In the world of competitive scabble, Nigel Richards is a name that gives him astonishment. The 57 -year -old New Zealander, often described as the best scrabble player of all time, has done it again, this time in a language that does not speak. Last November, Richards won the World Spanish Scrabble Championship in Granada, Spain, defeating native speakers with words like ENRUGA (“Ruin”) and Saburrrosa (A dark term for the tongue covered).
Here is the kicker. Richards doesn’t know what these words mean. You can barely ask for a bleeding and tapas.
For Richards, Scrabble is not about languages, at least, you know, the practical part that involves communicating with other people. These are patterns, probabilities and an almost superhuman memory. His victory in Spain, where he lost only a game of 24, has left the world of Scrabble, and the native Spanish speakers.
However, that should not have surprised them. 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” saying Alejandro Terenzani, organizer of the contest. “You can only surprise you.”
A memory teacher in Scabble
Richards’s approach for Scabble is as unconventional as effective. It does not trust linguistic fluidity or intuition. Instead, it memorizes words as visual patterns, treating them as mathematical puzzles instead of significant communication units. “You can look at a block of words together, and once they enter your brain as an image, you can remember that very easily,” said Liz Fagerlund, New Zealand Scrabble officer and a friend for a long time.
This method has served you well. Richards is the current world champion in Scrabble in English, with five titles in his name. He has also won the championship in French twice, despite not speaking French.
“French does not speak at all, he only learned the words,” Fagerlund told Neozenda Herald At that time, nine years ago. “He won’t know what they mean, I couldn’t carry out a conversation in French, I wouldn’t think.”
Richards’s success highlights a paradox in the heart of competitive Scrabble: knowing the meaning of words is irrelevant. What matters is to know what combinations of letters are valid and how to maximize its point value. In Spanish, for example, the game favors longer words, with seven tile movements (called bingos) Be more common than in English. Richards adapted perfectly, taking advantage of his encyclopedic knowledge of the Spanish Scrabble Dictionary to overcome his opponents.
Benjamín Olaizola, the runner -up of the tournament, described Richards as “the best player in the history of Scrabble.” He remembered how Richards’s unorthodox tactics took him out of his game. “He could have used all his cards at one stage, but instead he chose a different word that did not give bonus points, but allowed him to score more points later in the game,” Olaizola said.
Richards’s ability to think that several advances is legendary. During an English game last year, he had Acenort’s lyrics and could have used all his chips (which gives him a bonus) in four different ways, given the other words already on the board, scoring between 70 and 89 points. Instead, he took advantage of the P in erupting and three other mosaics that formed the word Ted to play Spent speakingA rarely used word that means “spend the night somewhere”, accumulating 92 points. The movement, described by the author Stefan Fatsis as “a vertiginous feat of Anagramming and the knowledge of words,” the world of scabble was amazed. It has become the legends.
However, one of the most striking exhibitions of the extraordinary talent of Nigel Richards arrived early in his career, during a tournament game in 1998.
With the letters C, D, H, L, N and R on its shelf, along with a blank mosaic, Richards faced an option. One E sat on the board, and most players would have taken the opportunity to spell CHILDRENA solid movement that would have won a bingo: a 50 -point bonus for using the seven chips.
But Richards saw something else.
Instead of playing for sure, he saw two or on the board and used them, along with a different e, to form the word Chlorodine. Not only did he win the bingo, but also accumulated significantly more points by creating a much more challenging word. Not many people knew at that time who Richards was, but they have been paying attention since then.
Nigel Richards’s legendary enigma
Despite his mastery of the game and the legendary status among his teammates, Richards remains away from the attention of the media. Live a lonely life in Malaysia, avoiding interviews and avoiding the center of attention. Friends describe him as a vegetarian who does not drink or smoke, without television and little interest in current affairs. His passions, apart from scabble, are cycling and mathematics.
“It doesn’t understand what the whole Hoo-Ha is,” Fagerlund said. “He is not interested in fame or attention. Simply love the game. “
Richards’s rise to Scabble Stardom began at the end of the age of 20, when he joined a local club in Christchurch, New Zealand. Armed with words lists that had compiled on a spreadsheet, it was quickly established as a formidable player. In 1997, he had won the title of New Zealand in his first attempt, after cycling 350 kilometers from the tournament.
Richards’s last victory has consolidated his living legend status. “When Nigel Richards sits on a table, everyone loses his nerves, even the biggest champions,” said Eric Salvador Tchouyo, a camamiliar champion scribble player. “Playing Nigel Richards is like playing against a computer.”
For now, the scabble world wonders what incredible things are stored for Richards. “We all ask ourselves what dictionary will address below,” Fagerlund saying.
One thing is safe: Nigel Richards has redefined what it means to be a master of words, without the need to speak them.
#scabble #champion #won #Spanish #world #title #speaking #word #Spanish
