> He is widely believed to have memorized the entire international-English Scrabble lexicon, more than 280,000 words

Definitely helps.

> Nigel extended ZAP to ZAPATEADOS

My problem is I try to extend the word rather than create new words. So I'd look for zapped, unzapped, zapping, etc. Actually, if I had 'ATEADOS', I would waste my time looking for a 7 letter word ending in S.

> Nigel placed all of his letters between the P and TED, spelling out PERNOCTATED and turning NON into ANON. The play tallied 92 points.

Now that is genuinely impressive.

I wish scrabble had platforms as widely available and free as chess does.