Winner Of French Scrabble Title Does Not Speak French

By Bill Chappell / NPR

Published July 21, 2015 at 7:00 AM PDT

This story was published more than 9 years ago.

Nigel Richards, seen here at a Scrabble tournament last winter, won the French-language Scrabble championships Monday. He began studying the French Scrabble dictionary in May.

The Scrabble career of Nigel Richards went from great to astounding this week, after he won the French-language Scrabble World Championships. A New Zealand native, Richards has won several English-language titles; his new victory follows weeks of studying a French dictionary.

"He doesn't speak French at all, he just learnt the words," his friend (and former president of the New Zealand Scrabble Association) Liz Fagerlund tells the New Zealand Herald. "He won't know what they mean, wouldn't be able to carry out a conversation in French I wouldn't think."

It was only in late May that Richards began his quest to win the French world title, according to the French Scrabble Federation. That's when he set about memorizing the French Scrabble dictionary.

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Noting that Richards "doesn't speak a word of French," the federation's announcement of his startling victory included a line in English: "Congratulations Nigel, you're amazing!"

Richards won the French title convincingly, with a final score of 565-434 over Gabon's Schélick Ilagou Rekawe. Along the way, Richards also successfully challenged incorrect words and played with incisive speed.

A competitive Scrabble player on Reddit writes of Richards, "Not only did he have to learn the words, but he had to adjust his strategy to the nuances of the French lexicon. It's a lot more than just memorizing the words."

According to analysis of the final by the Nouvel Observateur, Richards took only seconds to play words such as ANATROPE (a biological term describing an egg) and led one game with MIAULER ("to meow").

Lest you suspect that this year's championship might have been lacking strong competitors, the Observateur assures us, "Tout le gratin est présent" — calling these players from France, Switzerland, Senegal and elsewhere the cream of the crop.

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At the tournament, Richards showed the same strategic genius that led the website 538 to call him "the best Scrabble player on Earth," limiting his opponents' scoring chances and squeezing the best out of the letters he's drawn.

In the world of Scrabble, there doesn't seem to be anything Richards can't do. He's won the (English-language) world championships three times. He won the U.S. National Scrabble tournament five times.