At one stage the “French Scrabble” world champion came from New Zealand, spoke no French, but had memorised the dictionary.
This dude: Non-French Nigel
this post was submitted on 09 Mar 2026
337 points (97.7% liked)
196
5857 readers
1175 users here now
Community Rules
You must post before you leave
Be nice. Assume others have good intent (within reason).
Block or ignore posts, comments, and users that irritate you in some way rather than engaging. Report if they are actually breaking community rules.
Use content warnings and/or mark as NSFW when appropriate. Most posts with content warnings likely need to be marked NSFW.
Most 196 posts are memes, shitposts, cute images, or even just recent things that happened, etc. There is no real theme, but try to avoid posts that are very inflammatory, offensive, very low quality, or very "off topic".
Bigotry is not allowed, this includes (but is not limited to): Homophobia, Transphobia, Racism, Sexism, Abelism, Classism, or discrimination based on things like Ethnicity, Nationality, Language, or Religion.
Avoid shilling for corporations, posting advertisements, or promoting exploitation of workers.
Proselytization, support, or defense of authoritarianism is not welcome. This includes but is not limited to: imperialism, nationalism, genocide denial, ethnic or racial supremacy, fascism, Nazism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, etc.
Avoid AI generated content.
Avoid misinformation.
Avoid incomprehensible posts.
No threats or personal attacks.
No spam.
Moderator Guidelines
Moderator Guidelines
- Don’t be mean to users. Be gentle or neutral.
- Most moderator actions which have a modlog message should include your username.
- When in doubt about whether or not a user is problematic, send them a DM.
- Don’t waste time debating/arguing with problematic users.
- Assume the best, but don’t tolerate sealioning/just asking questions/concern trolling.
- Ask another mod to take over cases you struggle with, if you get tired, or when things get personal.
- Ask the other mods for advice when things get complicated.
- Share everything you do in the mod matrix, both so several mods aren't unknowingly handling the same issues, but also so you can receive feedback on what you intend to do.
- Don't rush mod actions. If a case doesn't need to be handled right away, consider taking a short break before getting to it. This is to say, cool down and make room for feedback.
- Don’t perform too much moderation in the comments, except if you want a verdict to be public or to ask people to dial a convo down/stop. Single comment warnings are okay.
- Send users concise DMs about verdicts about them, such as bans etc, except in cases where it is clear we don’t want them at all, such as obvious transphobes. No need to notify someone they haven’t been banned of course.
- Explain to a user why their behavior is problematic and how it is distressing others rather than engage with whatever they are saying. Ask them to avoid this in the future and send them packing if they do not comply.
- First warn users, then temp ban them, then finally perma ban them when they break the rules or act inappropriately. Skip steps if necessary.
- Use neutral statements like “this statement can be considered transphobic” rather than “you are being transphobic”.
- No large decisions or actions without community input (polls or meta posts f.ex.).
- Large internal decisions (such as ousting a mod) might require a vote, needing more than 50% of the votes to pass. Also consider asking the community for feedback.
- Remember you are a voluntary moderator. You don’t get paid. Take a break when you need one. Perhaps ask another moderator to step in if necessary.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Looks like he also won the Spanish one.
Me: "I can't have caught the family autism gene; my language skills are too good."
Older me: "so apparently hyperlexia is just another autism presentation..."
My brother recently told me that, if he turned out to be autistic, it'd probably be okay because he likes figuring out the rulesets of complicated systems.
and the fewer vowels you have the fewer opportunities you have to draw more vowels. the consonant shift becomes the consonant trap.
Athletics is just people who did the same movement over and over again until they got good at it. Totally skill free.
At a high level, Scrabble isn't about what words you know -- it's about strategy and board control, being able to take advantage of space to play while denying your opponent space.
Sure but that's just because there is a maximum amount of word knowledge that can be accumulated and all of them have at least come close to fully memorizing the dictionary. That doesn't mean they can skip all the time spent memorizing. People involved in tournament level Scrabble have practice routines that involve memorizing words.
"The Denying your Opponent Space" is the hardest part.
yeah you can't have that many letters at once
You sound like you scrabble, so have you ever tried playing a round where you can only use combinations of letters that are NOT a word?
Do scrabblers do that?
I mean, I just "invented" it in my mind but immediately decided someone has SURELY done so before, it's probably common.
And does it have a name?
If not, dibs on Elbbarcs!
I played a few games of reverse Scrabble where you try to get the lowest score...
You can swap letters every turn until your opponent gives up and quits.
Are you really playing the least serious scrabble to win at the cost of all fun though?
Sounds like it would be a lot easier, and even more of a 'board control' game.
And you'd be able to play your whole 7 letters in pretty much every turn (if you wanted to), since you'll always be able to find some combination of your 7 letters that doesn't form a real word. Or ... at least almost always? I find it hard to imagine any combination of 7 letters that will always spell a real word no matter which order you put them in.
Yes it would be more about board control, and for instance finding arrangements that place high value letters on triple squares, without accidentally creating words. You'd need to know enough obscure words to avoid spelling any, and to catch your opponent out.
The inability to leverage the board against a player with a larger vocabulary is a skill issue.
Skill in anything depends on your upbringing, free time, and innate desire to git gud.
I learned that from Slumdog Millionaire.
Just memorize all the two letter words.
You also gotta keep up with the Scrabble patchnotes and look out for new 2 letter words that are added to the dictionary.
The day "ok" was added was crazyyy
I don’t know what the fuck xu means, but I’ve gotten 50+ points with it many times
The Greek alphabet has won me so many games.
Don't forget the bluffing aspect
If you're pushy enough, every word is valid
Americans wondering how we got this message from the future.
... because it's true 😪