Chris Wills

Chris Wills Octochamp Statistics
Final position	Champion
Seeding	1
Points total	875
Conundrums solved	7

Chris Wills in 2003...

...and ten years later in the 30th Birthday Championship!

Chris Wills alongside Mark Tournoff at COLIN 2005.

Chris Wills was an octochamp in and the champion of Series 47, runner-up of Championship of Champions XI and a participant in the 30th Birthday Championship.

Appearances on the programme

Heat games

He began his rise to fame in Series 47, debuting on the 14 January 2002. He won his first seven games with centuries (including a 120 – 107 thriller against Terry Rattle) but won his last game with 92, missing out on the opportunity to be the first all-centuries octochamp. His total of 875 points was the twelfth highest of the old 15 round format. He also became the first player to score over 125 points during his game with April Carlin.

In the middle of his run was a classic game against Terry Rattle. Wills was leading 100 – 79 going into the last letters game, where Chris played REACHING to Rattle's CHAGRINED, which Rattle declared as "very dodgy". Dictionary Corner okayed the word and after both players scored 10 points in the final numbers game, it was a crucial conundrum 110 – 107 in Wills' favour. The conundrum LINGOFLOW revealed itself and Wills buzzed in with FOLLOWING before the first second had elapsed. Wills was therefore the highest-scoring octochamp to have had a crucial conundrum game during their run until surpassed by Mark Murray in Series 70. Rattle's 107 was the highest losing score in the 15-round era until David Williams scored 111, also against Chris Wills.

Series finals

Having totted up a record 875 points, he returned for the series finals as No. 1 seed, beating first Brenda Jolley in the quarter-finals 110 – 86 and then Rupert Stokoe in the semi-finals 118 – 78. In the final he faced the excellent Tom Hargreaves, and beat him comfortably to take the series.

Championship of Champions XI

He returned for Championship of Champions XI at the beginning of 2003, and was drawn against the masterful David Williams, holder of the 9-round octochamp record. The game was a classic, with Wills emerging victorious with 113 to Williams' 111. In the quarter-finals, he faced the popular Loz Sands, and won comfortably but without a century. A semi-final score of 120 against John Rawnsley saw him comfortable into the final, where he was strong favourite to beat Graham Nash. The match was not as explosive as hoped, and the crucial conundrum was revealed with the scores at 79 – 73 in Nash's favour. Neither player could solve OVERSPADE, so Nash took the CoC trophy and Wills was beaten at last.

Special Episodes

Many fans had expected Wills to face Julian Fell in the CoC final, but Fell had been knocked out early on by Nash. To appease fans, a special "Fell vs Wills" episode was filmed in March 2003 and broadcast on 12 September 2003. Wills was beaten again; this time, Fell was forced to come from behind, but solved the tricky conundrum VICTORIUS in just a few seconds to take the game.

Wills returned for a second special episode on 2 November 2007 for Countdown's 25th anniversary special against Conor Travers, playing a to slightly shorter round format with celebrities selecting the letters and numbers, but lost the game 69 – 58.

30th Birthday Championship

He returned to Countdown in 2013, as one of 41 contestants taking part in the 30th Birthday Championship. After receiving a bye to the first round, he won his first match against Series 59 semi-finalist Martin Bishop by a score of 102 – 99, despite behind for the majority of the game. He then met his match in round 2, losing to the still unbeaten Series 63 champion Jack Hurst by a score of 115 – 70.

In his 19 game Countdown career, including the 25th anniversary special, he scored 1,939 points. 1,881 not including the aforementioned game — an average of 104.5 points per game.

Co-events

Wills has been a regular at unofficial Countdown tournaments, winning COBRIS in 2006 and 2007. He also attended COLIN events in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008, winning the first three of those too. He is consistently rated as one of the top players, and is one of the few players ever to be rated over 1000.

Appearances on quiz shows

Wills has also appeared on Fifteen to One, The Weakest Link (which he won), BrainTeaser (which he also won, but failed to take any prize money), Mastermind, 1 vs 100, A Question of Genius (on which he won £5,000 with his knowledge of The Smiths), Pointless and PopMaster.

He currently works at the University of Leeds, in the Department of Health Studies.

Preceded by Ben Wilson

Series winner Series 47

Followed by Julian Fell

Preceded by Kate Ogilvie

Champion of Champions runner-up Championship of Champions XI

Followed by Mark Tournoff

Episodes

#	Date	Type	Contestant 1	Score	Contestant 2	Presenters				Guest	Lex	Max
3166	14/01/2002	P	Jeremy Slaney	66 – 107	Chris Wills	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Kathryn Apanowicz	Susie Dent	153
3167	15/01/2002	P	Chris Wills	118 – 44	Floraidh Campbell	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Kathryn Apanowicz	Susie Dent	127
3168	16/01/2002	P	Chris Wills	103 – 68	Jeff Baines	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Kathryn Apanowicz	Susie Dent	123
3169	17/01/2002	P	Chris Wills	129 – 77	April Carlin	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Kathryn Apanowicz	Susie Dent	131
3170	18/01/2002	P	Chris Wills	103 – 47	David Shaw	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Kathryn Apanowicz	Susie Dent	120
3171	21/01/2002	P	Chris Wills	120 – 107	Terry Rattle	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Tim Rice	Susie Dent	152
3172	22/01/2002	P	Chris Wills	103 – 48	Len Barker	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Tim Rice	Susie Dent	139
3173	23/01/2002	P	Chris Wills	92 – 52	Agnes Budis	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Tim Rice	Susie Dent	140
3273	20/06/2002	QF	Chris Wills	110 – 86	Brenda Jolley	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Geoffrey Durham	Susie Dent	120
3277	26/06/2002	SF	Rupert Stokoe	78 – 118	Chris Wills	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Richard Digance	Damian Eadie	130
3279	28/06/2002	GF	Tom Hargreaves	67 – 110	Chris Wills	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Richard Digance	Damian Eadie	129
3391	7/01/2003	CP	Chris Wills	113 – 111	David Williams	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Martin Jarvis	Susie Dent	131
3398	16/01/2003	CQF	Chris Wills	98 – 69	Loz Sands	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Tim Rice	Susie Dent	132
3402	22/01/2003	CSF	Chris Wills	120 – 88	John Rawnsley	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Eric Knowles	Susie Dent	132
3404	24/01/2003	CGF	Chris Wills	73 – 79	Graham Nash	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Eric Knowles	Susie Dent	106
S12	12/09/2003	S	Julian Fell	100 – 92	Chris Wills	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman					Bob Bevan	Alison Heard	123
4473	2/11/2007	S	Chris Wills	58 – 69	Conor Travers	Des O'Connor	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	none	Alison Heard	110
5627	23/01/2013	30B1	Martin Bishop	99 – 102	Chris Wills	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Margaret Mountford	Susie Dent	124
5643	14/02/2013	30B2	Chris Wills	70 – 115	Jack Hurst	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Ken Bruce	Susie Dent	119

See Also

• Chris Wills on Wikipedia.
• His own record of his Countdown experience, on The Countdown Page.
• Archive version of his Countdown website