Wellington Jighere just took the win at the 2015 World Scrabble Championship. He beat his opponent Lewis Mackay 4 games to 0. He is the first player from Africa to ever win a world championship.
Wellington Jighere
Wellington Jighere, besides having a pretty cool name, has been one of Nigeria’s best Scrabble players for a long time. In 2007, he was just one game away from making the finals of the World Scrabble Championship in Mumbai, but he fell in round 24 to, would you know it, Nigel Richards, who then won his first World Scrabble Championship.
The coolest Scrabble Champion ever?
Still, Jighere announced his presence to the world by finishing 3rd in his first Worlds ever. In 2008 he won the Africa Scrabble Championship, held in Nairobi, Kenya, and defended his title in 2010 in Accra, Ghana. He was 11th in the 2009 Worlds, being as high as 4th at one point but losing a few close games, and also won the prestigious Godswill Akpabio International Scrabble Classics that year. He purchased a brand new car with his winnings.
Jighere started playing Scrabble in 1996 after an older brother introduced him to the game. He has been hooked ever since. In his beginnings, he was a very strong player, but it seemed like he would always fall just short of victory. He had played in several major tournaments but seemed to lose steam towards the end. He would start off well then would start making mistakes. He began having more success in 2007, when he got third at Worlds.
Then, in late 2010, he retired. Citing a few disagreements with the way things were being run in the Nigeria Scrabble Federation, he hung up his boots (tiles?) and decided to focus on his studies. Wellington finished up his career in crop studies and performed his NYSC (National Youth Service Corps).
Luckily for the world of Scrabble, he came back with a fury in 2013, and the rest is history. He triumphed in the 2015 WSC, playing 4 nearly-flawless games:
http://cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=22364
http://cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=22365
http://cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=22367
http://cross-tables.com/annotated.php?u=22368
Wellington Jighere, 2015 World Scrabble Champion
The winning Scrabble board
The president of Nigeria has called Wellington to congratulate him for his win and for making his country proud!
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-A collaboration by Cesar Del Solar of Aerolith.org, a Scrabble study site, and Emily Dowgialo, Scrabble Enthusiast
