Ben Hocking

Ben Hocking octochamp statistics
Final position	TBC
Seeding	TBC
Points total	862
Conundrums solved	5

Ben Hocking, ten years after his first appearance, in Series 92.

Ben Hocking was a contestant in Series 72, and an octochamp in Series 92 from Mevagissey in Cornwall. As of his first appearance, he was an undergraduate Business Management student at Bath Spa University and administrative assistant at the Eden Project.

As of his second set of games, Hocking ran and hosted his own Formula 1 podcast, Late Braking, and also worked as a client success manager until mid-2024 before fully committing his time to said podcast. He will almost certainly be back for the end-of-series finals in December.

Hocking is also an Apterite, and made an appearance on ZoomDown Series 4 in late 2021 between his appearances in Series 72 and 92.

Appearances

Series 72

Ben made his debut in 2015, where despite spotting REACTIONS for a nine, he fell short against incumbent champion Neil Stephenson, who would himself notably go on to lose to the series runner-up Tracey Mills despite Stephenson holding a 22-point lead with only four rounds to go.

Series 92

However, just over 10-and-a-half years later, Hocking came back for another go, and kicked off with a victory and a teapot, while maxing 13 rounds in the process against Abby Scott. He followed that up with seven further triumphs, with six additional centuries among them. His fourth game saw the only nine-letter-word spot in his heats of DOMINATES, but it is worth noting that he only had two others available; those being the rather obscure PRECISIAN and TELOPHASE respectively. In keeping with John Payne and Brett Davids's runs, he also had to face some difficult opponents during his heats, but avoided a crucial conundrum in every instance.

After getting past Steve Thurlow in his last preliminary with a seventh century to his name, Ben joined the 800 club with a final octotal of 862 and settled in as the provisional No. 2 seed for the finals, but with nearly four months of shows to still be broadcast. As a final nod to his achievements, he was christened the "Trick-or-Treat" by Colin and Rachel; his run was made all the more impressive given that he only had 999 points available to him across his heats (this to note is an unusually small eight-game possible points total in the 15-round format).

Episodes

#	Date	Type	Contestant 1	Score	Contestant 2	Presenters				Guest	Lex	Max
6068	20/01/2015	P	Neil Stephenson	107 – 74	Ben Hocking	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Tim Wonnacott	Susie Dent	123
8586	20/08/2025	P	Abby Scott	68 – 114	Ben Hocking	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Russell Watson	Susie Dent	116
8587	21/08/2025	P	Ben Hocking	97 – 74	Colin Jones	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Russell Watson	Susie Dent	131
8588	22/08/2025	P	Ben Hocking	110 – 60	Becky Kitchen	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Russell Watson	Susie Dent	124
8589	25/08/2025	P	Ben Hocking	113 – 97	Peter Jones	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Pat Nevin	Susie Dent	133
8590	26/08/2025	P	Ben Hocking	100 – 74	Charlotte Langham	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Pat Nevin	Susie Dent	119
8591	27/08/2025	P	Ben Hocking	111 – 83	Malcolm Major	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Pat Nevin	Susie Dent	120
8592	28/08/2025	P	Ben Hocking	114 – 33	Paul Kramer	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Pat Nevin	Susie Dent	133
8593	29/08/2025	P	Ben Hocking	103 – 47	Steve Thurlow	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Pat Nevin	Susie Dent	123