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James Haughton

From Countdown
James Haughton
Octochamp Statistics
Final positionChampion
Seeding1
Points total958
Conundrums solved6
James Haughton in Series 81.
James Haughton holding the Richard Whiteley Memorial Trophy after winning Series 81.

James Haughton was an octochamp in and the champion of Series 81, and the runner-up of the Championship of Champions XVI. At the time of his Series 81 games, he was a Maths Ph.D. Student at the University of Manchester, which he had finished by the time of his CoC appearances; he is also an Apterite.

Co-events and on screen

Heat games

Haughton began attending Co-events in 2018, and after rapid improvement, he won his first FOCAL event, CoNuT in 2019 – all prior to his run on the show in July of the same year, in which he began his run with a strong début score of 118 and a spot of the nine-letter word ROUTINISE. He then continued a high-scoring run, scoring centuries in all his games, spotting impressive nine-letter words and unravelling 6 conundrums correctly. He ultimately wrapped up his run with 958 points – the 5th-highest ever at the time – to become the second octochamp of the series and ultimately the number 1 seed.

Finals

Nearly 5 months later, Haughton returned for the finals against number 8 seed David Law. Haughton thundered off into a 46-point lead after the opening three rounds by spotting two nines – NEFARIOUS and MONRADITE – and maxing the first numbers round. Another nine letter spot of the word UNROASTED helped him finish the game with 147 points – the third-highest score ever at the time – therefore booking a spot in the semi-finals. Law did add an S to Haughton's offering of SAILING, though, denying Haughton from eclipsing the then highest ever score of 152. Haughton then battled Morgan Sauer in the semi-final. Although both players missed deceptive 4-large games under pressure, Haughton scored in every round except the conundrum and added yet another 18 points to his total with MEDIATION to advance to the Grand Final.

In the ultimate show of the series, Haughton played against number 2 seed Jamie Wing. Both players scored in the first two letters rounds until Haughton solved the first difficult numbers round to take the lead. Haughton then extended the gap to 25 points by finding PERINEUM and beating Wing in a 6-small numbers game. Both players then matched each other in the remaining rounds prior to the conundrum, and hilariously made complex solutions on the final rather easy numbers game. Wing solved the conundrum to take his score to 95 and Haughton won the series with 110 points to receive the Richard Whiteley Memorial Trophy and thus remained unbeaten. Haughton amassed 1,328 points across his Xicount run of 11 wins – at the time, the second-highest total ever accrued after Zarte Siempre.

As a result of the following series being extended to December after a 14-week COVID-19 hiatus, Haughton is the longest-reigning series champion of Countdown, having retained the title for almost a full year.

Championship of Champions XVI

Haughton returned just over three years later for Championship of Champions XVI in January 2023, where his first opponent was Stu Harkness. In an excellent and very close matchup, James slowly built up a 22-point advantage with spots like MOUTHIE and GALLOPER. But, Harkness then played an ace when he spotted VOCALISES for 9, and Haughton did not, which all but wiped out James's lead. This eventually led the match to a crucial conundrum HYPESKILL which James quickly unscrambled to SYLPHLIKE to seal a hard-fought victory, earn his twelfth century, and preserve his unbeaten record going into the quarter-finals.

In that round, he faced fellow unbeaten player Adam Latchford, and the match became a very cagey affair, with both players maxing out the first 9 rounds. The only lead created was a spot of the darrenic URANATE from Haughton, but that ultimately proved to be the deciding factor after another horrible, and crucial conundrum BMAPOLICY was left unsolved. This propelled James onto the semi-finals, and into a face-off with Florence Cappleman-Lynes.

In their semi-final, Haughton created a sixteen-point lead through INCLINES and OSTALGIA, but after a mistake on the last numbers round, Florence was able to close the gap enough to force a third crucial conundrum in a row for James. Neither player solved it, which meant James triumphed with another century, albeit with his lowest score to date on the show. His victory also guaranteed that someone would emerge from CoC an undefeated Grand Slam winner.

