c4countdown

Well the line up has been confirmed, so now it's time for you to decide.

If you already know the result either don't vote, or vote for who you honestly thought would win before you watched it (although that's slightly difficult since not all of the players had been on screen)

Feel free to speculate and analyise in detail if you want.

If the matches are run on a seeding system, I believe the semi-final match-ups will probably be Oliver vs Craig and Danny vs Lee, with the first semi being the game of the series. I'd also tip Lee to just edge Danny out for the other final spot.

Gotta be Garner.

Liam Tiernan wrote:If the matches are run on a seeding system, I believe the semi-final match-ups will probably be Oliver vs Craig and Danny vs Lee, with the first semi being the game of the series. I'd also tip Lee to just edge Danny out for the other final spot.

They are run on a seeding system, but not in the way you're assuming.

QFs are:
1 v 8
2 v 7
3 v 6
4 v 5

SFs are:

1/8 v 4/5
2/7 v 3/6

edit - having reread what you wrote, i think you probably were assuming the correct matches

Because of the seeding system, we have the possibility that for the 3rd series running, we could have a semi-final, which would possibly have been a great final.

We had Kirk v Neil in Series 60, Chris v Innis in the last series, and possibly Oliver v Craig this time round.

If only the series had used average scores per game, then things might've been slightly different. It'd have made not much difference last series, thanks to the 7 octos, but if there was an average score format used for this series, then the seedings would look well different. (Average score, followed by actual seeding in brackets)

Oliver (100.25, 1)
Craig (94.57, 5)
Lee (89.57, 6)
Nicki (79.42, 7)
Danny (79.38, 2)
Claudia (77.86, 8)
Dave (77.25, 3)
Peter (77.12, 4)

I have been boring and gone with Ollie too. Some of his recent games have been excellent, up there with Bevins-Carson-Davies-Levell.

I imagine Gulliver Orner must start as favourite here. I did think that James Rawson might have looked even better when he started but then he lost. And Clark Carlisle would have made a good quarter-finalist. Also that guy who said he had to learn everything again from scratch after an accident or something looked like he could have gone far but he lost to James Rawson who then went onto lose anyway. But anyway, I'm going to take a punt on Craig.

Assuming Oliver and Craig win their QF's then whoever wins the semi final (between Oliver and Craig) will go on to win it, surely. I voted for Craig. Craig's numbers are superb and if he gets two picks at the numbers then this could be vital, although Oliver is also very good with the numbers game. Craig practised hard on apterous building on his sound letters game. Overall in my opinion Oliver is the stronger player, the statistics prove this but this is a one off game and Craig might just do it. If it goes to a crucial though I would expect Garnier to "take care" of it.

An alternative to ranking the contestants by average score, as James has interestingly done, is to try to eliminate as far as possible the variables, and prompted by the Statistics Corner which Kai recently included in recaps, I've extended that to look at raw score as a precentage of max for each of the contestants over their entire runs. Also, I've looked separately at the various disciplines.

So -

Letters rounds

Raw score as percentage of max

Ollie 91%
Lee 87%
Danny 80%
Claudia 79%
Dave 77.5%
Craig 77.25%
Nicki 77.21%
Peter 76.8%

Maxes found

Ollie 66%
Lee 49%
Claudia 49%
Peter 42%
Danny 40%
Craig 34%
Nicki 30%
Dave 30%

Invalid word, or misdeclaration

Lee 2.6%
Ollie 3.4%
Danny 6%
Dave 8%
Craig 9%
Nicki 12%
Claudia 13%
Peter 15%

Niners

Ollie 3 out of 4
Lee 1 out of 2
Peter, Nicki and Claudia all 0 out of 1
Dave 0 out of 2
Danny and Craig both 0 out of 3

Number rounds

Raw score as percentage of max

Craig 94%
Oliver 87%
Nicki 86%
Dave 75.1%
Danny 74.6%
Lee 72.5%
Claudia 72.1%
Peter 63%

Maxes found

Craig 81%
Ollie 67%
Nicki 67%
Lee 52%
Danny 50%
Claudia 48%
Peter 46%
Dave 42%

Invalid, or no, solution

Craig 0%
Ollie 4%
Micki 5%
Dave 8%
Danny 12%
Lee 19%
Claudia 19%
Peter 29%

Conundrums (including tie-break)

Successes

Craig and Lee 4 (out of 7)
Dave 4 (8)
Peter 4 (9)
Nicki 3 (7)
Ollie 3 (8)
Danny 2 (8)
Claudia 1 (7)

Average time for successes

Ollie 2 sec
Nicki 5.6 sec
Peter 6.1 sec
Craig 8 sec
Dave 10 sec
Lee 13 sec
Danny 15 sec
Claudia 19 sec

Wrong guesses

Danny, Dave, Lee, Nicki 0
Peter, Craig 1
Claudia 2
Ollie 3


Overall (excludes tie-breaks)

Raw score as percentage of max

Ollie 86%
Lee 81%
Craig 80%
Nicki 76%
Dave 75%
Danny 74%
Claudia 72%
Peter 70%

Raw score per game

Ollie 105
Craig 99
Lee 97
Nicki 92
Dave 91.0
Danny 90.6
Claudia 85
Peter 84


Clearly, I've got far too much time on my hands.

Howard Somerset wrote:Clearly, I've got far too much time on my hands.

Appreciated, though

The fact that the present champ on TV (Scott) isn't there is a bit of a spoiler. Thanks for that.

Michael Wallace wrote:

Howard Somerset wrote:Clearly, I've got far too much time on my hands.

