Mark Tournoff

Mark Tournoff octochamp statistics
Final position	Champion
Seeding	3
Points total	809
Conundrums solved	7

Mark Tournoff in the process of missing RETAILERS in his seventh game...

...and in the 30th Birthday Championship.

Mark Tournoff at COLIN 2008, signing copies of Crucial - A Champion’s Tale.

The cover of Tournoff's book, Crucial - A Champion’s Tale.

Mark Tournoff (born 1962) was an octochamp in and the champion of Series 52, the runner-up of Championship of Champions XII and a participant in the 30th Birthday Championship.

Tournoff remains an active member of the Countdown community. He has written a book about his experiences on the show, has taken part in several Co-events and is also an Apterite.

Appearances on the show

Heat games

Tournoff debuted on 15 November 2004, the game after Steven Moir became an octochamp. His career on the show had got off to a quiet start against fellow challenger, Margaret Boyle. Tournoff failed to score in the opening round after risking tremulo ☓, and was later denied one more when he offered SHORTED in a selection with the common eights of ASTEROID and HARDIEST. In spite of this, Tournoff still dominated the game and ran out the winner by 92 – 46.

In his second game against Brian Pulman, APRICOTS and GADROON helped Tournoff to amass the first of his five heat centuries.

His third game got off to the shakiest possible start, as his Round 1 offering of RANCID was eclipsed by Ronnie Boyd's offering of MANICURED. Incredibly, Tournoff eventually gained the upper hand with his nine-letter word offering of PRINTHEAD. His twelve-point advantage at the end of the first half had grown to a lead of 51 points by the end of the game, which Tournoff won by 111 – 60.

His fourth game against Samantha Latham was tighter than the final scoreline of 101 – 68 would suggest. Latham held her own on the numbers and even beat Tournoff in Round 14 but by beating her outright on five of the eleven letters games, Tournoff was guaranteed victory.

In his fifth game against John Crockett, Tournoff didn't find any spectacular words. However, he played with astonishing consistency by scoring in all fifteen rounds. He scored thirty out of thirty on the numbers and dropped just four points on the letters, and unravelled the apt conundrum of LIBRALINT to round off his brilliant performance.

Tournoff came slightly off the boil in his sixth game, dipping beneath the century mark for the first time in four games. However, he still won by a convincing 51-point margin.

Tournoff's penultimate heat match against Keith Jones saw the future champion fail to score in four rounds as well as missing RETAILERS and the conundrum of EARTHCLAD, putting in his worst score of 79 points.

In his final heat game against Diane Crews, Tournoff showed a rapid return to form by beating Crews in nine rounds with MALTOSE and PROFILER. The conundrum of LILAQGUNS rounded off his octorun with an octotal of 809.

Finals

In his quarter-final against John Gray, Tournoff was on impeccable form. He spotted LOFTINESS and EMIGRATED to total 138 points out of a possible 141. This is one of the best percentage scores ever recorded, and is the joint fourth-highest score in the old 15-round format.

In his semi-final against Jack Welsby, missing LIBRATES saw Tournoff go behind by eight points at the end of the first half. The second half looked likely to go Tournoff's way as he beat Welsby on three rounds in a row, by spotting VERONICAS along the way. However, Welsby fought back with PALMATE and a perfect numbers solution to reduce his arrears from 24 points to seven. The game stayed close and concluded with a crucial conundrum, wherein Tournoff unscrambled AMENUTREE to win by fifteen points and claim his place in the final.

Grand final

Standing between Tournoff and the leather-bound dictionaries was the impressive No. 1 seed, Paul Gallen. The final initially went to form, with Gallen beating Tournoff with FIACRES and MITOGENS but getting one away on the first numbers game allowed Tournoff to reduce the deficit to five points. During the second half, the players scored equally in every round that left Tournoff still five points down when going into the third half. In Round 12, Tournoff had internets ☓ disallowed – meaning that Gallen only needed to score in the next two rounds to ensure a non-crucial conundrum. But immediately after Gallen risked miriad ☓ when Tournoff declared MIKADO, the game was still on. Both players were one away on the final numbers round, leaving Tournoff trailing by 89 – 82 when going into the crucial conundrum. GREATDRIP was unveiled, and the game looked over as Gallen buzzed on 1.25 seconds. But Gallen gave no answer and with the remaining time running out, Tournoff buzzed in with the correct answer of PARTRIDGE to win the 52nd series by three points.

Tournoff was the first finalist to win a 15-round series without being the No. 1 seed.

Championship of Champions XII

Tournoff returned in Spring 2006 for Championship of Champions XII.

COASTLINE, EXORDIAL and IPOMOEA allowed him a comfortable win over Steve Graston.

He then faced Matthew Shore in a high scoring quarter-final with both players finding two nine-letter words and just ten points separating them after eleven rounds. Tournoff was leading 104 – 94, but came unstuck with two disallowed offerings. Both players solved the final numbers round to take the game to a crucial conundrum. Tournoff unravelled SILLYQUOO after one second, relegating his adversary to a losing score of 117 – the highest ever at the time until it was beaten by Andy Platt's 125. This game also held the record for the highest aggregate score (241) until it was beaten with 257 by Conor Travers and Jack Hurst on 1 March 2013.

