Who is Nigel Richards, the Scrabble champion discussed on Modern Wisdom?

Nigel Richards is the Scrabble player Shaan Puri described as more dominant over his peers than Magnus Carlsen in chess or Michael Jordan in basketball. Puri said Richards did not play until he was 28, then won US and UK titles despite word lists that differ by about 50,000 words, and later beat native players in French and Spanish without speaking either language.

• Puri said Richards rode his bike 222 miles to his first tournament, won it, and rode home.
• At the French win, Richards could not say thank you in French and asked someone to say it for him, Puri said.

▸In their words

“This guy is better at Scrabble than anyone is at any game compared to their peers.” Shaan Puri · at 45:38 — open in the transcript →

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on Modern Wisdom (2026-10-26). Read the whole episode summary →

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