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Dylan Taylor

From Countdown
Dylan Taylor
octochamp statistics
Final position Runner-up
Seeding 1
Points total 974
Conundrums solved 5
Dylan Taylor in the Series 69 grand final...
...and just over two years later in Championship of Champions XIV.

Dylan Taylor was an octochamp in and the runner-up of Series 69, as well as the winner of Championship of Champions XIV. As of his TV appearances, he was from Cheshire. He is one of the most talented and consistently high-scoring contestants ever, due to his exceptional vocabulary, solutions to difficult numbers games, and lightning-fast conundrum spots.

Away from Countdown, Taylor likes to keep fit and trains for half marathons. He and his mother are from Honduras, but moved with his family to the UK in 1998 after Hurricane Mitch devastated the nation. This also likely makes him the first Championship of Champions winner born outside the British Isles.

Appearances on the programme

Heat games

Taylor first appeared on 6 August 2013 as a 17-year-old against future Series 78 and Championship of Champions XV winner Zarte Siempre, and showed strong word knowledge with findings of SARDIUS and PATRONNE. He was one point off a max game in his impressive début. In an octochamp run that never looked in doubt, he continued to show his strong word knowledge with AMORETTI, ELASIPOD and SEPTARIUM and solved difficult numbers games (particularly in six-small number selections) in spectacular fashion to seal crushing victories. Remarkably, all his wins but one included scores of 120 or above.

Taylor set numerous records en route to becoming octochamp: his cumulative octochamp total was a record 974 points, beating the previous record set by the Series 68 champion Giles Hutchings by nine points. He also recorded the highest number of maxes during an octorun with 101 out of 120 maxes, beating the Series 64 champion Edward McCullagh's best by five maxes. His aggregate winning margin over his eight preliminary games was 628, an improvement on the previous record held by Andy Platt. Taylor was also the show's highest scoring numbers player based on preliminary games, scoring 311 points in 32 numbers games during his heat run. All of these records would be broken by Series 80 runner-up Elliott Mellor in 2019.

Finals

Taylor returned to the show for quarter-finals as number one seed against Gemma Church. He faced difficult letter selections, but maxed every round except the conundrum to win with a series low of 108. His semi-final against Bradley Cates was a tougher battle but he came through and earned a place in the grand final with a score of 121 against Cates's 103 despite missing another conundrum. However, Taylor lost by a score of 116 (the then highest losing score in a series final) to non-octochamp, Callum Todd's 126 (the then highest winning score in a series final) in a thrilling grand final which also recorded the then highest combined score in a series final (excluding the 30th Birthday Championship). In the game, Taylor maxed the first round with TERATOMA, then Todd immediately equalised with SOUVENIR, giving them one max and eight points each. Both went on the max every round prior to a crucial conundrum. This time, the conundrum proved to be Taylor's downfall, as Todd solved IHURTPALM in five seconds to become the first non-octochamp to win a series since viscount, Ben Wilson, won the first 15-round series, Series 46. Nonetheless Taylor totalled an outstanding 1,319 over his 11 appearances, the then highest ever xicount total achieved in a single series.

Championship of Champions XIV

Taylor returned to the show again in 2016, as one of 16 participants in Championship of Champions XIV, facing off against Tracey Mills in the preliminaries. Here, he proved to have lost none of his edge – Taylor maxed all but one of the letters rounds (putting in such impressive spots as PARIETAL and MOUTHER), beat Mills on a tricky four-large numbers round, and wrapped up by solving the conundrum SURLYVICE in just over one second to net 120 points out of a possible 124. Taylor's next opponent, in the quarter-finals, was Series 68 runner-up Andy Platt. In this episode, both players were dead level on the max score up until the third numbers game, when Taylor made a 10-point breakaway after an error by Platt. Platt regained the lead three rounds later by way of the nine URNFIELDS, but Taylor remained in contention with the score standing 125 – 117 to Platt going into the crucial conundrum. Taylor then solved MINUTEPUN in three-quarters of a second, relegating Platt to the show's highest-ever losing score and also setting up the then highest joint score ever achieved in the new 15-round format. Taylor hereby advanced to a semi-final against Giles Hutchings, setting up a clash between the two highest scoring octochamps by heat game totals in the show's history at the time.

