The World Scrabble Champion Just Did Something Amazing

Подписаться 40 тыс.

Просмотров 74 тыс.

50% 1

Thanks to Nigel Richards, Scrabble grandmasters around the world have to adjust their expectations - and aspirations. But current World Champion David Eldar has firmly taken the lead in the battle for the #2 ranking. At the 2024 Australian Championships (March 30th - April 1st), David played an instant classic of a game against 4-time Australian champion Naween Fernando. In it, he showcased his incredible ability to find winning chances where none seem to exist.
Sometime soon, I plan to resume streaming on my Twitch channel:
/ wanderer15
I also plan to resume my weekly show on the official Scrabble Twitch channel (Tuesdays 3-5 PM ET):
/ scrabble
Play Scrabble at playscrabble.com!

Игры

Опубликовано:

4 июл 2024

Ссылка:

Скачать:

Готовим ссылку...

Добавить в:

Мой плейлист

Посмотреть позже

Комментарии : 133

@Oceanatornowk 2 месяца назад

I’m always caught of guard when I’m reminded how highly ranked you are. Not that I ever thought you weren’t skilled, but typically the best players in a given game aren’t always the best at explaining. It’s definitely a boon to the Scrabble community that a player like yourself is also such a great presenter!

@redtaileddolphin1875 2 месяца назад

I think chess is a great comparison to make here, especially with Hikaru being both top player and great content creator. Also reminds me of top esports players transitioning to content creation but those aren’t video essays usually, just streaming or whatever gameplay Will is in a league of his own actually explaining all this stuff to newcomers though

@kuulajarkkoperse 2 месяца назад

Thanks!

@BBG07endless 2 месяца назад

@@redtaileddolphin1875 even Hikaru’s content is probably not as informative as will’s. Hikaru doesn’t quite have Will’s ability to break down all the nuances of a complex play so simply. Naroditsky actually is a Will-level explainer, but he’s not at the same level of chess that Will is at scrabble. It really is a rare combination.

@4Thessia 2 месяца назад

I am happy to see that this game has advanced to an even higher level since I retired from tournament play fifteen years ago.

@Jon-fc2ss 2 месяца назад

@@BBG07endless Naroditsky is an apt comparison. It's so hard to simplify world-class level understanding to be digestible for a broad audience. Maybe Scrabble is easier to do it for than chess but Will's brilliance is undeniable. Let alone the amazing editing he does on top of it

@Erikuzuma 2 месяца назад

Man, David got lucky at the end and got the exact two tiles he needed. But holy shit Naween was sure as hell not fucking around here. The dude was in the zone for most of that game.

@wanderer15 2 месяца назад

Naween isn’t a 4-time Australian champion for nothing. Great player.

@javen9693 2 месяца назад

"Oh No My oneural!"

@GovernorBroadsideDS 2 месяца назад

Epic Eric Rosen reference

@pokekid3334 2 месяца назад

Amazing content!!! You have inspired my whole school to start playing scrabble all the way from Hong Kong! I'm truly thankful.

@bellingham.mobile69 2 месяца назад

🥲

@TrainingCuber 2 месяца назад

I’m from Hong Kong too, great to hear that

@someonecool4922 2 месяца назад

dang nice to hear that other schools have the wisdom to pick up such a thrilling game

@canthishamstergetto2ksubs530 2 месяца назад

Yo, hello bro I’m also from Hong Kong

@canthishamstergetto2ksubs530 2 месяца назад

@@TrainingCuberme too!!

@kyber.octopus 2 месяца назад

4:00 Finally, a word that i understand!

@PelumiOTE2B 2 месяца назад

MY ENTIRE MIND WAS BLOWN WHEN MYONEURAL DROPPED!!!

@xhoidlostblade3856 2 месяца назад

Came for the Nigel, stayed for more Scrabble awesomeness. Such a great community, it gives me classic tetris vibes.

@blankoblanco 2 месяца назад

I'm a big Scrabble enthusiast, more of a novice in my actual play, but I can pretty confidently say this was absolutely jaw-dropping. The only way it could have maybe been better was if drawing 'AO' had been actual checkmate -- but how can you really blame Fernando for not seeing MYONEURAL from his position? He saw and blocked the "obvious" play (which wouldn't have been obvious to 99% of us). This is definitely in the top 10 of most intriguing endgames I've ever seen. David Eldar is a damn genius. Thanks, Will. Awesome video.

