A person enjoying his first-ever aggressive Scrabble sport in Spanish, a language he doesn’t communicate, has gained the board sport’s Spanish-language world title.

That’s regardless of the language barrier that stopped him from chatting together with his opponents.

Nigel Richards, knowledgeable participant who holds 5 English-language world titles, gained the Spanish world Scrabble championships in Granada, Spain, in November, dropping just one sport out of 24. Richards speaks no Spanish and began memorizing the language’s Scrabble glossary a yr in the past, his pal Liz Fagerlund, a New Zealand Scrabble official, mentioned.

“He can’t perceive why different individuals can’t simply do the identical factor,” she mentioned. “He can take a look at a block of phrases collectively and as soon as they go into his mind as an image he can simply recall that very simply.”

In second place was defending champion Benjamín Olaizola of Argentina, who gained 18 of his video games – and does communicate Spanish.

Richards has completed this earlier than. In 2015, he turned the French language Scrabble world champion, regardless of not talking French, after finding out the glossary for 9 weeks. He took the French title once more in 2018.

Acknowledged in worldwide Scrabble over his three-decade profession as the best participant of all time, Richards’ Spanish language victory was notable even by his requirements, different gamers mentioned. Pressured to regulate his gameplay to compensate for various tile values in English and Spanish Scrabble, Richards additionally needed to deal with hundreds of further seven, eight and 9 letter phrases within the Spanish language -– which demand a distinct technique.

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However what problem stays for a participant who has dominated the sport in his native tongue? Richards in 2008 was the primary participant ever to carry the world, U.S. and British titles concurrently -– regardless of having to “neglect” 40,000 English phrases that don’t seem within the American Scrabble glossary to triumph within the U.S.

His victories are legendary within the Scrabble neighborhood and his video games analyzed in YouTube movies watched by tens of hundreds. Scrabble doesn’t require gamers to know the definitions of phrases, solely what mixtures of letters are allowed in a rustic’s model of the sport, however native audio system have “an enormous leg up,” American Scrabble participant Will Anderson mentioned in a video summarizing Richards’ Spanish win.

His mom, Adrienne Fischer, advised a New Zealand newspaper in 2010 that Richards didn’t excel at English in class, by no means attended college and took a mathematical method to the sport fairly than a linguistic one.

“I don’t suppose he’s ever learn a guide, other than the dictionary,” she mentioned.

Fagerlund mentioned Richards impressed her when he arrived at his first Scrabble membership assembly in Christchurch, New Zealand, aged 28. Two years later, in 1997, he cycled 220 miles (350 kilometers) from Christchurch to town of Dunedin, gained the New Zealand title on his first try and cycled dwelling once more.

What motivates Richards, who now lives in Malaysia, is a thriller as a result of he by no means speaks to reporters.

“I get a number of requests from journalists eager to interview him and he’s not ,” Fagerlund mentioned. “He doesn’t perceive what all of the hoo-ha is about.”