James Nears Winning Post
There’s very little left to post on X Factor as we focus here on guiding you towards winning bets and there is no value remaining that we can pinpoint.
James looks like he has the series wrapped up as we saw a continuation of his crowning as TCO throughout the night. But we won’t be piling in at 1.5, or backing Jahmene at 2.72.
The only big news is that the relentless de-ramping of Chris finally did its job and Jahmene at last got in front of him, but James would appear to have leapfrogged both.
During the evening we were told as much after being treated to a couple of Tweets from Tom Savage at the Star which read: ‘XFactor sources say the likely 1-2-3 this weekend, if the past fortnight is anything to go by, is 1 James, 2 Jahmene, 3 Chris’.
And, ‘James Arthur has been pushed into a comfortable lead in the public vote since the quarter final, sources say.’
We speculated this since James landed bottom 2 with Ella and he has had the look of TCO pretty much from the moment they let that sing-off go to deadlock, and for Ella to be eliminated.
Shorn of his 2-month long sympathy VT, Jahmene was left looking and sounding the way we judged him after his early auditions – pretty average and a seriously acquired taste. They let him loose on his first song and given full rein with his vocal gymnastics it rapidly turned into an aural atrocity.
Amazingly, he got his first de-ramp in his VT too. They painted him as a serious church-goer whose fan base is… well, church-goers – hardly the stuff to encourage vast swathes of ITV viewers to get behind him.
Chris looked like he had a sporting chance of nabbing second with the excellent, ITV-friendly ‘Rule The World’ with Gary but Jahmene’s problems with his mic singing with Nicole probably saw to it that yet again he was saved by sympathy.
James’s duet with Nicole was certainly far more compelling than the effort Jahmene put in and ‘Feeling Good’ was teed up from the start like James was walking on stage to be crowned this year’s winner.
Credit has to go to Chris. Very dignified in defeat. Anyone notice how they called him Chris again after he was eliminated having previously kept calling him Maloney? We could list the 10s of de-ramps they once again put him away with but there’s little point going into it. If anything good comes from this tawdry episode, we hope he successfully sues Syco for defamation of character.
We would also like to thank him, as our readers no doubt would. Time and again we recommended laying him for bottom 2, and also suggested backing him to finish top 3. Over the course of the series he also proved a fabulous back-to-lay.
It is certainly James’s to lose from here but we do not envisage it happening. We reckon his lead is probably unassailable already and we would be surprised to see Jahmene turn things round from this point.
We will post briefly in the Comments post-final tomorrow night. Thanks to everyone who has posted on X Factor this series. Next week we will return with another Strictly post ahead of the semi-final, as well as posting a preview for Sports Personality Of The Year 2012.
We’re pretty chuffed with the job we’ve done pinpointing some excellent value trades that paid huge dividends on the weekly markets in this series. We hope it has been as profitable for you too, and please do keep posting.
Rob Furber
Always maintained Jahmene would not win!! Just like the Russian grannies at ESC 2012… not without a few nervous moments along the way but such is life in the world of tv trading.
Hope our readers cleaned up on James – we’ve been calling him TCO for a while now. Caps a very good series for us.
No after-timing here – we talked you through the ‘reality’ of our market positions series-long. A reminder of something posted here 2 weeks ago:
‘Louis is Cowell’s mouthpiece so for him to go lukewarm on Jahmene at this critical juncture does not bode well for him. James, meanwhile, got the mother of all ramps by way of great VTs and great comments, especially after his 2nd song which was a gem of a performance.
‘Our reading is, having been willing to sacrifice Ella to save James, they will now go all out in trying to push James to victory. He will get one almighty bounce and it is easy to see him carrying increasing momentum from this point on.’
And thanks to the Daily Star – their leaks make life much easier.
Hats off to the Star – their leaks once again proved correct as we automatically assumed based on their previous track record.
XF 2012 vote stats:
week 1 – 28% Chris, Jahmene 13%
week 2 – Chris, Jahmene
week 3 – Chris, Jahmene
week 4 – Chris, Jahmene
week 5 – Chris, Jahmene
week 6 – Chris, Jahmene
week 7 – Chris, Jahmene
week 8 – James (40%), Chris
week 9 – James, Jahmene
James – won with 54%
More detail below. So much for Ella polling poorly… she was bang there & if given any sort of help could no doubt have made the exact same winning run James ended up having. Enormous bounce + momentum for James, as predicted here.
