James Haughton

James Haughton octochamp statistics
Final position	Champion
Seeding	1
Points total	958
Conundrums solved	6

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 Championship of Champions XVI. At the time of his Series 81 appearances, he was a maths PhD student at the University of Manchester which he had finished by the time of his Championship of Champions appearances. He is also an Apterite and a member of c4countdown.

On-screen

Heat games

Haughton debuted on 16 July 2019 with a strong score of 118, including the nine-letter word of ROUTINISE.

He amazingly continued the rest of his high-scoring run, scoring centuries in all his games as well as spotting impressive nine-letter words and correctly spotting five conundrums.

He ultimately wrapped up his octorun with 958 points – the fifth-highest ever at the time – to become the second octochamp of the series and ultimately the No. 1 seed.

His maximum points tally of 1,134 was also the highest theoretical total available across an octorun, until it was bettered when James Burley became an octochamp.

Finals

In his quarter-final, Haughton played against 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 word spot of UNROASTED helped him finish the game with 147 points – the third-highest score ever at the time. Law did add an S to Haughton's offering of SAILING, denying Haughton from eclipsing the then-highest ever score of 152.

In his semi-final, Haughton went up against Morgan Sauer. Although both players missed deceptive numbers games of four large under pressure, Haughton scored in every round except the conundrum and added yet another eighteen points to his total with MEDIATION.

In the grand final, Haughton played against Jamie Wing. Both players scored in the first two letters rounds until Haughton solved the Round 3 numbers round to take the lead. Haughton then extended the gap to 25 points by spotting PERINEUM and beating Wing in the Round 6 numbers round. Both players then matched each other in the remaining rounds prior to the conundrum, and hilariously made complex solutions on the final rather easy Round 14 numbers round. Wing solved the conundrum to take his score to 95 and Haughton won the series with 110 points to achieve the Richard Whiteley Memorial Trophy and thus remained unbeaten. Haughton amassed 1,328 points across his xicount run of eleven 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 fourteen-week COVID-19 hiatus – Haughton is the longest-reigning series champion of Countdown, having retained the title for almost a full year (beating John Mayhew's record of almost eleven months).

Championship of Champions XVI

Haughton returned in January 2023 for Championship of Champions XVI.

His first opponent was Stu Harkness. In an excellent and very close match, Haughton slowly built up a 22-point lead with word spots like MOUTHIE and GALLOPER. But Harkness then played an ace when he spotted VOCALISES, that Haughton did not which all but wiped out Haughton's lead. This eventually led to the crucial conundrum of HYPESKILL that Haughton quickly unscrambled to SYLPHLIKE to seal a hard-fought victory, earn his twelfth century and preserve his unbeaten record.

In his quarter-final, he faced Adam Latchford. The match became a very cagey affair, with both players maxing out the first nine rounds. The only lead created was a word spot of the darrenic URANATE from Haughton but that ultimately proved to be the deciding factor after another horrible, and crucial conundrum of BMAPOLICY was left unsolved.

In his semi-final against Florence Cappleman-Lynes, Haughton created a sixteen-point lead with INCLINES and OSTALGIA. But after a mistake on the last numbers round, Florence was able to close the gap to force a third crucial conundrum in a row for Haughton. Neither player solved it which meant that Haughton triumphed with another century. His victory also guaranteed that someone would emerge from the Championship of Champions, an undefeated grand slam winner and the first since Graham Nash in 2003.

In the grand final against Ahmed Mohamed – Haughton fell behind early on but roared into his own fourteen-point lead with thanks to the brilliant word spots of BRAVURA, ABATISED and an excellent as-good-as-could-be solution to an impossible numbers game of four large. But Mohamed pulled himself back into range with his own brilliant word spot of MAGILUS, but the match went into the crucial conundrum with Haughton still ahead. Unfortunately for him, Mohamed buzzed in first by unscrambling SUITLAPEL to earn the title of the championship at the end of a ferocious contest and condemning Haughton to his only defeat along with his lowest score on the show which was still an excellent 96 points. His final points total was 1,744 with an average of roughly 116.3 per game.

Along with Elliott Mellor, he is one of two non-returnees to appear in editions with an audience pre-Championship of Champions XVI.

Appearances on other quiz shows

Haughton appeared on University Challenge on 3 August 2015 where he represented the University of Manchester with the team losing rather comprehensively to eventual semi-finalists, the University of York. He was a semi-finalist on Mastermind in 2017 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 on 6 March 2023, appearing in the last heat before the semi-finals. He took on the subject of Christiaan Huygens, scoring thirteen points in the specialist subject round but narrowly missed out on a spot in the semi-finals after a tiebreak. His next appearance was in 2025 as captain of the 5ks team (named after the 5 kilometre parkruns) on Only Connect, teaming up with Fiona Titcombe and Thomas Carey. They reached the final but ultimately lost to the Pitchers team with notably one of their members, Jonathan Gibson, having won Mastermind in 2021.

Co-events

Haughton began attending Co-events in 2018 and after rapid improvement, he won his first FOCAL event of CoNuT 2019 – all prior to his run on the show in July of the same year.

ZoomDown

In 2020 and 2021 – Haughton participated in Series 1, 2 and the special GoatZDown series of ZoomDown.

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