The Rock That Smashed a Scrabble World Record

Welcome to Episode 17 of Scrabble History, a series where I break down some of the most incredible plays, epic rivalries, and amazing moments in Scrabble's rich competitive history.
800 point scores are the stuff of legend within the competitive Scrabble world. It had never been done until 2011, when legendary champion Joel Sherman accomplished the feat: • Is THIS the Highest Sc...
But just one year later Singaporean grandmaster Toh Weibin did him one better in a game you'll need to see to believe!
Sometime soon, I plan to resume streaming on my Twitch channel:
/ wanderer15
I also have a weekly show on the official Scrabble Twitch channel (Tuesdays 3-5 PM ET):
/ scrabble
Play Scrabble at playscrabble.com!

[@stewartholden2890]

Hi folks. This was my tournament as I organise the Northern Ireland Championship, and this particular event was already special as it was two days after our wedding (which Rik had also attended). So a memorable weekend for many reasons! Just one thing to note... in the UK we score the endgame differently with the leftover tiles being added to one player's score and subtracted from the other. So Weibin's score was actually 850pts. Great video anyway, Will. Keep up the good work!

[@wanderer15]

Oh, man. Big error on my part, as I unearthed the game history from cross-tables and didn't realize the endgame was calculated differently. Getting the score wrong in a video about a record-breaking score is pretty bad, but at least it was already correct on the thumbnail :) Also, thanks for organizing, Stewart!

[@awesomoose7822]

In the US we also add the unplayed tiles to opposing and subtract from owner, I figured adding double the unplayed tiles score and not subtracting from owner was a tournament thing but I guess not.

[@ryanlind5239]

Im from Canada and "add and subtract the leftover tiles" is the only method I've ever known. I guess at tournament level it's different but I wonder why.

[@EisenRosen]

I love that the simplest measure of how good a player is turns out to be how many times they won against Nigel

[@AlexDings]

Another nice aspect of that is that it makes Will the best Scrabble player in the universe. His record against Nigel in tournament games is 6-2 if my research is correct

[@whocares2277]

Fun fact: Nigel has never won against Nigel in a tournament.

[@jellomochas]

@@whocares2277 Incorrect; according to cross-tables, Nigel Peltier has played Nigel Richards 9 times, winning 4 and losing 5.

[@quandaledingle2107]

zannn@@jellomochas

[@jumpy23]

Honestly Nigel is at risk of getting Worfed on this channel

[@Misty_FT]

A bingo, with an X, on a triple-triple... that's freaking brutal

[@psy_laris]

wtf misty? wasn't expecting to see you here lol

[@Misty_FT]

@@psy_laris Oh hey! Yeah, I only recently discovered this channel but I'm hooked lol

[@psy_laris]

@@Misty_FT so real, absolutely amazing content :D

[@frijoless22]

not to mention the x was a double letter too

[@Misty_FT]

@@frijoless22 oh my god I missed that, what. the. hell.

[@erickehr4475]

If BEAUXITE is not playable in the US, then I guess it is an aluminium ore rather than an aluminum ore.

[@wanderer15]

Ha, true!!!

[@plebcrabslayer]

Underrated comment! 😁

[@lenoobxd]

me when that one i

[@gregorchard7881]

Its also spelt wrong.. correct spelling is bauxite.....

[@sketchiefello9002]

@@gregorchard7881 an ellipsis contains three periods and denotes omission, any other number or usage is a form of illiteracy.

[@ArihanBaroliaA]

It's crazy how just "Beauxite" scored more points than all of Rik's words combined

[@user-ye3rv4fr6z]

He scored more points in one turn than his opponent scored in the entire game

[@justsomeguywithagoatee8337]

I've never seen someone get dunked on this hard in a competitive board game. (Even Magnus Carlsen destroying other GMs in chess).

[@rustyrodgers7566]

@@justsomeguywithagoatee8337cuz this is a luck game unlike chess

[@wyattemmick4631]

@@rustyrodgers7566 this game is not a luck game yes you need some luck but iften the better player can win

[@universalplayz7496]

@@wyattemmick4631yeah but chess doesn’t Have a single true luck component The ONLY way to lose is your own mistake

[@wyattemmick4631]

@@universalplayz7496 yeah i agree with people at the highest level all being elite at the game luck plays a really big part in scrabble your right

[@terracottapie]

I have never lost to Nigel Richards, and Toh has lost 19 times, so I should obviously be ranked ahead of him.

