Nigel Richards' Most Godlike Move 

Will, this is the 7th week in a row you've shown Nigel Richards' most godlike move

Dropping Pernoctated and getting +5 for a failed challenge is the equivalent of dunking over someones face and then getting the And 1 free throw...

@3:43 "Nigel does have one playable bingo here." I like how the video never even mentions that Nigel found that bingo. It's just assumed.

Props to Rajiv for not flipping the table over.

Before this game, I was looking forward to playing Nigel in that event. After his insane 11-letter find, that enthusiasm quickly evaporated. Sadly, I did get to play him eventually, a game I lost by 90-odd points. The GOAT for a reason! 🙌

2:19 "Man this rack EFIN SUX!"

Let's give his opponent some credit - the recap wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for him publishing the game protocol. People probably don't realize that most tournament games aren't recorded for posterity. Just to reiterate how crazy the word is, the same is true for it as was for CHLORODYNE: playability lists, which include several hundreds of thousands of words ranked by their frequency in engine autoplay, don't even include the word at all because it literally never showed up in the millions of self-play games.

The most impressive thing about that 11-letter find, as Will mentioned, is that he even thought to look in that “lane” to begin with, considering the other excellent bingos he had available. Amazing.

You know, I’m starting to suspect Nigel knows all the 16 letter words too.

That’s just disgusting holy crap. I’m glad to see Nigel finally playing in tournaments again :)

My jaw dropped with the triple-triple "influxes," but when Nigel played "pernoctated," my jaw hit the floor, detached from my head, and burrowed six feet underground.

Get you someone who loves you like Will Anderson loves Nigel Richards.

6:45 the fact that this assumption must be made seriously is simply bonkers. Nigel is such a threat.

Your graphics are fire. Letters floating around before forming into a word and so on. Must be a lot, or at least some work. It's cool, keep it up.

Pernoctate is a common verb in Spanish, modern use for hotels and such. Very impressive showing

Hey mate, huge fan of your content. (I don’t play Scrabble but love following your analyses) Also your sense of humour is on point :) Best wishes!

Happy theres a new "Nigel in deep thought" pic for 2024.

I see Nigel I click

I just think it's great that there's a game out there which has a *truly* uncontested GOAT.

After watching so many Scrabble videos from you, I have made the realisation that bingo is not a bingo in Scrabble and that makes me quite sad.

You just gotta love that humility: NO MERCY - because this obscure combination is the best logical play and is both dumbfounding and uniquely humorous.

I wonder whether just for completeness' sake Nigel also knows all the 16+ length words, despite the fact that they won't fit on the Scrabble board at all.

I’m almost willing to bet the other recorded 11 letter plays were all something like easier to find compound nouns. This has to be one of the greatest plays ever.

I could watch Nigel Richard videos by you for the rest of my life. The amount of passion I get for an eleven letter word is ridiculous

i have literally never played scrabble why is this such a good video to me?

Holy shit add PERNOCTATED to the goat moves list like damn 😂

Nigel Richard’s should be a national treasure here in NZ! It’s a real shame he gets no recognition here :(

That is just amazing. Thank you for the video as always, Will! :)

Another great video that illustrates how awesome Scrabble is.

Zowee! It truly is amazing to see such brillliance -- and your narration, Will, is - as always - exquisite!

I love everything about your videos. The graphics and commentary are top quality. Fingers crossed you can pass 100K subs this year!

not going to lie that is freaking insane

Great video! Not someone who plays scrabble but I've found your videos so entertaining I might give it a try. I do have a suggestion though: do you think you could make a video about the AI people use for Scrabble predictions, how it stacks up and compares to human players, what limitations it has (if any), and how it compares to things like Stockfish for chess? Thanks!

That was awesome. I keep thinking there must be an end to the amazement, yet here we are

his memory must be photographic, otherwise it really would be insane to learn 20,000+ words just to score 3 extra points in one game of scrabble

Great video, Will! We need more of these! keelp em coming! Love it!

7:30 "five consecutive bingos in a row" as if there's any other way to do five consecutive bingos.

The frequency of 11 letter words in tournament play understates their significance because the players don't know them. A better indicator is how often they happen in computer vs computer play. For what it's worth my wild guess is they're something like ten times as common there, which still is hardly anything.

Truly discombobulating!

Just a great job, so thorough and the graphics are spot on.

Would love to see other examples of 11-letter bingos being played, maybe even longer ones! These extremes always fascinate the most.

At what point do these moves stop being godlike and start being nigel-richards-like?

what an insane game also as an aside, I just wanted to say that I've literally never played a game of scrabble but your videos are still extremely interesting to watch, which honestly is quite a feat when it comes to this style of game. you do a great job of making something that is pretty dense/obtuse very clear and explaining what makes the things interesting

knowing nigel, he'd probably find a way to play KNICKKNACK

Mighas try to drop a cheeky Pernoctated whilst playing scrabble with me dad for the next week or so

of course he finds it. nigel is an anagram of angel.

hi, i love your content! itd be cool if you can made a video about the longest scrabble words played (like 15 letters or smthn) that would be cool to see, anyway good video!

I feel like, when it comes to word-games in general, one of the best ways to be comfortable enough with large awkward words to spot them in a game context is to have hobbies that put you contact with unusual words on a regular basis. If you happen to enjoy reading a lot of fantasy fiction, you might encounter a variety of obscure older words, while an interest in science-fiction literature would expose you to various technical jargon that is outside the normal experience. Just about any field of interest, be they among the arts or sciences, has its own sort of dialect in which unusually flowery words pop up and which the discipline asks you to be comfortable with. I myself have drawn more than a couple plays at the casual Scrabble board from things that show up in tabletop roleplaying games or collectable card games (the latter of which often have to reach deep into the thesaurus for things like 'yet another word that means it sets you on fire' :P). Things stick in your head much better when you have experiences and stories to attach them to.

