A FORMER Scrabble champion from Knutsford will travel to Perth in Australia, to take part in a global competition in the hope of being crowned the best Scrabble player in the world.

48-year-old Mark Nyman, who was the first British player to win the World Scrabble Championship in 1993, will now pit himself against some of the most fearsome international competitors in a gruelling tournament of 40 games.

Mark found out about that he was eligible for the competition last week, after coming first in the British Matchplay Championship.

He will travel to Perth in November in the hope of beating global superstar and three time champion Nigel Richards to the title.

Mark said: “I am going to have to put some serious work in because there’s a new dictionary that has now come out with new words to learn that I am going to have to get my head around between now and November.

“I haven’t done anything for over a year. A lot of the top players actually take breaks from Scrabble for a year or so because the whole thing can become a bit mind-blowing.”

Mark is going to have to brush up on thousands of words in preparation for the competition, including a few unexpected new additions.

“There are some ridiculous new words,” he said. “The word 'obvs' is in there, as in obvious. There are a few that have come through that are just text speak. Luckily LOL hasn’t made it in yet so they haven't gone too far with it.”

“Nigel Richards will be the one to beat. He got so bored of beating everyone he decided to learn French and play in the French speaking championship.

“He spent seven weeks learning French and then he won.

“There’s two main elements to playing Scrabble. One is strategy, which comes with experience which I have because I have been playing for 34 years. Then there’s vocabulary.

“I can get by on my strategy but to have a realistic chance of winning the World Championship I’m going to have to study thousands of words.”

Mark is hoping to travel to Australia around November 1 in order to acclimatise before the championship which takes place from November 4 to 8.