@pixels_ 2 месяца назад

Playing to your outs... even if it is a slim chance, there's nothing else to do. Masterful to find the line.

@TheGuyCalledX Месяц назад

He didn't have outs though. There was no more luck involved, his opponent had perfect information of the board state and a winning position, but blundered missing the alternate bingo. While Scrabble has a lot of luck and variance involved, as with TCG/CCGs and poker, this particular situation is more like his opponent blundering a hard to see checkmate.

@cmyk8964 16 часов назад

I’m always in awe at Scrabble pros’ ability to memorize the tile distribution and count remaining tiles.

@stephenmooney-pursell9580 2 месяца назад

I really look forward to seeing your videos - keeps me in the game when I haven't had the time to play or practice lately

@jellomochas 2 месяца назад

0:25 hey it's me

@ohtani2024 2 месяца назад

David Eldar is my favourite Scrabble personality😊😊 cos he is also a winning poker pro! Love both games so much!

@justin7035 2 месяца назад

Well done, another amazing story. Thanks for all you do :)

@acdc1956 2 месяца назад

Amazing breakdown as always! Do you find that you can get tunnel vision during a game-focusing on a couple key spots and missing other options (like MYONEURAL)?

@wanderer15 2 месяца назад

Yes, I do - but in this particular case, I think it’s less about tunnel vision and more about 99.9% of players (myself included) simply not knowing 9 letter words as obscure as MYONEURAL. I would likely not pick up on that threat even scanning the full board with perfect clarity and focus.

@joeedley3936 2 месяца назад

great job! beautifully spoken and fascinating position!

@youtubeyoutube-ls7wt 2 месяца назад

All your videos deserve a "grammy" if there's ever one.. superb content and explanation

@johnnybegood9742 2 месяца назад

Great videos, I don't play scrabble but enjoy the great commentary and explanation.

@MegaMultiAnonymous 2 месяца назад

zebroid :: like a zebra I don't know what I expected 😀

@wanderer15 2 месяца назад

I mostly put that definition there because you might think that word is a noun, when it’s actually an adjective!

@jossemalmberg 2 месяца назад

@@wanderer15 It's a noun too!

@CDLatin 2 месяца назад

One of the few words I recognized on the board from reading a ton. I always have to explain to people that having degrees in English won't suddenly make someone good at scrabble; from what I have seen a lot of people in this space are computer engineers and mathematicians.

@muneeb-khan 2 месяца назад

Anyone know why Nigel Richards stopped competing in the world championship? Can’t find anything online other than a few thousand articles on his French scrabble win. Wiki says last tournament was in 2023 (ASCI masters) and a post on Reddit saying two months ago he made 5 bingos in a row in a tournament in India. Can’t find much on the guy at all. I know he’s very private but just surprised genuinely how little there is.

@axcertypo 2 месяца назад

He hasn't stopped. He just hasn't competed in a long time due to COVID (there was no World championship in 2021) and due to a family obligation in 2023. The next World Championship will be in Thailand or Ghana next year, and as long as he gets a visa for Ghana, he will likely attend. As for Thailand, he'll probably just bike there from Kuala Lumpur if it's anywhere on the coastline.

@THEBIGZED 2 месяца назад

Ironically enough, there aren't words to describe how impressed I am by this.

@dereklindman6914 2 месяца назад

That's incredible. Absolutely stunning.

@dynamotexan 2 месяца назад

Always great stuff. Has there been any exhibition matches where it was one person vs a team of 2 or more?

@christianstone4724 2 месяца назад

Great channel. Top notch commentary. I really have trouble fathoming Will and these other scrabble experts have basically memorized the dictionary.

@wanderer15 2 месяца назад

It's certainly a strange life choice. I feel like one of the communities that my content resonates with a surprising amount is speedrunners - people who learn the ins and outs of a particular game to an incredibly detailed and complete degree. Elite Scrabble players have basically done this with the dictionary, just without the obvious competitive speed element (though being able to anagram words incredibly fast is critically important, so there is speed involved)

@lonewanderer9499 2 месяца назад

Really well produced and interesting video

@Muzgrob 2 месяца назад

I might try and watch the next Australian championship in Sydney. Looks like fun.

@PretzelBS 2 месяца назад

What’s the biggest nxn square you can theoretically create with all the tiles?

@LRXC1 2 месяца назад

This is INSANE. WOW.

@peterflom6878 2 месяца назад

I think the top players should have to show their racks for analysis like this

@LMW87MMA 2 месяца назад

I am super new to scrabble but recognize Deldar from poker. He won millions in high stakes PLO.