Appreciated, though

Yeah that was pretty cool. Here's the same data in a different format:



The "best" value in each column is in bold (this is a bit spurious for some of the conundrum columns). Fairly clear who should be expected to dominate letters (Ollie) and numbers (Craig); conundrums are harder to interpret because the data are so sparse.

Michael Wallace wrote:

Howard Somerset wrote:Clearly, I've got far too much time on my hands.

Appreciated, though

QFT

Davy Affleck wrote:The fact that the present champ on TV (Scott) isn't there is a bit of a spoiler. Thanks for that.

Don't worry Davy, by losing to Scott, Dominic was narrowly denied a place in the finals, but there weren't enough heats left before the finals began for Scott to edge in and so if he does continue his run, he'll simply be coming back as champion at the start of the next series.

Kai Laddiman wrote:

Michael Wallace wrote:

Howard Somerset wrote:Clearly, I've got far too much time on my hands.

Appreciated, though

QFT

Had to look up QFT on Wiki. Nine meanings, seven of them are clearly irrelevant, but I'm interested which of the other two (7th or 8th) you were meaning, Kai.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QFT

Howard Somerset wrote:

Kai Laddiman wrote:QFT

Had to look up QFT on Wiki. Nine meanings, seven of them are clearly irrelevant, but I'm interested which of the other two (7th or 8th) you were meaning, Kai.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QFT

Actually in my experience it's normally number six, though I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks of number eight when it crops up.

Andy Wilson wrote:

Davy Affleck wrote:The fact that the present champ on TV (Scott) isn't there is a bit of a spoiler. Thanks for that.

Don't worry Davy, by losing to Scott, Dominic was narrowly denied a place in the finals, but there weren't enough heats left before the finals began for Scott to edge in and so if he does continue his run, he'll simply be coming back as champion at the start of the next series.

LOL Davy complains about a spoiler that contained ummm... no spoilers, meanwhile allowing anyone who hasn't seen the last few games who the current champ is. You gotta love irony.

Ryan Taylor wrote:I would expect Garnier to "take care" of it.

Dinos Sfyris wrote:

Davy Affleck wrote:The fact that the present champ on TV (Scott) isn't there is a bit of a spoiler. Thanks for that.

LOL Davy complains about a spoiler that contained ummm... no spoilers, meanwhile allowing anyone who hasn't seen the last few games who the current champ is. You gotta love irony.

Yup, and this got me too, last night when me and Badcock were just getting really excited about catching up on the Dom-Scott game

Matt Morrison wrote:

Dinos Sfyris wrote:

Davy Affleck wrote:The fact that the present champ on TV (Scott) isn't there is a bit of a spoiler. Thanks for that.

LOL Davy complains about a spoiler that contained ummm... no spoilers, meanwhile allowing anyone who hasn't seen the last few games who the current champ is. You gotta love irony.

Yup, and this got me too, last night when me and Badcock were just getting really excited about catching up on the Dom-Scott game

And me - I've been walking in the Lake District for a week, saving up the whole five days' worth of programmes for my return. Still, at least I'm alive, one of only c.600,000 in the area who made it past Wednesday.

I have not voted for Peter Zyss - but he does have a rather nice smile.

Ralph Gillions wrote:I have not voted for Peter Zyss - but he does have a rather nice smile.

I hope you've told Jeff Burgin he's been dumped to his face. It's not a nice way to find out otherwise

I'm looking forward to this starting, I'm sure the standard won't be as high as last year but I'm expecting some really close games as other than Ollie and Craig I think all the players are of about the same standard. The problem with last year was that whilst it was great to see Andrew, Chris and Innis again; they won their QFs so convincingly it was no different to watching the prelims.

As it's been touched on above it's a shame Ollie and Craig are in the same side of the draw as that would have made an epic final, I'm almost certain the winner of that game will win the whole thing; but I'd put my money on Ollie.

Lesley Hines wrote:I hope you've told Jeff Burgin he's been dumped to his face.

Oooh Lesley. Jeffrey has most certainly not been dumped.

I assure you.

Andy Wilson wrote:

Davy Affleck wrote:The fact that the present champ on TV (Scott) isn't there is a bit of a spoiler. Thanks for that.

Don't worry Davy, by losing to Scott, Dominic was narrowly denied a place in the finals, but there weren't enough heats left before the finals began for Scott to edge in and so if he does continue his run, he'll simply be coming back as champion at the start of the next series.

Cheers

Davy Affleck wrote:

Andy Wilson wrote:

Davy Affleck wrote:The fact that the present champ on TV (Scott) isn't there is a bit of a spoiler. Thanks for that.

Don't worry Davy, by losing to Scott, Dominic was narrowly denied a place in the finals, but there weren't enough heats left before the finals began for Scott to edge in and so if he does continue his run, he'll simply be coming back as champion at the start of the next series.

Cheers

Apology accepted no doubt!

Is it my imagination or has this series been particularly lack-lustre? No real stars in this lot, apart from Oliver. Nice to see a woman in the last group though.

Jennifer McElroy wrote:Is it my imagination or has this series been particularly lack-lustre?

How many wins have you got?

Sorry..I don't get you...What do you mean "How many wins have you got?"

Jennifer McElroy wrote:Is it my imagination or has this series been particularly lack-lustre? No real stars in this lot, apart from Oliver. Nice to see a woman in the last group though.

I've thought this a good series - there have been good close good-natured contests with personable contestants, a few upsets, and interesting DC guests (mostly). It doesn't matter that it hasn't been overflowing with Apterites who are familiar with the obscurer corners of the ODE, though at the same time it has been fun watching Oliver demolish opponents.

All in all, a credit to Damian and his team.

I take your point Brian..and quite agree actually when you put it like that. good DC guests too (on the whole)