In the Grand Final, Haughton fell behind early on but roared into his own 14-point lead thanks to the brilliant spots of BRAVURA, ABATISED, and an excellent as-good-as-could-be solution to an impossible 4L numbers game. Ahmed though pulled himself back into range with his own brilliant play of MAGILUS, but the match went into a crucial conundrum with Haughton still ahead. Unfortunately for him, Ahmed buzzed in first unraveling SUITLAPEL to PULSATILE, clinching the championship at the end of a ferocious contest, and condemning James to his only defeat, along with his lowest score on the show, which was still an excellent 96 points. His final points total was 1744, with an average of roughly 116.3 per game.

Appearances on quiz shows

Outside of Countdown, Haughton previously appeared on University Challenge where he represented the University of Manchester in 2015. In 2017, he was a semi-finalist on Mastermind, and in that year he was also on a winning team on Eggheads. He also partook in the 66th series of Brain of Britain in 2019. He reappeared on Mastermind in 2023, appearing in the last heat before the semi-finals. He took on the subject of Christiaan Huyens, scoring 13 points in the specialist subject round, but narrowly missed out on a spot in the semi-finals after a tie-break.

Preceded by
Dinos Sfyris
Series winner
Series 81
Followed by
Luke Johnson-Davies


Preceded by
Bradley Horrocks
Champion of Champions runner-up
Championship of Champions XVI

Episodes

# Date Type Contestant 1 Score Contestant 2 Presenters Guest Lex Max
7118 16/07/2019 P James Haughton 118 – 41 Patrick Coombes Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Michaela Strachan Susie Dent 158
7119 17/07/2019 P James Haughton 103 – 50 Darren Rampton Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Rory Bremner Susie Dent 120
7120 18/07/2019 P James Haughton 133 – 31 Sonia Elston Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Rory Bremner Susie Dent 156
7121 19/07/2019 P James Haughton 125 – 20 Ryan Williams Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Rory Bremner Susie Dent 144
7122 22/07/2019 P James Haughton 134 – 30 Iain Sime Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Rory Bremner Susie Dent 150
7123 23/07/2019 P James Haughton 114 – 30 Rob Payne Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Rory Bremner Susie Dent 143
7124 24/07/2019 P James Haughton 118 – 51 Katrina Bond Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Rory Bremner Susie Dent 133
7125 25/07/2019 P James Haughton 113 – 16 Frank Coma Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Paul Sinha Susie Dent 130
7225 12/12/2019 QF James Haughton 147 – 60 David Law Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Jon Culshaw Susie Dent 166
7229 18/12/2019 SF James Haughton 113 – 79 Morgan Sauer Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Jon Culshaw Susie Dent 131
7231 20/12/2019 GF James Haughton 110 – 95 Jamie Wing Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Tim Vine Susie Dent 125
7925 05/01/2023 CP Stu Harkness 97 – 111 James Haughton Colin Murray Rachel Riley Richard Osman Susie Dent 134
7933 17/01/2023 CQF James Haughton 109 – 102 Adam Latchford Colin Murray Rachel Riley Rick Edwards Susie Dent 121
7934 18/01/2023 CSF Florence Cappleman-Lynes 91 – 100 James Haughton Colin Murray Rachel Riley Rick Edwards Susie Dent 122
7936 20/01/2023 CGF James Haughton 96 – 99 Ahmed Mohamed Colin Murray Rachel Riley Rick Edwards Susie Dent 124


Championship of Champions Runners-Up

I : Joyce Cansfield | II : Peter Evans | III : David Trace | IV : Tony Vick | V : Gino Corr | VI : Chris Waddington | VII : Damian Eadie | VIII : Kenneth Michie | IX : Pete Cashmore | X : Kate Ogilvie | XI : Chris Wills | XII : Mark Tournoff | XIII : Charlie Reams | XIV : Dan McColm | XV : Bradley Horrocks | XVI : James Haughton