[@wanderer15]

No logical flaws detected! :)

[@dingus42]

as a Singaporean, just an fyi - his first name is Weibin

[@terracottapie]

@@dingus42 I was using his surname on purpose, that's how I would refer to any athlete or prominent person ("Biden is running for reelection")

[@beeble2003]

And I've never lost to you, so I'm even higher!

[@leonharder4846]

I never lost a game of scrabble at all so i should be world champion

[@bvoyelr]

I'll be honest: if I was Rik, I wouldn't even be mad. I'd have been laughing by the time Toh broke 500 points like halfway through the game. I don't know that I'd have gone so far as to try to help him go for the record, but I'd definitely be audibly cackling at the absurdity of the game.

[@BrettMKW]

Spread matters in tournaments, so everyone is incentivized to still play the best that they can even when they can't win the game.

[@DrZaius3141]

Still, being remembered as the player that the highest scoring game was played against is a bit of infamy one would like to avoid. Even if you can't really blame him, a superficial look at the record books still stings.

[@bearfinn]

There's usually maximum spread you can have in a game. Passing 600 marks are absurd I would give up.

[@Michael_800]

I think helping someone go for the record makes it pointless. As would actively trying to hinder them, when that doesn't align with the objective of the game anyway. I like that he played it down as a normal game, making the record as legit as possible.

[@mihaip1179]

@@BrettMKW Isn't spread capped at 350 points?

[@michaelchen2718]

This video might as well be titled the unluckiest game in scrabble history

[@wanderer15]

True. The only way scores in the high 600s or 700s are possible is when one player gets all the luck and the other gets completely hosed. This game is the most extreme version of that!

[@raelsadd]

yeah poor Rik just got destroyed and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. completely luck of the draw (or in his case unluck of the draw). obviously props to Weibin for seeing all those high scoring plays, but still, not much Rik could have done.

[@elmi8769]

scrabble isn't all luck

[@Ascension721]

​@@elmi8769??????

[@unwono]

@@elmi8769 but here it was dumbo

[@jepptheclairvoyantdwarf9498]

​@@robertveith6383you're a bummer

[@semnejlepsi8983]

@@robertveith6383 no way you lash out at someone for writing a completely comprehensible sentence with "why are you bother". miserable troll

[@dentonyoung4314]

Absolutely incredible game by Weibin. That's the kind of game you tell your grandkids about when you're 70 and long retired.

[@youtubeSuckssNow]

Hey Rik made history too. This feels like one of those times you just have to sit back and laugh at how much of a fickle mistress rng can be.

[@jakobhablitz1429]

I'm sure strow was better strategically, but by that point in Rik's shoes I surely would have played 'worst' for a small bit of meta commentary

[@sambalgoreng]

Will Anderson + Scrabble = Massively great fun!

[@wompastompa3692]

Beauxite scored more than Rik did all game, lol.

[@mattyartell9575]

Very quickly in a game like this, I'm sure an experienced player would be very satisfied that there was nothing to be done and they just got rekt by some bad luck. A true love of the game will help ease the pain as they get to watch a masterpiece.

[@AlexDings]

I'd put "Scrabble World Record" in either the title or the thumbnail here, probably makes it more clickable! With your references to their H2H-records against Nigel, I wonder what the highest score ever achieved _against Nigel_ is, that's kind of a world record of its own.

[@wanderer15]

Ooh, another fun idea (and I took your advice re: title. How are your title tweaks always so good?)

[@baconlettucepotato69]

"is this player good?" "he's beaten nigel more than once" "oh damn he's good"

[@Xeractyll]

That is simply unbelievable. I have no words. Out of curiosity, is BEAUXITE for 275 the highest scoring Scrabble move ever played in tournament history? If not, what is?

[@wanderer15]

Not quite, but it's obviously up there. I know of at least a couple higher-scoring plays that might need to be featured someday!

