When Nigel Peltier sees a group of eight letters, he begins thinking of words in the Scrabble dictionary.
And now after more than eight years of playing Scrabble, the mechanical engineering sophomore’s wordplay skills have earned him a world record.
About three weeks ago at the 25th annual Phoenix Scrabble Tournament in Ahwatukee, Peltier and Laurie Cohen, founder of the Tempe Scrabble Club, together scored 1,127 points.
The previous Guinness record is 1,108 points.
Cohen, director of institutional research at Scottsdale Community College, scored 725 points, and Peltier scored 402.
“It’s a weird feeling, because it’s very cool, but on the other hand, I had the losing score,” Peltier said.
The two are both members of the Tempe club, so they have faced each other before.
“He’s a very smart player, very analytical,” Cohen said.
And Cohen said she was glad Peltier was her opponent in the record-breaking game.
“He’s an up-and-coming player,” Cohen said. “He’s known to be very good and plays a great game.”
Peltier’s love for the game started early, he said, and he got it from his dad.
“My dad grew up playing as a kid, so he’s a big Scrabble enthusiast, he said.
Once he started getting better and scoring more points, he became captivated by the game, Peltier said.
Peltier started playing when he was 10 years old in Seattle. In middle school, he met a classmate who played Scrabble often, too. Once they were in high school, the friends’ love for the game grew, he said.
“We would play a lot — after school every day for about two years,” Peltier said.
And when Peltier’s friend entered a tournament, Peltier also became interested in playing Scrabble competitively.
“Then I did [a tournament], and I was hooked.” Peltier said.
The friends were competitive and learned from one another.
“It was a competition — we both kept studying and getting better,” Peltier said. “Now both of us are top players in the country.”
After he started playing in tournaments, Peltier convinced his dad to also play Scrabble competitively. After his dad started playing in tournaments, Peltier’s grandmother also joined the competitive Scrabble world.
“It worked in reverse order,” Peltier said, since his grandmother taught his father to play, and his father taught him.
Peltier said he has played in about 40 tournaments so far, including the national tournament last year, he said, where he placed seventh.
To prepare for tournaments and games, Peltier said he quizzes himself on groups of letters that make up words, so when a group of letters come up in game play, he is able to immediately recognize the jumbled letters.
“I’ve learned about 20,000 seven- and eight-letter words,” he said, though there are about 50,000 such words in the Scrabble dictionary.
“I study [words] by probability — the ones that have the most common letters in them,” Peltier said.
Peltier is now focused on the national tournament this August in Ohio. He said that he knows at least 10 to 20 players who are going to be there will be at his level or better.
“Everyone has a shot. Now I’ve set myself up; I’ve gotten good enough, so I’m also one of those people who has a shot,” Peltier said.
When he started playing Scrabble, Peltier said he never dreamed he would eventually grow to be a championship Scrabble player.
“I never anticipated this,” Peltier said. “I just always knew I could do better [in the game].”
And his father, Mark Peltier, said he knew that Nigel would flourish in whatever he did.
“He has always been really smart and good with words,” he said,
He added his son’s intelligence is not what he’s most proud of, though.
“When he plays, he’s poised and he is a gentlemen,” Mark said. “That’s an important thing. That’s what makes me proud.”
Reach the reporter at abigail.gilmore@asu.edu.
