Today, Brett Smitheram was named the World Scrabble Champion. He won the tournament with a 176-point word, The Guardian reports. What word that got him that remarkable number of points? "Braconid," which is "a small parasitic wasp."
Smitheram defeated his competitor, Mark Nyman, after three rounds. While the word earned him 176 points, he was also awarded five extra points for a failed challenge to the validity of the word by Nyman, for a total of 181 points.
Smitheram told The Guardian that he practiced up to two hours a day "revising words and playing games against a computer" to prepare for the competition. Now that he's won, the champ says he'll celebrate by taking a year off from Scrabble.
If bracnoid has inspired you to add some more high-point words to your Scrabble list, try the other words used in the final round: periagua, a canoe; variedly; sundri, a tree; and gynaecia, a flower.
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