@AmaranthRBY 2 месяца назад

For some reason there's a non-trivial amount of overlap between Scrabble and Poker. Annette Obrestad also plays Scrabble at a fairly high level, though Eldar is absolutely something else

@oceso 2 месяца назад

MYONEURAL? YOURE A NEURAL!

@derpyderp1991 2 месяца назад

And the Australia vs New Zealand rivalry lives on

@leiz8048 2 месяца назад

miaou

@meta04 2 месяца назад

miaou

@zmaj12321 2 месяца назад

miaou

@imaEnVideo 2 месяца назад

miaou

@javen9693 2 месяца назад

miaou

@spiriniar 2 месяца назад

meow

@Jon-fc2ss 2 месяца назад

Unrelated comment but I'd love to see a video re-balancing tile scores for CSW and NWL. I'm only a 1750 in both dictionaries but I feel like there are letters like Z and X that are overvalued in Collin's whereas they feel properly valued in NWL. V should be worth 5 but that's a personal gripe and Q should be 12+ for both CSW/NWL. Love the content man, keep it coming!

@asdfasdf4924 2 месяца назад

I saw the FEH play. I did not see MYONEURAL

@thegodofpez 2 месяца назад

MYONEURAL is just stunning!

@purpleboi9000 2 месяца назад

I keep forgetting that Y is a consonant in english, it’s a vocal in my native language

@XuanLei. 2 месяца назад

Hey, Will. I’m an aspiring scrabble youtuber (competitive high school player in singapore) could I ask, how do you edit your scrabble videos? Does scrabble go have a board editor function, or do you cut out the tiles yourself and use a separate app/website?

@wanderer15 2 месяца назад

I use a combination of Canva and Adobe Photoshop for my board and tiles, and I edit using Adobe Premiere Pro. But I'm sure there are other simpler ways to get started. I'm excited to hear that you're considering making RU-vid content! Let me know how else I can help.

@LimeHunter7 2 месяца назад

What does the "#" mean in your notation? I tried looking this up but I couldn't find an explanation.

@Einveldi 2 месяца назад

I think I'm right in saying that it means that the word is playable only in the Collins (i.e. non-North American) dictionary.

@LimeHunter7 2 месяца назад

@@Einveldi Ah, okay, I thought I'd seen it on "phonies" before but I felt like this many in one game would've been challenged... so it's because it's an Australian game then

@wanderer15 2 месяца назад

Correct - the # notation denotes Collins-only words. It’s there as a courtesy for any players hoping to keep the two main lexicons straight.

@Thirdeariespace 15 часов назад

Interesting that the word "bouma", which has been frequently used in type design theory for almost thirty years, has not made it into Collins.

@natrixxvision6997 2 месяца назад

Wait a minute. These guys are on a timer. How do they think of all those possibilities that quick?

@wanderer15 2 месяца назад

That's part of why it's so incredible! Like anything, if you do it enough, you get faster and faster.

@clu2573 2 месяца назад

It's because Nigel shaved his glorious beard. It's like Thor, the beard gives him power.

@Fiyaaaahh 2 месяца назад

Today I've learned that cats "miaou" and my entire being rejects that spelling.

@AnnettesMakeupCorner 2 месяца назад

wow!

@triathlontimmy 2 месяца назад

Today I learned "meow" is actually spelled "miaou" haha

@wanderer15 2 месяца назад

MEOW is definitely the primary spelling! Fortunately for Scrabble players, lexicographers decided that even more vowel-heavy variations were also up to their standards to be considered words (MIAOU, MEOU, MIAOW)

@dentonyoung4314 2 месяца назад

The word knowledge of all the top players is ridiculous. I have a large vocabulary for a normal human -- I read a lot, plus my mom is an editress and authoress -- but the ability to see plays like MYONEURAL is amazing.

@mikehamelin7520 2 месяца назад

bro you're 7th? sick man. I didn't know you were ranked so high. makes your analysis have more weight. you should lead with that more.

@pererarohini6892 2 месяца назад

When is the next world championship

@gregeonaf7811 2 месяца назад

Certainly not a big deal but Mark Nyman's name is misspelled in the graphic at the start of the video

@wanderer15 2 месяца назад

I seriously don’t know how I miss these things. I even have several videos I want to make about Mark. Sigh

@wolfen8622 2 месяца назад

Myoneural… unbelievable… absolutely incredible.

