Daniel Face

Daniel Face octochamp statistics
Final position	Quarter-finalist
Seeding	4
Points total	854
Conundrums solved	5

Daniel Face in Series 93.

Daniel Face was an octochamp and quarter-finalist in Series 93. He was a senior reporter specialising in digital news from Wokingham, Berkshire and is also an Apterite.

Heat games

Daniel unseated Sean Haughey on his debut, winning by 35 points and then followed this with seven further victories which included five centuries among them. Of particular note that while he fell behind in the opening round of his fifth game, he clawed his way back by winning seven of the rounds after that to escape a crucial conundrum. He found excellent form in his sixth game by maxing eleven rounds, and spotted his first nine-letter word of DETONATES during his seventh game.

He wrapped up with a personal best of 123 in his eighth victory; despite being only nine points ahead after Round 6, he maxed the remaining nine rounds of which one of them was his second nine-letter word of IRRIGATED. This made him the second octochamp in the first sixteen episodes of Series 93, and he was also the first non-returning contestant since Rob Barkess in August 2024 to average over 100 points across eight heat games.

Finals

Just under five months later and as part of a very strong series, he returned as the fourth seed to play Ian Kinsella for a very evenly matched affair. Daniel broke first when he cracked the first numbers round although Kinsella was closer in the next one and later, both of them pulled out an excellent nine-letter-word spot of ESTUARINE. The critical moment came just after Origins of Words where Daniel took an unfortunate punt on ☓ optioners, while Kinsella had TROOPIES to take a five-point lead. This was preserved until the crucial conundrum of DAVESCENE which neither of them unscrambled to EVANESCED. Despite scoring a sixth century and maxing ten rounds, Daniel was therefore knocked out of Series 93 with a grand total of 956 points from his nine appearances.

Episodes

#	Date	Type	Contestant 1	Score	Contestant 2	Presenters				Guest	Lex	Max
8682	15/01/2026	P	Sean Haughey	58 – 93	Daniel Face	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Mark Durden-Smith	Susie Dent	120
8683	16/01/2026	P	Daniel Face	110 – 62	David Jackson	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Mark Durden-Smith	Susie Dent	130
8684	19/01/2026	P	Daniel Face	114 – 40	Maggie O'Brien	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Jo Good	Susie Dent	139
8685	20/01/2026	P	Daniel Face	95 – 56	Jamie Gray	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Jo Good	Susie Dent	120
8686	21/01/2026	P	Daniel Face	90 – 63	Stuart Tarrant	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Jo Good	Susie Dent	132
8687	22/01/2026	P	Daniel Face	118 – 48	Chris Scragg	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Jo Good	Susie Dent	124
8688	23/01/2026	P	Daniel Face	111 – 76	Steve Barry	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Jo Good	Susie Dent	143
8689	26/01/2026	P	Daniel Face	123 – 49	Shane Sivagnanam	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Tom Read Wilson	Susie Dent	141
8795	23/06/2026	QF	Daniel Face	102 – 107	Ian Kinsella	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Oti Mabuse	Susie Dent	132