A native New Zealander, Nigel won his national title before going on to land European, North American, and world titles as well. And that's no mean feat, considering the first time he played the game, he was 28 years old. So where does a World Champion go, once he's utterly dominated the English-speaking Scrabble scene? Why, he moves on to another language, of course. Even if he doesn't speak it.
In 2015, Nigel easily took the French world title with a score of 565-434 over the Scrabble-nightmare-named Schelick Ilagou Rekawe, and he did it without knowing a lick of French.
Federation Francaise de Scrabble
"Sock-ray blue!"
How is that even possible? Simply put: Nigel is a mutant. That's ... that's really the only explanation. In preparation for the tournament, he just picked up the French Scrabble dictionary and memorized the words. All of them. He may not have had a clue what the vast majority of them meant, but he could play 'em. And he did. And he won. And that's not humanly possible, so Sentinels are already on the way to his house.
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