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danieldwilliam) wrote2012-11-22 10:32 am
On Predicting the Winner of Strictly Come Dancing
Now that the US elections are over and we also know that nobody cares enough about crime to vote for the person in charge of the police my thoughts turn to election of the Britain’s best celebrity dancer. Who will Strictly Come Dancing? I don’t know, but I think I can take a shrewd guess as who is going to be in the final.
Contenders are
Denise Van Outen
Danni Harmer
Michael Vaughan
Lisa Riley
Louis Smith
Nicky Byrne
Victoria Pendleton
Kimberley Walsh
I’m basing this guess on a combination of judges scoring and what little can be gleaned about the public voting.
Victoria Pendleton is by far the weakest dancer left in the competition. She’s had the lowest score twice. Last week she was 7.5 points below the average including Richard. She has the lowest score this series for three dances.
Yet she’s never been in the bottom two. So she clearly has some support in the voting public.
Michael, Nicky and Kimberley have all been in the bottom two.
I think Denise will go through to the final. She typically tops the scoreboard and it is very difficult for someone who tops the scoreboard to end up in the bottom two. You basically need the public vote to exactly reverse the judges score. There can be a little bit of variation on this but that is the pattern you need to see for the top scoring couple to end up in the bottom two. That scenario puts the top two dancing couples into the dance off.
Remember that in the event of tie on points the couple with the highest public vote goes through.
If Denise does end up in the dance off I think it likely she would end up facing stiff competition. She’s been top of the leader board 5 weeks out of 7. I’d back her on the night and on her record to carry her through.
So, so long as Denise can stay in the top two each week I think she’s okay.
Baring accidents of course.
I don’t think Nicky is a strong enough dancer to avoid placing low enough in the table to be safe. His best score of 30 isn’t enough to compete with the remaining contenders. He should place above Pendleton and he might place above Michael if Michal has a bad day dancing Latin but I don’t think he has the votes to survive more than two more weeks and unless he ends up against Pendleton in a dance off I think he’s a goner.
Kimberley I think has problems with the public vote. Finishing joint second in week 6 she ended up in dance off. She must have polled badly. (One caveat, we don’t know how close the voting is. Kimberley may have finished low down in the voting in a very tight race, only missing out by not getting a few hundred votes from people who thought she was safe in second place.) However, she is a strong enough dancer that I think she can see off the more vulnerable dancing efforts of Pendleton, Nicky, and Latin Michael.
But in a few week’s time she might struggle to see off a Lisa or a Danni or a Denise.
I think also potentially vulnerable on a dancing front is Louis. On paper he has a good record. Best score of 35, average score of 30.5 (cf Denise average of 32.4, best of 39, average overall of those left is 28.3). However, his scores aren’t trending upwards. His cumulative average score is pretty flat from week 4.
Louis & Flavia 27.00 28.50 29.00 30.50 30.20 30.67 30.57
The average improvement in scores for those left in is 0.8. Average improvement since week 4 is 0.68. Louise average improvement since week 4 is 0.02.
Everyone else left in the competition is improving and Louis doesn’t appear to be. Now, he might be having a little rest whilst we waits for the competition to reach his standard or he might have peaked. Difficult to tell. If he doesn’t start improving again at the same rate as everyone else then his currently good scores start to look a little mediocre in about 2 week’s time.
So who do I think is going to make it to the final. That’s difficult and I reserve the right to be totally wrong about this. This is my best guest based on the data and the analysis that I’ve seen. If (when) I turn out to be totes mistaken then, hey ho. The purpose of this post isn’t to dazzle the world with my Nate Silver like powers of using a calculator and understanding the rules. It’s part of a discussion. About a popular dancing programme.
I think we have a couple of weeks of Nicky, Pendleton and Kimberley fighting it out in the bottom two. Pendleton on quality, Kimberley on popularity and Nicky on combination of not being quite good enough to overcome his apparent lack of public support. Out of this I think Kimberley wins because she by is far the better dancer of the three. I think this will probably earn her sufficient goodwill to avoid finishing bottom in the public vote. Either that of she’ll be so irritated she’ll lift her game.
After that we’ll know if Louis has woken up or if he’d peaked in week 4. Judging by some of the It Takes Two footage of Louis and Flavia they don’t appear to be working very well together, so my money is on him not improving enough to avoid ending up in the dance off.
