Nigel Richards, a 44-year-old playing for New Zealand, became the first ever two-time world Scrabble champion on Oct. 16, 2011. He reclaimed the title and $20,000 by winning a playoff against Andrew Fisher of Australia. Held in Warsaw, the international tournament featured 106 players from 39 countries. The competition occurred every other year from 1991-2013. In 2013, the Word Scrabble Championship was renamed the Scrabble Champions Tournament and became an annual event.
History
Scrabble was invented by an unemployed American architect named Alfred Butts, who started tinkering with a word game in 1933. Originally called Lexico, Butts gradually developed the game over the next five years. He also changed its name a number of times, from Lexico to New Anagrams, to Alph, Criss-Cross, Criss-Crosswords, and finally to Scrabble. In December 1948, Scrabble received a copyright and trademark approval. Its popularity has skyrocketed since then. More than 100 million games in 27 languages have been sold around the world.
Trivia
According to the World Scrabble Championship site:
- The highest number of points that can be scored on the first move is 128: MUZJIKS (means Russian peasants).
- Playing BENZOXYCAMPHORS (a type of chemical) along the edges of a Scrabble board will net the highest score for a word: 1970 points. (This has never been achieved thus far.)
- The highest word score actually netted in a competition was CAZIQUES (the plural for a West Indian Chief): 392 points, by Karl Khoshnaw of Manchester, England.
- The highest score ever achieved in one game was 1049 points by Philip Appleby from Lymington, England, in 1989.
| Year | Dates | Place | Players | Winner |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1991 | Sept. 27–30 | London | 48 | Peter Morris, U.S. |
| 1993 | Aug. 27–30 | New York | 64 | Mark Nyman, UK |
| 1995 | Nov. 2–5 | London | 64 | David Boys, Canada |
| 1997 | Nov. 20–24 | Washington | 80 | Joel Sherman, U.S. |
| 1999 | Nov. 4–7 | Melbourne | 98 | Joel Wapnick, Canada |
| 2001 | Dec. 13–17 | Las Vegas | 88 | Brian Cappelletto, U.S. |
| 2003 | Oct. 21–24 | Kuala Lumpur | 90 | Panupol Sujjayakorn, Thailand |
| 2005 | Nov. 17–20 | London | 105 | Adam Logan, Canada |
| 2007 | Nov. 9–12 | Mumbai | 104 | Nigel Richards, New Zealand |
| 2009 | Nov. 26–29 | Johor Bahru | 109 | Pakorn Nemitrmansuk, Thailand |
| 2011 | Oct. 12–16 | Warsaw | 106 | Nigel Richards, New Zealand |
| 2013 | Dec. 4–8 | Prague | 110 | Nigel Richards, New Zealand |
| 2014 | November 19–23 | London | 110 | Craig Beevers, England |
Lesson Planning Ideas
- Host a classroom Scrabble tournament.
- Sponsor a Scrabble Championship in your school. Have each class participate in a Scrabble tournament. The two highest scorers from each classroom continue on to the championship round.
- Challenge children to design their own word game.