[@dermotbalaam5358]

No e is nauxite!

[@clydeivorpalma7651]

I dont know but i think vsauce has a video about the highest known move that can happen (never been played before)

[@dayzeed]

Weibin was cracked out of his mind with this one

[@noahleach7690]

yh but rik got historically unlucky, an insane storm of unluckiness

[@eviltreechop]

Love the photo of Toh with the board at the end!

[@furretwalky]

By god!! And I thought my 803 in Scrabble GO was impressive... I patted myself on the back after spotting BAUXITE immediately, but of course that ALTERNATE SPELLING 😂...

[@wanderer15]

803 absolutely IS incredibly impressive!

[@nightwishlover8913]

Alternate? Only in Collins. No-one in real life spells it like that. Not even dyslexics.

[@tom7]

I paused at 2:29 and thought that both players had played ANAPHOR. If only!

[@wanderer15]

Now THAT would’ve been amazing, especially given the word’s definition!

[@youtubeyoutube-ls7wt]

someone needs to do a detailed breakdown of how Will is able to capture people's attention, even for non players like me. too good.

[@leviwright9493]

Chemistry class has prepared me for this video, acetate is life. XD

[@Marcotonio]

275! What is the highest scoring move of all time? Maybe a video idea. Even better if it's a match-ending word that also collects opponent tiles to increase that number.

[@ohtani2024]

so many collins... it makes the games so much different

[@erdapfel300]

7:35 "... and hopes for the best." Got me good 😂

[@coachmcguirk6297]

Imagine sitting down to play some scrabble and then your opponent sets the world record for the best game of all time 😂

[@makeyourdayCA]

I played Words With Friends a few years ago - I liked how it kept track of player stats. My biggest word was: Goldstones for 151pts. I recall seeing a professional Scrabble players dictionary with notes all over the pages - it's like Harry Potter's spellbook with all the notes in the margins.

[@wanderer15]

That book belongs to Scrabble legend David Gibson, and I have a picture of it in Episode 2/3 of Scrabble History!

[@Firebringer121]

Thats Brutal to watch, a guy just hit miss after miss, which enables his opponent to get a world record. Oph. But I suppose thats how it had to be.

[@wanderer15]

Yes, literally everything needed to go the way it did for such a massive score to be achieved, and that does include Rik’s game-long misfortune.

[@cpetrizzi]

Chuck Norris is so good at Scrabble, he once spelled BEAUXITE using an "archaic rule" with all eight Triple Word tiles for a triple-triple-triple-triple-triple-triple-triple-triple score of 111,537 in one turn. But yeah, Weibin's score is #2 all-time now.

[@artsenor254]

Even we frenchmen don't consider "beauxite" to be a valid spelling anymore, despite it making much more sense in our language than in english. Linguistics are funny sometimes. xD

[@wanderer15]

We don't really have a good way of eliminating those old spellings in Scrabble. There's a lot of inertia...once words make it in, players don't like seeing them go!

[@SnakeHoundMachine]

Weibin didn't just play great, he also got extremely lucky with Rik's bad draws enabling the game to go on so long.

[@HarryR545]

Hey will, just wanted to thank you for getting me into scrabble. I'd played a bit before but i got interested in your videos and am now hooked on words with friends. Keep it up man :)

[@wanderer15]

Thanks so much & so glad to hear!

[@DungTran_ith]

I have just started to play Scrabble for a month now thanks to your videos. Keep up the good work.

[@HaloLvl43Legit]

My highest was BLINKING (right where he played) I played off an "N" that was already there. 3+1+1+1+5(2 double letter)+1+1+2=20 x6(triple triple)=120 +50(spent all letters)=170

[@fuckyoutube4398]

nice

[@NaHBrO733]

triple triple is x9, should be 230

[@malcolmdarke5299]

Honestly, I'd be hyped at being a part of a record-breaking game. The sum of the scores is insane too - a combined score of more than 800 indicates extremely good play, and the combined score for that game is over 1100 points.

[@Ariamaki]

I mean, forget about stopping tile-tracking, what are tournament Scrabble's concession rules? I can't imagine sitting around being farmed off of in a competitive setting where game points matter after all those haymakers.