In the semi-final, Hutchings and Taylor matched each other in all the first 14 rounds (a first in Countdown history), before Taylor solved the conundrum TEARCLOTH to win the match 118 – 108. In the grand final, he played Series 71 champion Dan McColm, and after establishing a 25 point lead after six rounds, McColm pegged him back thanks to the nine METACONID. They would remain seven points apart up until the crucial conundrum where, after 1.5 seconds, Taylor unravelled NICETASTY into INTESTACY to become the fourteenth Champion of Champions.

Co-events

Taylor is also an Apterite and made his Co-event debut at CoChest in 2011. He won his first event at CoChest2 in 2012, beating Series 66 champion, Jack Worsley, in the grand final, and has won numerous tournaments since.

Preceded by
Andy Platt
Series runner-up
Series 69
Followed by
Andy Naylor
Preceded by
Steve Briers
Champion of Champions
Championship of Champions XIV
Followed by
Zarte Siempre

Episodes

# Date Type Contestant 1 Score Contestant 2 Presenters Guest Lex Max
5744 06/08/2013 P Zarte Siempre 81 – 120 Dylan Taylor Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Dan Walker Susie Dent 121
5745 07/08/2013 P Dylan Taylor 124 – 30 David Howard Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Dan Walker Susie Dent 146
5746 08/08/2013 P Dylan Taylor 121 – 67 Tony Izzard Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Dan Walker Susie Dent 132
5747 09/08/2013 P Dylan Taylor 113 – 47 Dominic James Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Gloria Hunniford Susie Dent 122
5748 12/08/2013 P Dylan Taylor 122 – 55 Mark O'Regan Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Gloria Hunniford Susie Dent 135
5749 13/08/2013 P Dylan Taylor 129 – 22 Leone Mitchell Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Gloria Hunniford Susie Dent 143
5750 14/08/2013 P Dylan Taylor 124 – 27 Mike Thompson Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Gloria Hunniford Susie Dent 126
5751 15/08/2013 P Dylan Taylor 121 – 17 Russ Millhouse Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Gloria Hunniford Susie Dent 125
5833 12/12/2013 QF Dylan Taylor 108 – 76 Gemma Church Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Dan Walker Susie Dent 118
5837 18/12/2013 SF Dylan Taylor 121 – 103 Bradley Cates Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Richard Madeley Susie Dent 133
5839 20/12/2013 GF Dylan Taylor 116 – 126 Callum Todd Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Richard Madeley Susie Dent 134
6281 07/01/2016 CP Dylan Taylor 120 – 73 Tracey Mills Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Gloria Hunniford Susie Dent 124
6287 15/01/2016 CQF Andy Platt 125 – 127 Dylan Taylor Nick Hewer Rachel Riley John Inverdale Susie Dent 145
6290 20/01/2016 CSF Giles Hutchings 108 – 118 Dylan Taylor Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Naga Munchetty Susie Dent 122
6292 22/01/2016 CGF Dylan Taylor 121 – 104 Dan McColm Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Naga Munchetty Susie Dent 154

External Links


Championship of Champions Winners

I : Mark Nyman | II : Clive Freedman | III : Harvey Freeman | IV : Nic Brown | V : Tim Morrissey | VI : Wayne Summers | VII : Don Reid | VIII : Chris Rogers | IX : Natascha Kearsey | X : Scott Mearns | XI : Graham Nash | XII : Paul Gallen | XIII : Steve Briers | XIV : Dylan Taylor | XV : Zarte Siempre | XVI : Ahmed Mohamed