scrabble isn’t about languages at all — at least, you know, the practical part that involves communicating with other people. It’s about patterns, probabilities, and an almost superhuman memory. His victory in Spain, where he lost only one game out of 24, has left the Scrabble world—and native Spanish speakers—stunned.
That shouldn’t have surprised them though. In 2015, he memorized the entire French Scrabble dictionary in just nine weeks to claim his first francophone title.
“It was impossible to react negatively,” said Alejandro Terenzani, a contest organizer. “You can only be amazed.”
A Master of Memory At Scrabble
Richards’ approach to Scrabble is as unconventional as it is effective. He doesn’t rely on fluency or linguistic intuition. Instead, he memorizes words as visual patterns, treating them as mathematical puzzles rather than meaningful units of communication. “He can look at a block of words together, and once they go into his brain as a picture, he can just recall that very easily,” said Liz Fagerlund, a New Zealand Scrabble official and longtime friend.
This method has served him well. Richards is the reigning world champion in English-language Scrabble, with five titles to his name. He has also won the French-language championship twice—despite not speaking French.
“He doesn’t speak French at all—he just learned the words,” Fagerlund told the New Zealand Herald at the time, nine years ago. “He won’t know what they mean, wouldn’t be able to carry out a conversation in French, I wouldn’t think.”
Richards’ success highlights a paradox at the heart of competitive Scrabble: knowing the meaning of words is irrelevant. What matters is knowing which combinations of letters are valid and how to maximize their point value. In Spanish, for example, the game favors longer words, with seven-tile moves (called bingos) being more common than in English. Richards adapted seamlessly, leveraging his encyclopedic knowledge of the Spanish Scrabble dictionary to outmaneuver his opponents.
Benjamín Olaizola, the tournament’s runner-up, described Richards as “the best player in the history of Scrabble.” He recalled how Richards’ unorthodox tactics threw him off his game. “He could have used all his letters at one stage, but instead he chose a different word that didn’t give him bonus points but allowed him to score more points later in the game,” Olaizola said.
Richards’ ability to think several moves ahead is legendary. During an English-language match last year, he had the letters A-C-E-N-O-R-T and could have used all his tiles (which gives you a bonus) in four different ways, given the other words already on the board, scoring between 70 and 89 points. Instead, he leveraged the P in ERUPTION and three other tiles that formed the word TED to play PERNOCTATED, a rarely used word meaning “to spend the night somewhere,” racking up 92 points. The move, described by author Stefan Fatsis as “a dizzying feat of anagramming and word knowledge,” left the Scrabble world in awe. It’s become the stuff of legends.
However, One of the most striking displays of Nigel Richards’ extraordinary talent came early in his career, during a tournament game in 1998.
With the letters C, D, H, L, N, and R on his rack, along with a blank tile, Richards faced a choice. An E sat on the board, and most players would have seized the opportunity to spell CHILDREN, a solid move that would have earned him a bingo—a 50-point bonus for using all seven tiles.
But Richards saw something else.
Instead of playing it safe, he spotted two O’s on the board and used them, along with a different E, to form the word CHLORODYNE. Not only did he still earn the bingo, but he also racked up significantly more points by crafting a far more challenging word. Not a lot of people knew back then who Richards was, but they’ve been paying attention ever since.
The Legendary Enigma of Nigel Richards
Despite his dominance of the game and legendary status among his peers, Richards stays away from the media attention. He lives a reclusive life in Malaysia, shunning interviews and avoiding the spotlight. Friends describe him as a vegetarian who doesn’t drink or smoke, with no television and little interest in current affairs. His passions, aside from Scrabble, are cycling and math.
“He doesn’t understand what all the hoo-ha is about,” Fagerlund said. “He’s not interested in fame or attention. He just loves the game.”
Richards’ rise to Scrabble stardom began in his late 20s, when he joined a local club in Christchurch, New Zealand. Armed with word lists he had compiled in a spreadsheet, he quickly established himself as a formidable player. By 1997, he had won the New Zealand title on his first attempt—after cycling 350 kilometers to the tournament.
Richards’ latest victory has cemented his status as a living legend. “When Nigel Richards sits at a table, everyone loses their nerves, even the biggest champions,” said Eric Salvador Tchouyo, a world champion Scrabble player from Cameroon. “Playing against Nigel Richards is like playing against a computer.”
For now, the Scrabble world is left wondering what amazing things are stored for Richards. “We are all wondering what dictionary he will tackle next,” Fagerlund said.
One thing is certain: Nigel Richards has redefined what it means to be a master of words—without ever needing to speak them.