Wildcard Vote
Christopher Maloney 63.5%
Amy Mottram 17.8%
Times Red 12.5%
Adam Burridge 6.2%
Week 1
Christopher Maloney 28.8%
Jahmene Douglas 13.2%
Ella Henderson 13.1%
Union J 7.3%
Lucy Spraggan 7.3%
James Arthur 5.6%
Kye Sones 4.1%
District3 4.0%
Jade Ellis 4.0%
MK1 3.4%
Melanie Masson 3.2%
Rylan Clark 3.1%
Carolynne Poole 2.9%
Week 2
Christopher Maloney 21.9%
Jahmene Douglas 11.4%
Rylan Clark 10.2%
Ella Henderson 9.5%
Lucy Spraggan 7.6%
James Arthur 7.4%
Union J 7.1%
Kye Sones 5.3%
Jade Ellis 5.2%
MK1 5.1%
District3 4.7%
Melanie Masson 4.6%
Week 3
Christopher Maloney 22.6%
Jahmene Douglas 15.6%
Ella Henderson 10.2%
Rylan Clark 8.8%
District3 8.4%
James Arthur 7.4%
Lucy Spraggan 6.5%
Union J 5.9%
Jade Ellis 5.1%
Kye Sones 4.9%
MK1 4.6%
Week 4
Christopher Maloney 24.7%
Jahmene Douglas 15.4%
James Arthur 12.0%
District3 10.0%
Kye Sones 10.0%
Ella Henderson 8.2%
Rylan Clark 7.2%
Union J 6.3%
Jade Ellis 6.2%
Week 5
Christopher Maloney 27.6%
Jahmene Douglas 16.9%
District3 14.7%
Union J 10.4%
Ella Henderson 8.8%
James Arthur 7.7%
Rylan Clark 7.2%
Kye Sones 6.7%
Week 6
Christopher Maloney 23.6%
Jahmene Douglas 14.9%
James Arthur 14.0%
Ella Henderson 13.0%
Rylan Clark 12.4%
Union J 11.7%
District3 10.4%
Week 7
Christopher Maloney 26.4%
Jahmene Douglas 17.4%
Rylan Clark 15.7%
Union J 14.7%
James Arthur 13.7%
Ella Henderson 12.1%
Week 8
James Arthur 40.7%
Christopher Maloney 21.0%
Jahmene Douglas 18.1%
Union J 11.8%
Rylan Clark 8.4%
Week 9
James Arthur 41.2%
Jahmene Douglas 22.0%
Christopher Maloney 18.7%
Union J 18.1%
Week 10 FREEZE
James Arthur 51.7%
Jahmene Douglas 31.5%
Christopher Maloney 16.8%
Week 10 FINAL
James Arthur 53.7%
Jahmene Douglas 38.9%
Christopher Maloney (carried over from freeze) 7.4%
Nice one Rob. It’s quite emotional when it’s all over. Quite a roller coaster. (And that’s not a bad thing, it’s a singing and popularity contest, not a poker game).
Well done James. We can all take a bit of a rest now.
I made more on the eliminations but psychologically I still think of the Winner market as the big one. I’ll try and change that to think of the Outright as mainly just a kind of carriage for the weeklies.
Bring on CBB, Eurovision and BGT.
Thanks Henry – & well done to you too over course of the series. Like you, always consider Outright the big one – esp. after Little Mix last year – but the weekly markets are definitely where a lot of profit lay this year.
Not much rest with SCD still on, SPOTY next weekend, then into another CBB, DOI, BGT, The Voice, & biggest & best of the lot – ESC 2013. That again will form biggest focus in early part of next year & hope to be in Malmo reporting live from press centre again.
Hi Rob, sorry at the delay in posting but many thanks for the excellent coverage. You must have turned an enormous profit with Jahméne not winning. I was out on the Saturday night unfortunately, when Christopher came 3rd. I still made a very healthy four figure profit over the course of the series (as I also did on BGT and Eurovision this year) so very happy with that. I had 7 winning weeks and 3 losing ones.
No rest for the wicked, though, with so many more opportunities just around the corner.
Thanks for your posts, Tim, & please keep adding your views & opinions.
It was a very profitable series. Jahmene caused a few nervous moments, much like the Russian grannies at ESC 2012!! Got plenty of 20-1 e/w James right back in the early stages when he was looking a shoe-in for the lives.
Ella’s surprise early elimination left a big hole in overall Outright position – but James rapidly turned into the next best result after he had the look of TCO.
And well done to you too, Tim – sounds like you have had a bountiful 2012 with your tv trading.
Had a lousy X season due to the week2 sing off disaster – learn a lesson there and time to move on. Thanks for the coverage!
Sorry to hear that, Boki. It certainly wasn’t easy to secure a big profit on the long range XF markets this year. And one false move with trading can prove costly like your week 2 nightmare.
Please keep posting – appreciate your input.