February's Featured Article
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Martin Gardner was an octochamp and semi-finalist in Series 49. Before appearing as a contestant on the show, Gardner had a prominent presence in the online Countdown community; he organised Countdown Advance (the forerunner to Hypercountdown on the Gevincountdown web forum, served as a moderator on this website, and ran the now-defunct Countdown fan site Countdown Update UK. After finding the address to send off for an application form on Ben Wilson's website, he applied for the televised show and was invited to an audition at the end of 2002.
Although he failed his audition, Gardner was invited to the studios as a replacement contestant after John Davies became an octochamp, leaving one seat vacated on 14 May 2003. In this opening game Gardner achieved his highest televised score of 107, with offerings including the eight-letter words ATOMISER and ACONITES; Martin found no nine-letter words during his appearances on the show. Seven more victories followed, including three further centuries.
Gardner returned to the series finals as #2 seed behind Davies, his forerunner in the heats. In his quarter-final, the eight letter word POTHEADS and conundrum SCOOPGREY helped Gardner to convincingly defeat Peter Jeffery by 101 points to 64. He faced David Wilson in the semi-final and went ahead after three rounds courtesy of the seven-letter word UPRATED. However, he was pegged back in the next round with MORGUES. Thereafter, David scored in every round apart from the conundrum and won the game 98-86. (more...)
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Today in Countdown History
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- A brief overview of Countdown and some of its records and terminology.
- The team: Colin Murray, Rachel Riley, and Susie Dent.
- The show's institutions: The conundrum, the pencam, and the Teatime Teaser.
- Harry Savage, the reigning series champion, and his series grand final against Viraj Seelam.
- The most recent Championship of Champions Final between James Haughton and Ahmed Mohamed.
- The 30th Birthday Championship final between Conor Travers and Jack Hurst.
- Richard Whiteley, Des Lynam, Des O'Connor, Carol Vorderman, Jeff Stelling, Nick Hewer and Anne Robinson - the show's former permanent presenters.
- The highest ever score: 154, achieved by Tom Stevenson in Episode 7860 and Cillian McMulkin in Episode 7943.
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Everyone can edit the Countdown Wiki, just register and then click the edit link at the top of any page (except this one!) and start editing. Here are some useful links:
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Other Countdown websites
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- Apterous, an online game from the same people that run this site.
- The Countdown Android App, created by Series 63 champion Jack Hurst.
- The Countdown Database, detailed statistics and round-by-round details of over 7,800 episodes.
- FOCAL, regular in-person events that anyone can enter.
- c4countdown, Countdown's main online forum, populated by many past octochamps.
- Quantum Tombola, a numbers game solver designed by Series 65 champion Graeme Cole.
- Greem, a website listing nearly all Co-event scores until early 2020.
- The Countdown Page, the original site of Countdown stats, by Mike Brown.
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Upcoming Countdown tournaments
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The full list of FOCAL tournaments for 2024 is here.
The next scheduled event is Countdown in Oxford on 15 June 2024.
Almost all online tournaments are now held on Apterous: the list of ongoing tournaments is here. |
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