Can Denise and Johnson survive again?
There is another twist in DOI this Sunday which looks like it will throw up some decent betting opportunities. They are separating the remaining 6 skaters into 2 groups of 3 – Laura, Jeff & Denise vs Sam Chloe & Johnson.
They will do their usual solo skates with their pro partners, but then they will each do a group performance. Whoever wins the group performance then gets their leaderboard score doubled.
This looks like an attempt to set adrift one of Denise and Johnson at the bottom of the leaderboard with 1pt and thus make it harder for them to escape the bottom 2 – clearly if either falls into the bottom 2 they are toast in the skate off.
But having looked at the possible permutations, it’s far from bad news for Denise and Johnson backers.
It’s very easy to figure out the composition of the judges’ leaderboard. If Team Laura wins it’ll be:
Laura – 6pts
Jeff – 5pts
Denise – 4pts
Sam – 3pts
Chloe – 2pts
Johnson – 1pts
In this scenario you’d expect Denise to be as safe as houses as it is our belief she has consistently been getting one of the highest public votes, probably only surpassed by Johnson who, the Daily Star claims, has topped the public vote every week so far by one. Him and Denise could quite feasibly have been top 2 in the pv every week.
Now, if Team Sam wins:
Sam – 6pts
Chloe – 5pts
Johnson – 4pts
Laura – 3pts
Jeff – 2pts
Denise – 1pt
Let’s assume the D.Star is right (as it has a track record for getting its reality tv voting leaks correct) and Johnson tops the vote again. Denise, at worst, will be 2nd top on the public vote again – her fans will also have added incentive to vote for her seeing her propping up the leaderboard, as Johnson’s would in the above scenario of Team Laura winning.
So let’s give Denise a worst case scenario of 5pts here. It is also pretty clear that the 2 best skaters – Sam and Laura – have been struggling with their public vote. Laura was even dragged into the skate off last Sunday despite finishing 2nd top on the judges’ leaderboard.
They gave Chloe a massive ramp last week which possibly suggests her public vote isn’t great either. It is also a pattern that when someone makes a shock appearance in the bottom 2, they get a spike in votes the following week so we can reasonably expect Laura to do well in this week’s public vote. So we would guess at something like this:
Sam – 6 + 2 = 8
Chloe – 5 + 1 = 6
Johnson – 4 + 6 = 10
Laura – 3 + 4 = 7
Jeff – 2 + 3 = 5
Denise – 1 + 5 = 6
With the pv taking precedence over the judges’ score this would lead to a Chloe vs Jeff skate off. Looking at the various ‘most likely’ permutations one of the few that would drag Denise into the bottom 2 is a precise order of this:
Sam – 6 + 1 = 7
Chloe – 5 + 2 = 7
Johnson – 4 + 6 = 10
Laura – 3 + 4 = 7
Jeff – 2 + 3 = 5
Denise – 1 + 5 = 6
This would lead to a Jeff vs Denise skate off. But this would require Chloe’s pv to beat Sam’s, Laura’s pv to beat Jeff’s, and Johnson’s pv to beat Denise’s, not to mention Team Sam defeating Team Laura in the group performance, and none of those are for certain.
In conclusion, the odds tell us Denise has a great chance to survive again (as does Johnson), and Denise should be layed at anything odds on for elimination on Betfair, while the 2 skaters who fall into the bottom 2 on most occasions, running through the different ‘most likely’ scoring scenarios are Chloe and Jeff, who should both be backed for elimination at 8-1 and 4-1 respectively with William Hill.
Rob Furber