Nigel Richards (born 1967) is a New Zealand ''

Scrabble ''Scrabble'' is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a Board game, game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, re ...

'' player who is widely regarded as the greatest tournament-Scrabble player of all time. Born and raised in New Zealand, Richards became World Champion in

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

, and repeated the feat in

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

2013 2013 was the first year since 1987 to contain four unique digits (a span of 26 years). 2013 was designated as: *International Year of Water Cooperation *International Year of Quinoa Events January * January 5 – 2013 Craig, Alask ...

2018 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

, and

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. He also won the third World English-Language Scrabble Players’ Association Championship (WESPAC) in 2019. Richards is also a five-time U.S. national champion (four times consecutively from 2010 to 2013), an eight-time UK Open champion, an 11-time champion of the Singapore Open Scrabble Championship and a 15-time winner of the King's Cup in Bangkok, the world's biggest Scrabble competition. In 2015, despite not speaking French, Richards won the

French World Scrabble Championships The French World Scrabble Championships () is an annual Scrabble tournament that takes place in a different French-speaking country every year. Created in 1972 by Hippolyte Wouters, it was the first of the three World Scrabble Championships to be ...

, after reportedly spending nine weeks studying the French dictionary. He won it again in 2018, and multiple

duplicate Duplication, duplicate, and duplicator may refer to: Biology and genetics * Gene duplication, a process which can result in free mutation * Chromosomal duplication, which can cause Bloom and Rett syndrome * Polyploidy, a phenomenon also known ...

titles from 2016. In 2024, Richards accomplished a similar feat by winning the Spanish-language World Championships. Renowned for his

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and mathematical abilities, Richards has been described as a reclusive personality and has rarely been interviewed.

Early life

Richards was born in 1967 in

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

, New Zealand. He attended Aranui High School and received a university scholarship but chose not to attend. He left Christchurch in 2000 and began living in

Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur (KL), officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, is the capital city and a Federal Territories of Malaysia, federal territory of Malaysia. It is the largest city in the country, covering an area of with a census population ...

, Malaysia.

Playing history

Richards started playing competitive Scrabble at New Zealand's

Scrabble Club. Since beginning his competitive career in 1996, he has won about 75% of his tournament games, collecting an estimated US$200,000 in prize money.

2007

Richards won the

World Scrabble Championship The World Scrabble Championship (WSC) is played to determine the world champion in competitive English-language Scrabble. It was held in every odd year from 1991 to 2013; from 2013 onwards, it became an annual event. The most successful player i ...

and earned US$15,000 by winning a playoff, 3 games to 0, against Ganesh Asirvatham of Malaysia. The two qualified for the playoff by leading a field of 104 international experts after 24 rounds of a tournament held 9–12 November in Mumbai, India.

2008

Richards won the USA

National Scrabble Championship The Scrabble Players Championship (formerly the North American Scrabble Championship, and earlier the National Scrabble Championship) is the largest ''Scrabble'' competition in North America. The event is currently held every year, and from 2004 t ...

and earned US$25,000 by winning his last three games against the runner-up, 1998 champion Brian Cappelletto, for a record of 22 wins and 6 losses, with a cumulative spread of 1,340 points.

2009

Richards was the runner-up in the USA National Scrabble Championship in Dayton, Ohio, losing to Dave Wiegand but still winning 25 of the 31 matches.

2010

Richards won the USA National Scrabble Championship in Dallas, Texas, again winning 25 games. His performance in this tournament was so dominant that he clinched the title before the last day of competition began.

2011

He repeated his success in the

in Warsaw, Poland, winning a closely fought final against

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

's top player, Andrew Fisher. Richards won the USA National Scrabble Championship in Dallas, Texas, winning 22 games, including his final two, to hold off a number of challengers.

2012

Richards won the USA National Scrabble Championship, in Orlando, Florida, winning 22 of 31 games. To win the title, Richards had to defeat past champion David Gibson by at least 170 points in the final game; he won it by 177 points. At the time of the victory, Richards became the only person to have won the event four times, as well as the only player to have won it in three consecutive years.

2013

Richards won 24 of 31 games to finish first at the National Scrabble Championship in Las Vegas, Nevada, in July. The championship was not decided until the last game. Though he lost the game to Komol Panyasophonlert, Richards kept the score close enough to retain the title for a record fourth consecutive time (and record fifth overall). He became World Champion for a third time, beating Panyasophonlert in the final; as of 2013, the World Championship has been renamed the Scrabble Champions Tournament and will be held annually.

2015

On 20 July, Richards won the nonduplicate portion of the 2015 French World Scrabble Championship in Belgium after two months of studying the French lexicon. He does not speak French. He won 14 of the preliminary 17 games before defeating the 2014 runner-up Schélick Ilagou Rekawe in the final, two games to one. In the

(rarely played in English, but played in French since 1972) he finished second, just one point behind the winner, Switzerland's David Bovet.

2017

Richards competed in the World Championship and became the first seed after the regular 30 games, but lost in the quarterfinal to the 8th seed David Eldar, who won the tournament. Richards won the 2017 WGPO Word Cup.

2018

Richards won his fourth World Championship. He also competed in the NASPA Championship, losing to Joel Sherman in the final round. He competed in the French Championship and won his second Classique Championship and his second Elite Duplicate (without conceding a single point), Blitz Duplicate and Paires titles. Richards placed 2nd at the 4th Niagara Falls International Open.

2019

Richards won his fifth World Championship and third Paires title. He also won the WESPA championship, making it (unofficially) a sixth World Championship.

Since 2020

Richards won the ASCI 2023 Masters. Around 2023, he began studying the Spanish Scrabble word list and in 2024 competed in the

Spanish World Scrabble Championship The Spanish World Scrabble Championship () is an international Scrabble tournament organised by the ''Federación Internacional de Scrabble en Español'' (FISE). The competition takes place each year in a different city in a Spanish-speaking coun ...

for the first time. Despite not speaking Spanish, he finished 2nd in the Duplicate format, while compiling the first two perfect scores ever recorded at the championship, and won 23 of 24 games to win the Classic format championship.

Career achievements

World Championship

U.S. National Scrabble Championship

French Scrabble

Spanish Scrabble

Other achievements

* Fifteen-time Thailand International (King's Cup) winner (1999, twice in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019) * Three-time Thailand International (King's Cup) second (1999, 2005, 2008) * Twelve-time Singapore Open Scrabble Championship winner (2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016) * Ten-time UK Open winner (2008, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019)

References

External links

The Enigmatic Nigel Richards
: A profile by Stefan Fatsis
A way with words
A profile by Tim Hume *

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Richards, Nigel 1967 births Living people New Zealand Scrabble players People from Christchurch World Scrabble Championship winners New Zealand emigrants Immigrants to Malaysia People educated at Aranui High School