[@wanderer15]

Very fair point. Cumulative margin of victory is used as a tiebreaker, so there’s no provision for resignations currently, but in matchplay formats allowing resignations, this game would long since have been over. One saving grace for Scrabble is that the board state is somewhat divorced from the players’ winning chances. For example, in chess, if you’re getting crushed, it’s likely because you’re facing a significant material deficit, and persisting with the game is pointless. But in a Scrabble game, you might encounter an interesting or flashy play at any phase of the game and at any game score, so you can more easily trick yourself into caring even in games like this.

[@kamen42]

Brutal. That "Beauxite" was worth more than the entire Rik's game.

[@SteefPip]

Anytime I want my mind completely blown I watch a high level Scrabble video.

[@BrettMKW]

Surely this also has to be a record for largest margin of victory in a scrabble game.

[@Thaplayer1209]

This is the 2nd time a singaporean player is featured on this channel thanks to a rock.

[@dingus42]

What's the 1st time?

[@Thaplayer1209]

@@dingus42 He has uploaded a short where another Singaporean Grandmaster played pIgEONITE to win the game.

[@Terrakinetic]

When you're only listening to the video: 3:18 "Wait what? Did this guy get land-flooded playing scrabble? Was this a magic the gathering video?"

[@vexingvexillologist7554]

Ironic that Kennedy had WORST on his rack at the end, aptly describes his luck this game!

[@glynnrobinson5098]

When I clicked this, I did not expect my country of Northern Ireland to have such a prominent role!

[@verbosed]

Another great showcase of a fascinating game. Too bad i play TWL, i’ll never feel the joy of a BEAUXITE triple triple

[@wanderer15]

Lots of other fun triple triples to dream of!

[@tempest225]

I've never even seen a scrabble board in my life, but good video.

[@Gqvinos]

4:40 the beauxite thing wouldnt have happened if rik did draws instead of drows with the a from acetate

[@jellomochas]

once VOGUIEST came down I thought that [the rock word] had been played through the T, so when Weibin had ?AAEGLL I thought he would play 14G (S)mALLAGE

[@JohnDoe-ti2np]

Interestingly, ALLAGITE is a "rock word" which is in the OED, but it's not valid even in Collins.

[@fredkelly6953]

My supreme scrabble moment was getting a triple-triple from the word QUIXOTIC with the the X on the double. My GF at the time was not amused one bit by the great fortune she'd just handed me but I had a warm feeling for many days after and one of my top scrabble stories.

[@cpetrizzi]

Lesson learned? You won a Scrabble game, but lost your future wife.

[@SG2048-meta]

That would have scored at least 306 points…. wow….

[@mrdecade123]

How did I randomly stumble into this part of youtube? I don't even know how scrabble works. Eitherway, great video

[@joshcoughx]

Poor Rik, man.

[@wanderer15]

Rough game for him but he's well regarded as an excellent player!

[@noahz42]

I dont even care for scrabble but watched this whole thing, very well done!

[@RichD1]

Ive never heard about this game on competitive, its so funny seeing how similar they treat it to chess

[@terrykang5000]

Another awesome, impeccably produced video, Will! Thank you!

[@Humfreeee]

Just saw you on Wirtuals stream and then this video pops up in my recommended lol

[@michaelchen2718]

8:00 wait. Shouldn’t it be +2 instead of +4?

[@kingsley.]

x2

[@axcertypo]

The normal rule for leftover tiles is "take their value off of your score and add it to opponent's score", but in many tournament settings, an equivalent rule, "double it and add it to opponent's score" is standard practice.

[@superzigzagoon]

I wonder if that Beauxite play was the highest single scoring move in Expert Scrabble play history.

[@wanderer15]

It's up there, but there's been higher. Another video idea!

[@TopoVizio]

this may be a dumb question, but how are records of what tiles are and aren't drawn for each game? are players always taking record down on their play sheet for reference later? or are officials going around to record the tiles and play by plays of each game/video taping the event?