At some point Michael’s lack of Latin ability is going to catch up with him. The competition shifts to doing two dances a week at some point and his lack of innate Latin rhythm is going to be on show more often. On the other hand, he will be seen to be trying really hard and sportspeople, particularly cricketers seem to have the right combination of skills and drive to improve. Who knew that being physically adept and having the determination to be world class sportsperson would make you good at a physical activity you need to practise a lot? (This makes Pendleton and Louis all the more unusual in my view.)
Lisa seems just a little off the pace of Denise and Danni and Kimberley. She’s improving again now but I don’t see her quite matching those three technically.
So I think we have a second shake out between Louis, Michael and probably Lisa. I could be wrong about Lisa. She might prove popular enough to avoid the dance off. Her charisma does come through very strongly when she dances. She is a popular soap actress and also there is the Susan Boyle effect working in her favour. I’m not sure how this particular shake out does shake out. On a good day any of these three could beat either of the other two on a bad day. I think I will probably go for Lisa to make it through.
So that gives us a semi-final of Lisa, Kimberley, Danni and Denise.
And a final of Danni and Denise and A N Other.
My money is still on Denise to win the coveted glitter ball trophy.
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When we were at WEMBLEY, Lisa was by far the most popular dancer of the evening, judging from audience reaction. If that is translating into votes then she should do well for a while.
I think you're probably right that Denise and Dani are likely finalists and Denise a likely winner.
Ros and I also talked a lot about chemistry between partners, which we think is a big deal in both dancing progress and public attractiveness. We think one of the problems with Louis is that there is little chemistry between him and Flavia. Dani and Vincent have phenomenal chemistry and are far more than the sum of the parts, and Lisa and Robin are pretty good too. Denise and James are two diehard and very gifted professionals, which is not quite the same thing. So it's possible that one of the other pairs might overtake them in the public affection.
I would adore to see Lisa and Robin in the final, but I am not betting on it.
All that said, I agree with the general thrust of your analysis. Only caveat is that I think there are five people in the semis, not four, so you need to repick that one.
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I touch on it a little in the post but thanks for calling it out more explicitly.
The problem would be acute if the spread between top and bottom were quite narrow and therefore small absolute numbers would make a difference. Certainly, I don’t vote for Denise because I’m pretty confident that she’ll get through whether I vote or not. With a wider spread between top and bottom then the drop off becomes less significant I think. I don’t know why I think there is diminishing marginal conversion from Potential to Actual Voter.
I can see Lisa’s popular appeal carrying her all the way to the final. It is a thing I could conceive of, in the way that I could not conceive of Jerry Hall making the final.
I think you also have a good point on the chemistry element. I think it affects both the ability to pick up technical skills and execute interesting choreography but it also comes through in the performance and affects the perception of it and the voting. Chris Hollins and Ola Jordan’s Charleston is the classic example of this. A game changer that I think ultimately led to their victory. And the contrast between Denise and James and Chris and Ola is notable. Denise did a better Charleston but she looked like a professional dancer who enjoyed her job rather than someone who had just discovered the best thing ever.
I’m not convinced that Louis is really enjoying himself all that much.
So, yep I could see Denise and James ending up losing out to a couple with better chemistry. I think they’ll pull through to the final but they may not.
If Lisa and Robin make the final I could see them winning as it is a straight popular vote.
If there are five in the semi-final then I think whoever makes up the fifth spot is a non-contender so I don’t think it changes much. Put me down as A N Other for that slot, followed by Did Not Trouble the Scorers.
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One of the interesting things that is happening with Victoria is that Brendan, who adored her at the beginning because she was (a) a gold medallist and (b) quite pretty and most significantly (c) not Lulu, is clearly going off her.
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I hope, but don't believe, that Victoria will win.
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The electoral colleage is a little more complex than judges scores plus public vote.
There is also the adjudication in the dance off where Len gets two votes.
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For Pendleton I don’t think there is a winning strategy.
For Louis he needs to start caring.
For Kimberley she needs to get her Girls Aloud colleagues to noise up their fan base to vote for her every time and hope she can take Denise in a straight fight.
For Lisa, have as much fun as you can because people vote for that and keep technically good enough to avoid last place for the next four weeks.
For Michael, again I don’t think he has a winning strategy. He’s not good enough at Latin and I don’t think he can fix it in time. If he does have a winning strategy it’s fix his Latin and put in some dazzling lifts in every dance he can.
For Danni, keep working the chemistry and delivery technically and aim for the underdog position in the final and hope that Denise’s fans stay at home. In a dance off between Danni and anyone other than Denise I think Len will vote to save her for her tidy technical qualities.
For Denise, keep being utterly professional and deliver technically and then cry in the semi-final and pop a boob out in the final.
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QFT.
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