@wompastompa3692 2 месяца назад

How does scoring work if you hit two double word scores and end up with 98, which isn't divisible by 4?

@muferguson 2 месяца назад

If you play all your tiles you get a 50 point bonus (bingo), so if the play itself was worth 12 points, double twice to 48 + 50 = 98

@DadgeCity 2 месяца назад

48 for the word, plus the 50-point bingo bonus

@wanderer15 2 месяца назад

Whenever you make a move using all 7 of your tiles, you get 50 bonus points on top of the face value of the move. This is what makes those low-point combinations so valuable and balances them with the higher-scoring letters. In this case, YELLINGS scored 48 at face value (12x4), and then had 50 more points tacked on for the all-letters bonus (the oddly named "bingo")

@F3XT 2 месяца назад

why does David look so much like Adam Sandler 😭

@seafoamshame1 2 месяца назад

Ya letters!

@Forensource 2 месяца назад

Russell Honeybun for the win!

@ritwikism 2 месяца назад

Was Naween low on time? Even if he didn't spot MYONEURAL, shouldn't he play WICKY anyway to guarantee the win? Unless some other sequence after the W block would have fetched a higher points differential?

@wanderer15 2 месяца назад

In the absence of MYONEURAL, blocking the ALEURON spot definitely works out better for point differential. That was surely Naween’s thinking there. I myself would never have imagined David to have a bingo extending from MY on the board with that rack - I would almost certainly have done the same thing Naween did, figuring that if I could just block ALEURON, I would ensure that I’d get another at least one more endgame turn to work with.

@top115 2 месяца назад

Hey I know a few words they used on the board here 🎉

@titans77 2 месяца назад

how large is the gap between David Eldar and Nigel Richards?

@domino14 2 месяца назад

It’s not huge. Nigel wins more often because he can take advantage of all the little edges.

@lostalone9320 2 месяца назад

So, is the Australian championship considered one of the non-English tournaments?

@squadxzo 2 месяца назад

0:25 Sadly no mack meller 😞

@wanderer15 2 месяца назад

Purely a technicality - the list I showed is players in the worldwide Collins lexicon, whereas Mack and many other strong North American players have stuck to the NA lexicon. Mack would require 12-24 months of experience max with Collins to be a top 10 player, imo.

@squadxzo 2 месяца назад

Yeah I know that just fun to point it out since I know you and him reads comments. Also there is still a lack of crossover content from the two of you.

@lillyrose6568 2 месяца назад

You gotta make these videos over 8 minutes so that you can cash in on that extra adsense! Just one extra midroll would get you so much extra money. You deserve it!

@wanderer15 2 месяца назад

I appreciate this comment a lot, thank you! But: I don't run mid-roll ads because my objective is not to make the most money. It's to get as many people watching and enjoying Scrabble content as possible. Any advertisements beyond the minimum represent unnecessary friction towards that goal.

@AlexDings 2 месяца назад

@@wanderer15 Not the hero we deserve, but the hero that we need

@feasible 2 месяца назад

hey it's me

@feasible 2 месяца назад

(not actually me, the person who typed this comment, I was quoting Will's little joke when showing the rankings)

@Ascension721 2 месяца назад

hello feasible

@JohnnyBeatmann 2 месяца назад

AND SUDDENLY HE CAN PLAY...miaou.

@learningwithlp7033 2 месяца назад

Under an hour Gang!

@bellingham.mobile69 2 месяца назад

😢

@ianp1745 2 месяца назад

Under 10 mins for me

@swordfishxd- 2 месяца назад

me too

@Tumbleweed3905 2 месяца назад

Yooo

@jerryAAAAAAA 2 месяца назад

here

@bradwurst8141 2 месяца назад

Meow =)

@tsawy6 2 месяца назад

Play to your outs. If theres only one path to victory, no matter how slim, you might as well assume youre going to be lucky enough to capitalise on it. You lose anyways otherwise

@bellingham.mobile69 2 месяца назад

First comment❤

@Manigo1743 2 месяца назад

So what?

@canthishamstergetto2ksubs530 2 месяца назад

Amazing video as always will! I have a question; What’s the highest scoring move you have ever played? (Both tournaments and casual games)

@bellingham.mobile69 2 месяца назад

😢

@wanderer15 2 месяца назад

My highest move score is 248 points with the word MACARIZE (unique to the Collins dictionary). The highest score against me was the crazy JIBBOOMS for 212 by Jesse Day over a decade ago!