Countdown?

[MJMcCready]

Which chess players have appeared on countdown over the years? I know one of the ledger brothers in Bedford did. Has anyone else and how did they find it do you know?

[James Coleman]

Matt Turner was on it, and did extremely well.

There have been quite a lot of chessplayers (of varying degrees of note) make an appearance throughout the years.

[MJMcCready]

Did he enjoy it do you know? Viz often described Carol Vorderman as 'thinking man's crumpet', I wonder if she really was?

[John Clarke]

Which chess players have appeared on countdown over the years? I know one of the ledger brothers in Bedford did. Has anyone else and how did they find it do you know?

This subject has been dealt with pretty thoroughly before, notably here and here, although other shows are covered as well.

BTW the original "thinking man's crumpet" was former BBC2 presenter Joan Bakewell (I beg her pardon: Lady Bakewell, as she now is).

[Paul Habershon]

Which chess players have appeared on countdown over the years? I know one of the ledger brothers in Bedford did. Has anyone else and how did they find it do you know?

This subject has been dealt with pretty thoroughly before, notably here and here, although other shows are covered as well.

Mark, I don't know how to post a link with 'here', but as recently as June 23, 2020, Kevin and I told our Countdown stories. They are in the 'Hope for our society?' thread, Section 5 in 'Not Chess'. Although I have the teapot from winning one game, I was much less successful than a lot of the chessplaying contestants. There is a site showing Countdown stats somewhere and my winning score was the lowest of that series.

Three years later I was within touching distance of winning £3000 (to emulate Dave Ledger) on the live show Brainteaser, but pathetically failed to turn VOICED into DIVORCE when given the new letter R in its correct position. A few weeks later Brainteaser was one of several shows taken off the air because of shenanigans about how they ran phone-in competitions.

[Matthew Turner]

Did he enjoy it do you know? Viz often described Carol Vorderman as 'thinking man's crumpet', I wonder if she really was?

Absolutely tremendous experience, amazing repartee between contestants, presenters and audience

[Kevin Thurlow]

"Absolutely tremendous experience, amazing repartee between contestants, presenters and audience"

Totally agree.

https://wiki.apterous.org/Main_Page has lots of info, although unless you trawl through the alphabetical list of contestants it seems difficult to find info. There is a search function though.

[Roger de Coverly]

Matt Turner was on it, and did extremely well.

Not long afterwards, he played in the Hastings Premier.The commentator, Chris Ward, suggested to the audience that they try to make words out of the abcdefgh along the sides of a board, with an a borrowed from the next board to make 9. I don't recall the best attempt.

[Matthew Turner]

Matt Turner was on it, and did extremely well.

Not long afterwards, he played in the Hastings Premier.The commentator, Chris Ward, suggested to the audience that they try to make words out of the abcdefgh along the sides of a board, with an a borrowed from the next board to make 9. I don't recall the best attempt.

facade?

[Kevin Thurlow]

or chafed?

I did think of a 7, but had to look it up and it's a bit rude!

[MJMcCready]

Which chess players have appeared on countdown over the years? I know one of the ledger brothers in Bedford did. Has anyone else and how did they find it do you know?

This subject has been dealt with pretty thoroughly before, notably here and here, although other shows are covered as well.

Mark, I don't know how to post a link with 'here', but as recently as June 23, 2020, Kevin and I told our Countdown stories. They are in the 'Hope for our society?' thread, Section 5 in 'Not Chess'. Although I have the teapot from winning one game, I was much less successful than a lot of the chessplaying contestants. There is a site showing Countdown stats somewhere and my winning score was the lowest of that series.

Three years later I was within touching distance of winning £3000 (to emulate Dave Ledger) on the live show Brainteaser, but pathetically failed to turn VOICED into DIVORCE when given the new letter R in its correct position. A few weeks later Brainteaser was one of several shows taken off the air because of shenanigans about how they ran phone-in competitions.

Thanks Paul, managed to find them.

[James Plaskett]

re this comment from Kevin Thurlow -

I did think of a 7, but had to look it up and it's a bit rude!

- here´s Ms Vordermann´s comments on any, er, ´indelicate´ words

https://james-plasketts-coincidence-dia ... nt-of.html

[Kevin Thurlow]

https://james-plasketts-coincidence-dia ... nt-of.html

Many years ago I attended a one day tournament of Countdown (I think in York), played on the board game version, where I had to play Chris Wills, who won my series (Series 47). The game was refereed by another competitor (Stewart Holden, who won a later series and has represented England at Scrabble) - you were drawn in threes, and played the other two for each round. By an interesting coincidence, an early round saw all three of trying to remain composed as we spotted the 9-letter word, ERECTIONS. (Yes you could have SECRETION.) So you can imagine how difficult it was when all three of us quickly spotted ORGASMING in the next round...

[Neil Graham]

https://wiki.apterous.org/Nic_Brown

Nic Brown (undefeated Countdown) certainly played chess in Nottinghamshire as a teenager before going to University.

[Christopher Kreuzer]

As Kevin pointed out, you can search for "chess" and that brings up Matt Turner, Kevin himself, and C. J. de Mooi among others. From those mentioned above, it seems not all contestants have had their chess playing mentioned on that wiki.

https://wiki.apterous.org/Paul_Habershon

Others are:

Paul Gardener
David Burgess
Nick Jameson
Mark Hollingsworth
Steve Whatmore
Roger Edwards ("chess referee")

The most successful Countdown player who is also a chess player (though see Nic Brown above) appears to be Arthur Page:

https://wiki.apterous.org/Arthur_Page

Octochamp in and champion of Series 89 (2024).

His ratings card links were posted here:

viewtopic.php?t=5043&start=6030#p307382

One I had not seen before was:

https://wiki.apterous.org/Margaret_Bright

Margaret Bright: "West of England Ladies' Chess Champion".

She played in one Countdown episode in 1988.

(EDIT: A number of other chess players mentioned in the earlier threads linked above if anyone wants to list them. The most successful being John Clarke, champion of series 11 in 1987:

https://wiki.apterous.org/John_Clarke_(Series_11)

That is a different John Clarke to the one who posts here, who I think is from New Zealand - apologies for any errors there.)

I think Matthew Turner is easily the strongest chess player to be on Countdown. However, he was only an IM when on the programme (in 2000) as he did not obtain the GM title until 2002. (The link on his Countdown wiki page to an interview goes to a defunct Mind Sports Olympiad page, sadly. Maybe Matthew has a copy of that interview somewhere?)

This appears to be Dave Ledger:

https://wiki.apterous.org/Dave_Ledger

Two episodes in 1994. It is Andrew Ledger who is the IM.

Have chess grandmasters appeared on daytime quiz shows?