[@wanderer15]

Not a dumb question at all. Many players record the letters left over after each play in order to reconstruct the game afterwards and analyze more deeply. But not everyone does this. For example, Rik doesn't normally record his letters, hence the incomplete information we have for his tiles here. Weibin does, so much of the game is told from his point of view in the video as a result.

[@TopoVizio]

@@wanderer15 interesting, thanks for the thorough response!

[@weeb8812]

I would like to see a game between toh Weibin and Nigel Richards if there are any interesting ones!

[@samthorne3765]

Shoutout to Rik in this game proving that literally anybody, even a total amateur who only plays 4 letter words max, can go to a scrabble tournament!

[@wanderer15]

Rik is an extremely strong player in his own right and is one of very few players ever to defeat Scrabble's GOAT, Nigel Richards, in three consecutive games, which I describe here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/e4CnqYKeitR5osk

[@shanilmisra]

You should feature Khoshnaw's "caziques" game if you have any info on it. Wonder why he never exceeded 800?

[@hiimemily]

Margin of victory: 591. I think I've played maybe two games of Scrabble in my life with a combined score north of that.

[@bowlofwhiskey]

4:51 forkier was NOT A BINGO

[@wanderer15]

True. It was a little confusing how I showed it. I was attempting to explain that he bingoed on 5 of his last 6 turns, so I highlighted all 6 of those turns, including the one that was not a bingo in FORKIER.

[@bowlofwhiskey]

@@wanderer15 Oh, I see.

[@agr0nianTV]

Only ever played casually with my mom and siblings, but this was a very interesting video. I doubt these guys are allowed to have a dictionary on hand so their vocab knowledge is something else. I bet allot of spelling bee participants get into scrabble since seems like a natural progression. I'm also going to guess forfeiting and letting the opponent score high words is against the rules otherwise these records would probably be broken more often and would definitely take away from a record.

[@wanderer15]

The tiebreaker in most competitive Scrabble events is margin of victory, so players are incentivized to keep fighting to try and reduce your losing margin / maximize your winning margin. Not everybody likes this, though - fighting on in a hopeless game isn't the most fun.

[@Koroistro]

The fact that he's the GOAT should have been obvious, he uses VIM.

[@stephenwodz7593]

I feel your pain, Rik.

[@hungryburger1170]

There's a shocking lack of Scrabbleships being sunk and kwyjibos.

[@alexyalexers]

That one word was worth more points then the combined total of Rik’s points

[@magflop]

tghis is the best content ive ever watrched!

[@FemboichadClip]

hnstly so turue. Also lean to spel

[@magflop]

>:(((@@FemboichadClip

[@tim..indeed]

Imagine already losing by 250 points and then your opponent plays a casual 275 pointer

[@yuriys5642]

I thought from thumbnail he played Brexit and was wondering what rock has to do with it, so clicked on the video lol 😂

[@meme-ge8tq]

Watching this in 2x speed sounds like normal speed

[@wanderer15]

That bad, eh? Here I am thinking I'm going fast

[@tomfogle8173]

This was awesome! Quick question: When I saw Beauxite (!!) I just had to see for myself how the points came together, but I only (only, heh) count 225 pts. What am I missing in the scoring?

[@wanderer15]

Looks like your math is spot on, but don't forget that using all 7 of your tiles gives you 50 extra points! The overwhelming majority of the time, those 50 points will make up the bulk of those rack-clearing "bingo" plays, but in this very rare case, it just makes an already massive score slightly more massive.

[@tomfogle8173]

@wanderer15 Oh my goodness I totally goofed haha. Thanks for replying!

[@g09-dimaanoma.mikaelabarba53]

I'm going to play for a Scrabble contest in a few weeks. Wish me good luck!

[@wanderer15]

Good luck and have a great time!!!

[@xavilamarca2514]

I don't know why yt recommended me this video, probably because I watch Countdown videos but... hi Will! Greetings from Barcelona ^^

[@wanderer15]

Haha, hey man! Hope all is good with you!

[@pideperdonus2]

If it was over 900 then the Dragon Ball joke would have been better, but alas. That’s still impressive!

[@wanderer15]

Ah man, so true

[@Marcotonio]

The original in Japanese says "over 8000", and this is a non-American variant of the game too, so it checks out!

