Nigel Richards (Scrabble player)

Nigel Richards is a Scrabble player who represents Malaysia in international competition.^[1] A previous World Champion and a five-time US National Champion, the only player to have held both titles concurrently. He is an eleven-time champion of the Singapore Open Scrabble Championship,^[2] and an eleven-time winner of the King's Cup in Bangkok, the biggest Scrabble competition in the world.^[3]

Richards started playing competitive Scrabble at New Zealand's Christchurch Scrabble Club before moving to Malaysia in 2000. Since beginning his competitive career in 1997, he has won about 75% of his tournament games, collecting an estimated USD200,000 in prize money.^[4] Richards now lives in Kuala Lumpur and plays for Malaysia.

Richards won the 2008 USA National Scrabble Championship and earned USD25,000 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 +1340 points.^[5]

Richards was the runner-up in the 2009 USA National Scrabble Championship in Dayton, Ohio,^[6] losing to Dave Wiegand but still winning 25 of the 31 matches.

Richards won the 2010 USA National Scrabble Championship in Dallas, Texas,^[7] again winning 25 games. His performance in this tournament was so dominant that he clinched the title before the last day of competition began.

Richards won the 2011 USA National Scrabble Championship in Dallas, Texas,^[8] winning 22 games, including his final two, to hold off a number of challengers.

Richards won the 2012 WGPO Word Cup^[9] in Bloomington, Minnesota, winning 24 of 31 games, four more than the second-place player.

Richards won the 2012 USA National Scrabble Championship,^[10] 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. With this 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.

Richards then won 24 of 31 games to finish first at the 2013 National Scrabble Championship in Las Vegas, Nevada, in July.^[11] That 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).

Richards won the 2007 World Scrabble Championship^[12] and earned USD 15,000 by winning a playoff, 3 games to 0, against Ganesh Asirvatham of Malaysia.^[13] 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. He repeated this success in the 2011 World Scrabble Championship^[14] in Warsaw, Poland, winning a closely fought final against Australia's top player, Andrew Fisher. He became World Champion for a third time in 2013, beating Panyasophonlert in the final; as of 2013, the World Championship has been renamed the Scrabble Champions Tournament and will be held annually.

Records in major tournaments

• Three-time World Scrabble Championship winner (2007, 2011, 2013)
• Five-time USA National Scrabble Championship winner
• Eleven-time Thailand International (King's Cup) winner
• Eleven-time Singapore Open Scrabble Championship winner
• Six-time UK Open winner

References

External links

• The Enigmatic Nigel Richards: A profile by Stefan Fatsis
• A way with words: A profile by Tim Hume
• Nigel Richards Scrabble tournament results at cross-tables.com
• Archive of Nigel Richards' games.