Patrick Thompson

Patrick Thompson octochamp statistics
Final position	TBC
Seeding	TBC
Points total	977
Conundrums solved	8

Patrick Thompson was a contestant in Series 72, and an octochamp in Series 93 from North Marston, Buckinghamshire. He is also an Apterite well-established in the Top 10 in the Pro Ranks, a former film extra, competitive amateur snooker player and keen quizzer in his spare time. In addition, he has officially qualified for the end-of-series finals in June.

Appearances

Series 72

The then father of one originally appeared back in 2015 against James Judge, who by coincidence would also eventually return in Series 93. In a relatively low-key debut, Patrick took the lead early on but unfortunately after Judge spotted INTERVALS and UNSEATED followed by an easy final numbers round, Thompson then officially fell at the first hurdle.

Series 93

Virtually 11 years later as now a father of three with considerably more time on Apterous under his belt, he returned and kicked off with a very impressive 14-max game (he would, rather amazingly, achieve this stat a further two times in his heats) against fellow Apterite and stiff competitor Tom Bashford. His debut century score of 115 was the best in the series to date, which also gave him the teapot he missed out on in his first appearance. He then followed that up with seven further brilliant performances, which were also all centuries, and arguably a part of one of the greatest octochamp runs ever seen; very much up-there with the likes of Jen Steadman, Dylan Taylor, Elliott Mellor and Ronan Higginson.

Of particular note, he spotted five of the six nine-letter-words available during his run; those being RETOOLING, INSTALLED, PALATINES, REMEDIATE and DEROGATES, with only the very obscure FOREWINGS eluding him. Some other notable letters spots (part one of the debatably best-ever letters performances from an octochamp) included PENSIONE, ECHELON, MONDIAL, PINETUM, BANDITO, BOHEMIAN, ISOTHERM and AMORETTO. His numbers ability as well, specifically his four-large heroics, was also extremely strong, despite some occasional mis-fires as perhaps one minor chink in his armour. After seeing off a very creditable effort from final challenger Simon Randall (a recurrant theme of Patrick's octorun), he certified his membership of the 900 club with a final total of 977, to soar past Luke Selway and take the No. 1 seed, with about four-and-a-half weeks of heats left to film.

Further noteworthy parts of Patrick's run include his matching of Dylan Taylor's stat for rounds maxed in an octorun with 101 out of 120, behind only Elliott Mellor. He also scored a massive 92.6% of available points in his octochamp run; one of the highest ever conversion rates recorded on Countdown. He also became only the fourteenth person ever to have solved all eight conundrums in their preliminary games, which saw him break Tom Carey's 10+ year record for the fastest time to solve them; he accomplished it in 13.15 seconds which was over 4.5 seconds faster than Maus's former record. Colin Murray then designated him the "Gazelle" as a final mark of his fantastic achievements to date.

Episodes

#	Date	Type	Contestant 1	Score	Contestant 2	Presenters				Guest	Lex	Max
6147	29/05/2015	P	Patrick Thompson	81 – 99	James Judge	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Gloria Hunniford	Susie Dent	134
8756	29/04/2026	P	Tom Bashford	80 – 115	Patrick Thompson	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Kate Bottley	Susie Dent	122
8757	30/04/2026	P	Patrick Thompson	105 – 68	Gavin Kitchingham	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Kate Bottley	Susie Dent	123
8758	01/05/2026	P	Patrick Thompson	124 – 41	Jack Bradley	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Kate Bottley	Susie Dent	135
8759	04/05/2026	P	Patrick Thompson	129 – 40	Helen Humby	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Nina Wadia	Susie Dent	146
8760	05/05/2026	P	Patrick Thompson	124 – 67	Scott Babb	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Nina Wadia	Susie Dent	135
8761	06/05/2026	P	Patrick Thompson	118 – 66	Simon Pitfield	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Nina Wadia	Susie Dent	126
8762	07/05/2026	P	Patrick Thompson	142 – 58	Danny Heery	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Nina Wadia	Susie Dent	143
8763	08/05/2026	P	Patrick Thompson	120 – 82	Simon Randall	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Nina Wadia	Susie Dent	124