[@jkid1134]

4:48 Dude is winning Go and Scrabble at the same time (side note: somebody check if Go-Scrabble is a good variant)

[@Fiyaaaahh]

Has anyone done a computer search for the highest possible scoring board (no phonies)? That might make an interesting follow up video.

[@jakeholmes9296]

Wow what a game. fantastic video as usual.

[@LRXC1]

I love these videos so much

[@eaglewings8206]

If I’d be playing against top players, I wouldn’t want to put a letter in an open triple word lane.

[@wanderer15]

This game is certainly an example of the worst-case scenario of leaving those triple-lane letters open, but on the other hand, there's a reason games like this are so rare...all the games where players float letters in the triple lane and not that much comes of it don't make for as good videos :) In general, it's certainly true that if you can avoid it, you shouldn't open that way, but often, doing so will be the best way to score many more points than you might otherwise, or dump your worst letters all at once, etc.

[@NinjaRocc]

Hypothetically if i found something completly new would it be possible to name it for something really convenient in scrabble so it could be something that can get a massive point score

[@wanderer15]

Find a new element and name it QO please!

[@sunbun_12345]

Another great breakdown!!

[@roninouano6213]

How to win scrabble: be the whole English dictionary

[@JoshBreakdowns]

This seems close to a theoretical maximum considering Rik's statistically unlikely string of poor draws. Question: in Chess when one player falls wildly behind and continuing the game becomes pointless, that player usually just resigns. Are all Scrabble games always played to completion? Is it bad form to "resign" in Scrabble (if there is such a thing)?

[@wanderer15]

In tournament Scrabble, most of the time, the tiebreaker for players with equivalent numbers of wins is cumulative margin of victory ("spread"). You'll see this expressed by a number after your record: 5-0 +350 means you won all 5 of your games by a combined 350 points. Typically, in most games, you're expected to fight on to maximize your winning margin or reduce your losing margin as best you can to improve your odds of winning these tiebreakers. Not everybody loves this system, but it's what we have for now.

[@JoshBreakdowns]

@@wanderer15 makes sense. Thank you.

[@Slushea]

I feel like this whole thing was rik's doing as he couldn't stop drawing crap.

[@spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace]

what dictionary does nepal, bhutan and bangledesh use?

[@xhappybunnyx]

Give Rik a dang bingo 😢

[@rp1894]

good job on this video. good work.

[@fishyfishery]

I love how you tell how good a player is by seeing how well they did against nigel richards, this goes to show how great of a player he is edit: damn this comment was made by another guy already :/

[@wanderer15]

Still a good observation - we're still in the very early stages of everyday people knowing anything about the best competitive Scrabble players, but I think if people were to know one and only one Scrabble player, it's probably Nigel Richards, so the comparison carries weight in that way.

[@fishyfishery]

@@wanderer15your point stands strong, as a person not very informed about competitive scrabble nigel is the only player i actually know about, and thanks to the way you described the other players strength i think i understood how good they are

[@roryjohngates5313]

If I were Rik I would probably make opportunity to make Toh score higher, he was already down for too much score

[@gejyspa]

I'm a member of the 700 club (OWL). I got a 732-352 over Diana Grosman at club, with four bingos, two of which (OUTLINED and RUByLIKE) were triple-triples. But I can't even fathom getting 800. (my best tournament (in terms of 500+ games) was Wilmington Dec 2012, where I scored 5 games (out of 29) over 500 points, including one over 600.)

[@wanderer15]

700 is still massive - not sure I've done it myself!

[@keymaninmusic]

Excellent video!

[@xvrydo8649]

NO WAY DWAYNE THE ROCK JOHNSON DID I THIS

[@Narque]

never played scrabble before, yes it looks like you need skill in remembering the words and best placement for them but seems like at the end of the day this game comes down to RNG of the letters you pull when both players are of equal match.

[@davidz2690]

The amount of effort the US puts in to be different to the UK and the rest of the world is hilarious

[@maxandlily6074]

At the end I feel like people would’ve been screaming “STONIER. RIK PLAY STONIER” considering there is a spot for that

[@magicjack]

Lady luck was very much on one person's side and apparently angry with the other.