2:18 Hey Will, did you arrange the tiles to say "EFIN SUX" as an Easter egg? Or was it just alphabetical? If choice (a), high-five.

im spanish and ''pernoctar'' isn't that stange of a word and I only played scrabble like twice so maybe thats how he knows it

Does anyone know if there’s a link to see the commentator’s live reactions when Nigel played Pernoctated? Would love to see if it exists!

11s are nuts

Nigel Richard brain is full of amazing words. Such memory!

Man, I would've loved to see a live recording of this game. The reaction from the commentators would have been lovely.

I just can't with this man, Nigel is so far above what us mortals are capable of. It's 1 a.m. and I can't stop laughing from the sheer brilliance of pernoctated for 3 points more than the second highest scoring move in that position. Simply incredible

God I love Nigel plays

Absolutely amazing video cheers mate

6:53 Dude I cant even dream of those feats Nigel is beyond me

I don't play scrabble, but I love your channel

Remember that such long words don’t show up in games that often partly BECAUSE people haven’t learned them, just a disclaimer worth mentioning when showcasing the deminishing returns of learning them in terms of ”fraction of games that include 11 letter words”

Absolutely jaw-dropping play! What's the level above "godlike" because I think Nigel has officially passed it. Love your videos!

Born too late to explore the world, too early to explore the galaxy, just in time to watch Nigel Richards tear shit up.

I won the Under 18 at this tournament (then called the iGates tournament) about a decade ago. I met Nigel (who actually signed the board I won as my prize) minutes after he extended Alistair Richards' phony opening bingo of KARYOTE* to PRO(KARYOTE) lmao

I don't give a shit about scrabble but I've watched all of these videos. Totally fascinating

excellent game, excellent analysis

This was an amazing video. Thank you

"Until proven otherwise, we have to assume that Nigel knows every word in the dictionary, regardless of length" This is the hardest sentence known to man

3:16 Nice!

Consecutive moves in a row! Impressive!

Your content is so damn good. Do you have a channel that’s just you playing games like the old scrabble go tournament winner matches? I would watch all of them

I would love to know, how long did Nigel take before making this move? Did he think about it long?

I literally spotted ANON on the board as a beginner player!

for half a second i was like “wtf scrabble has actual serious competition and strategy” and then i realized literally every game has some extremely dedicated community to pushing the game to its limit

Bro if I were Rajiv would have flipped the board. Absolutely diabolical game.

props to Rajiv to not quit the game after getting hit by so much devastating plays

Really cool play, it would be cool to see casters reaction if they had casters overwatching that board.

Will uses Nigel Richards like GothamChess uses Magnus Carlsen

The magnus of scrabbles

Mr. Anderson, I agree with everything you said and am as amazed as you, except for the part about memorizing words of 10+ letters. I'd assume many extreme experts memorize long words containing common letters, especially those that contain shorter words where they could just add on to long words already on the board. No need to memorize long words that have too rare a set of letters, and there'd be only a couple thousand that contain really good letters. I played 2 or 3 very long bingos years ago when a computer-game version of Scrabble first debuted. After watching the computer continually suggest very long words as the best possible play, I learned how to spot them. And I'm not 1% as good as Mr. Richards. Are OCTATE, NOCTATE, PERNO, or other short parts of the word in the dictionary of record that was used?

I was thinking if I was 300 points behind I would want to just quit but actually I think I wouldn't because you don't give up a chance to get your ass beat by Nigel Richards and see the phenomenal plays he makes without even needing to

is pernoctate that archaic? i already knew that word without grinding

If I'm the opponent, I'd probably challenge each word Nigel plays to give him more +5s to his record score 😂

Yo hi Will, love your videos, hope you reach 50K subs soon!

2 letter words and names?! In Germany that’d be considered kindergarten championships 😂

1:27 bottom left you mean "to PRISE". Prying is interloping.

I'd love to see a video explaining what a sticky S is and maybe a few examples. Like how "Kans" only takes an S and is valid, but just Kan without the S is invalid. Could do other letters with words like unfazed that only take a D. A sticky letter series of sorts or something 😅

Life goal: get people in your life that talk about you like Will Anderson talks about Nigel Richards

As a non-scrabble player but an avid chess player I guess learning long words that you may never use is a bit like learning certain endgames in chess.....for example the Knight+Bishop mate...its a complicated checkmate that takes a very good memory to retain the technique but you might not even see it once in your chess career and if you do it might save you half a point! I personally have never encountered it after 30 years of playing and I studied the ending in about 2002 very deeply, since then I have all but forgotten it.

Nigel!!! 🎉

Thanks to this video, I learned that the Calgary Flames and Columbus Blue Jackets invited fans to pernoctate in honor of Johnny Gaudreau.

At this point, I'm convinced that Nigel is a god among men.

When you find checkmate, look for a better move!

Just wow

I can't believe there's a tournament in my city and I don't even know where to find a Scrabble community here.

thats actually insane

Plays like this remind me of the character Data from star trek TNG. I assume they couldn't figure out a good enough example for him to show off scrabble skills because Nigel Richards wasn't available as a writer. Not that his crewmates would likely feel like playing it more than a time or two after getting soundly defeated... Poker was a more suitable choice :) Now Nigel in a Klingon language scrabble game against Worf might be good for some laughs 😆

So what were the 4 specific interesting things alluded to at the start?

Nice find!

the fact that rajiv challenged it as well-

I’m a simple man. I see Nigel Richards, I click.