Man who doesn't speak Spanish wins Spanish Scrabble championship
13/12/2024
Translation: machine translated
A New Zealander who doesn't speak Spanish has won the Spanish Scrabble Championship. This is not the first time he has achieved such a curious victory.
The tournament took place in Granada with 145 participants. There were 24 rounds in total, in which words had to be created from randomly drawn letters. He won 23 of these rounds, including against opponents from Argentina, Venezuela, Spain and Colombia.
Richards is good at confusing his opponents
In preparation, Richards had apparently memorised the Spanish Scrabble word list and had already started a year earlier.
He has also won the French championship twice
It is also not the first time that the 57-year-old has won a Scrabble tournament in a language that is foreign to him: According to the English Independent magazine, he has won around 200 tournaments. In 2015 and 2018, he won the French Scrabble championship, despite barely speaking the language.
Richards has been playing for over 30 years and is regarded as one of the best players in the world. As Liz Fagerlund went on to say, he himself does not understand all the fuss and refuses to speak to journalists despite numerous requests.
Header image: Bored Photopraphy / Shutterstock
A true local journalist with a secret soft spot for German pop music. Mum of two boys, a dog and about 400 toy cars in all shapes and colours. I always enjoy travelling, reading and go to concerts, too.
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