Tournoff's semi-final was equally dramatic, with the turning point coming after thirteen rounds as Paul Howe's offering of formatise ☓ was disallowed. This ensured a crucial conundrum, which Tournoff solved to qualify for the Championship of Champions final.

In the final which was a rematch against Paul Gallen, both players impressed with all maximums across the first eleven rounds that included the impressive word spots of STARFISH and CELLARET. Gallen took the lead in Rounds 12 and 13 with TELECOM and DYSPNOEA respectively, staying on target for a max game. In something of a flashback to their series final, all Gallen needed to do was score on the final numbers game to avoid a crucial conundrum. He looked set to do so, with the target of 880 eluding both players but Gallen offering 882 to Tournoff's 876. However, he was unable to give a correct solution. This let Tournoff in, and he duly set up the two players' second crucial conundrum against one another. This time, Gallen made no mistake as he unscrambled PRONEPIPE in two seconds to take the twelfth Championship of Champions title. Both players stood on fourteen wins from fifteen games, their only defeats being to one another.

30th Birthday Championship

Tournoff returned in 2013, as one of 41 contestants that took part in the 30th Birthday Championship.

He won his first match against Nick Deller by 101 – 100, before losing to Conor Travers in a match where Travers maxed fourteen of the fifteen rounds.

After Countdown

Tournoff has since written a book about his experiences on Countdown, titled Crucial - A Champion’s Tale. The cover notably shows that the Countdown clock stopped at 27 seconds, the amount of time it took Tournoff to solve the conundrum in his series final.

He also regularly participates in Co-events. He won CoLei 2008. He became the runner-up in COLIN 2005 and CoBris 2006. He grabbed the wooden spoon at COLIN 2006 and COLIN 2007. He was placed fourth in COLIN 2008 and made the top ten at COLIN 2009, CoLei2, COLIN 2010 and CoLei3. He then attended COLIN 2011.

Preceded by Stewart Holden

Series winner Series 52

Followed by John Mayhew

Preceded by Chris Wills

Champion of Champions runner-up Championship of Champions XII

Followed by Charlie Reams

Episodes

#	Date	Type	Contestant 1	Score	Contestant 2	Presenters				Guest	Lex	Max
3816	15/11/2004	P	Margaret Boyle	46 – 92	Mark Tournoff	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Jeremy Beadle	Susie Dent	121
3817	16/11/2004	P	Mark Tournoff	105 – 71	Brian Pulman	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Jeremy Beadle	Susie Dent	121
3818	17/11/2004	P	Mark Tournoff	111 – 60	Ronnie Boyd	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Jeremy Beadle	Susie Dent	141
3819	18/11/2004	P	Mark Tournoff	101 – 68	Samantha Latham	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Jeremy Beadle	Susie Dent	129
3820	19/11/2004	P	Mark Tournoff	117 – 75	John Crockett	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Jeremy Beadle	Susie Dent	121
3821	22/11/2004	P	Mark Tournoff	95 – 44	Alan Gordon	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Daniel O'Donnell	Susie Dent	119
3822	23/11/2004	P	Mark Tournoff	79 – 46	Keith Jones	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Daniel O'Donnell	Susie Dent	130
3823	24/11/2004	P	Mark Tournoff	109 – 42	Diane Crews	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Daniel O'Donnell	Susie Dent	125
3836	13/12/2004	QF	John Gray	73 – 138	Mark Tournoff	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Richard Digance	Susie Dent	141
3839	16/12/2004	SF	Jack Welsby	73 – 88	Mark Tournoff	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Richard Digance	Susie Dent	126
3840	17/12/2004	GF	Mark Tournoff	92 – 89	Paul Gallen	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Richard Digance	Susie Dent	119
4113	29/05/2006	CP	Mark Tournoff	119 – 83	Steve Graston	Des Lynam	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Ron Atkinson	Susie Dent	131
4121	8/06/2006	CQF	Matthew Shore	117 – 124	Mark Tournoff	Des Lynam	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Ann Widdecombe	Susie Dent	136
4125	14/06/2006	CSF	Paul Howe	88 – 99	Mark Tournoff	Des Lynam	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Kim Woodburn	Susie Dent	126
4127	16/06/2006	CGF	Paul Gallen	111 – 93	Mark Tournoff	Des Lynam	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Kim Woodburn	Susie Dent	118
5619	11/01/2013	30BP	Mark Tournoff	101 – 100	Nick Deller	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Dave Myers	Susie Dent	119
5637	6/02/2013	30B1	Conor Travers	112 – 62	Mark Tournoff	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Kate Adie	Susie Dent	119

External Links

• Crucial - A Champion's Tale at Amazon.co.uk.
• A list of Tournoff's books at Forestdale Publications.