Kirk Bevins

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Kirk Bevins
octochamp statistics
Final position Champion
Seeding 1
Points total 925
Conundrums solved 6
The Kirkulator during his first appearance, aged 17.
Kirk Bevins during the Series 60 grand final...
...and in 30th Birthday Championship.

Kirk Bevins was a contestant in Series 51, an octochamp in and the champion of Series 60, and a quarter-finalist in 30th Birthday Championship. Bevins was an extremely competitive player during the early Apterous era, having set the then-highest cumulative score across eight heat games and recording two max games.

Appearances on the show

Series 51

Bevins originally appeared on the show in February 2004. He played reasonably well though not brilliantly, and was beaten by eventual octochamp Richard Pay. In one round, he could only see shagman ☓ and comically guessed turroting ☓ for the conundrum.

Series 60

Due to his success at Co-events and online, Bevins reappeared on the show just over a half-decade later.

In his second debut, he set the record for the highest score from a challenger with 127 that beat Jonathan Coles' former record (it was later beaten by Hamish Williamson's 134 in the same series).

His second show was not a century – he fell to 97, including only solving one of the numbers games correctly.

His third show was the first ever max game in the 15-round era.

In his fourth game: he produced three nine-letter words and at one point, he could potentially have beaten Julian Fell's record of 146. But he missed BEHOVE and Peter Bennett controversially chose four large in the final numbers game, to leave Bevins with 130 points before the conundrum. Although he now couldn't beat Fell's record, solving the conundrum would have given him the then second-highest ever score of 140. But it was Bennett that got the conundrum.

Bevins' fifth to seventh games were all centuries: meaning that in his final heat game, he needed 113 to equal Fell's record of 924 or 114 to beat it. With the final numbers round and conundrum, he precisely got 114 and beat Fell's six-year record for an octorun by one point by solving the conundrum to secure his place in the show's history. The record stood until Andrew Hulme broke it with 930.

Finals

Returning for the finals as the No. 1 seed, Bevins faced Julie Russell in the first quarter-final. Although Russell played a very close battle (losing only two rounds before the conundrum), Bevins held his nerve and won by 25 points with thirteen maxed rounds.

His semi-final against Neil Zussman was an even fiercer battle, taking an eight-point lead early on before having it cancelled out by Zussman before the third half of the game. But Bevins unravelled the conundrum in under a second to progress to the grand final, where he won six rounds against Jimmy Gough to be crowned series champion in the final show recorded at The Leeds Studios in Yorkshire.

In the audience

On 10 November and 11 December 2009, Bevins was the audience member that solved the conundrum.

Special episode

In March 2010, Bevins took part in a special episode against Chris Davies to find the overall champion of 2009. In a close game with the lead changing places several times, Bevins finished victorious.

30th Birthday Championship

The Kirkulator (as he became known as on the show) returned to the show in 2013 as one of 41 contestants that took part in 30th Birthday Championship.

After receiving a bye to the first round, he won his first match against John Ashmore (which was also his and the show's second televised max game in the 15-round era).

He then played Innis Carson in a phenomenal match where Bevins won on a second conundrum, after he and Carson both incorrectly guessed the first one.

He was finally defeated in the quarter-finals by Conor Travers as the latter achieved a max game, making Bevins the first person to score a max game and lose to a max game.

Apterous tournaments

Bevins has been a prominent member of the online scene for several years, participating in numerous major tournaments and winning the first ever Goatdown championship against Conor Travers, the Apterous Winter Closed 2009 Championship Flight, and the Apterous Masters 2010.

For some time, he was ranked No. 1 on Apterous.

In February 2010, he became the No. 1 human player on there again when he overtook Craig Beevers' long-standing record.

Co-events

Bevins was a regular Co-event attendee when he made his debut at the first ever event, COLIN 2005. He also won COLIN 2010, CoLei3, COLIN 2011, COHUD and COHUD2.

Darts

Outside of Countdown, Bevins is a keen darts player.

He is one of the official match referees on the PDC circuit as of 2013, replacing Bruce Spendley. And has refereed major matches such as the finals of World Darts Championships as well as ten televised nine dart finishes, plus Michael Smith in the final of the 2023 World Darts Championship.

Appearances on quiz shows

Bevins appeared on Memory Bank and BrainTeaser in 2004, and The Weakest Link in 2008. In 2016, he appeared with a friend on The Code where he lost in controversial circumstances. In 2022, he won an episode of Eggheads. And on 6 July and 7 September 2023, he won episodes of Puzzling.

Preceded by
Junaid Mubeen		 Series winner
Series 60		 Followed by
Chris Davies

Episodes

# Date Type Contestant 1 Score Contestant 2 Presenters Guest Lex Max
3642 11/02/2004 P Richard Pay 90 – 69 Kirk Bevins Richard Whiteley Carol Vorderman Michael Aspel Susie Dent 111
4768 02/03/2009 P Ann Abel 54 – 127 Kirk Bevins Jeff Stelling Rachel Riley Dr Phil Hammond Susie Dent 130
4769 03/03/2009 P Kirk Bevins 97 – 67 Fiona Shaw Jeff Stelling Rachel Riley Dr Phil Hammond Susie Dent 116
4770 04/03/2009 P Kirk Bevins 126 – 47 Ben Nicholas Jeff Stelling Rachel Riley Dr Phil Hammond Susie Dent 126
4771 05/03/2009 P Kirk Bevins 130 – 55 Peter Bennett Jeff Stelling Rachel Riley Dr Phil Hammond Susie Dent 150
4772 06/03/2009 P Kirk Bevins 111 – 39 Barrie Robinson Jeff Stelling Rachel Riley Dr Phil Hammond Susie Dent 120
4773 09/03/2009 P Kirk Bevins 114 – 53 Anne Adams Jeff Stelling Rachel Riley Colin Murray Susie Dent 129
4774 16/03/2009 P Kirk Bevins 106 – 71 Ian Payn Jeff Stelling Rachel Riley Colin Murray Susie Dent 131
4775 17/03/2009 P Kirk Bevins 114 – 31 Rosie Owen Jeff Stelling Rachel Riley Colin Murray Susie Dent 129
4837 11/06/2009 QF Kirk Bevins 115 – 90 Julie Russell Jeff Stelling Rachel Riley John Stapleton Susie Dent 117
4841 17/06/2009 SF Kirk Bevins 98 – 88 Neil Zussman Jeff Stelling Rachel Riley Dr Phil Hammond Susie Dent 128
4843 19/06/2009 GF Jimmy Gough 59 – 102 Kirk Bevins Jeff Stelling Rachel Riley Dr Phil Hammond Susie Dent 115
S26 15/03/2010 S Chris Davies 77 – 81 Kirk Bevins Jeff Stelling Rachel Riley Gary Osborne Susie Dent 120
5634 01/02/2013 30B1 John Ashmore 92 – 130 Kirk Bevins Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Mark Foster Susie Dent 130
5645 18/02/2013 30B2 Innis Carson 102 – 112* Kirk Bevins Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Dr Phil Hammond Susie Dent 120
5650 25/02/2013 30BQF Conor Travers 119 – 94 Kirk Bevins Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Jenny Eclair Susie Dent 119
* includes 10 points from a tiebreak conundrum

External Links

  • Watch all of Bevins' Series 60 episodes here on YouTube.
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