apologies Ricky

Except the week before last they both scored the same, and Laila was in the bottom two - thus Chris outpolled Laila.

...excusing the fact that he's wrong!

We DON'T know he's flip-flopping with Laila, and we DON'T know he's miles ahead on the public vote.

We DO know he outpolled her two weeks ago.

lw was the first week that Nat got properly cussed by the judges.

It seems to me that they suddenly 'turn' once they want a couple out. Tuffers, Craig, Nat, Jo, Ricky at least have had this.

Who's next?

Yep, we know that too. I never said differently myself. Just correcting the errors in the earlier post.

Cannot stand the mincey runt Glasgow, just pleased with a 40 back that has shortened to 7.

Ali or Mince for me

Better to back elimination @7-2 to cover steak if you think he is in danger this week?

Glasgow - why are you, and chisel, getting so holier-than-thou about it? The regulars on here reach their opinions regarding polling figures based on what they see happen, week by week on the show, and doing the maths.
In a 3-couple final, as was originally intended, there was a big opportunity for the pubic fav to win - hence those keen on backing the likes of Nat, Tuffers & Chris.
In a 2-couple final, the semi-final becomes problematic, as everyone's aware. While the chance of Hollins aren't as good as they were, when there were only 7 or so couples left, and he was trading at 33s, or whatever it was, he was value. No one is claiming he will win. Confidence has declined following Jade's withdrawal because of the 2-couple final.
Polling figures change, week on week - everyone knows that, but the evidence of past weeks suggests Hollins is top, and it's hard to see why such a middle England/BBC favourite is going to suddenly lose favour.

Good summary of my views Johnny in your last post.

Glasgow if you believe the Chris backers are ramping his popularity that's fine. Why not just say so rather than all the cryptic and subsequently facetious comments in your previous few posts.

I got on after Chris scored his 34 points Ballroom in Blackpool thus giving him a good chance to compete in the final. Since then he has added a crowd pleasing and well marked Charleston to his credentials. The bad news was of course Jade's withdrawal and the 2 person final.

Being the only dancer left in not to have been in the dance off despite normally being in the dreaded mid-table positions does seem to show he has more public support than the rest, as does evidence such as the DS poll.
That's not to say it won't change nearer the final.I believe the nearer the final we get the more likely people will vote on dancing ability.

Your points example showing Chris out in a dance off has been on here for weeks - its not news to most of us. A similarly valid (imo) calculation can easily show a Rick//Ali dance off.

A reasonably valid judge/public points calculation for this week shows a chance of a Ricky/Ali dance off, with little chance of Chris being there.
Given their current odds compared to Chris, doesn't that still make Chris the value?

I'm not saying of course that he will win, he most likely won't.

On the whole you get well reasoned discussion on here - I'm sorry you appear to believe otherwise.

What do i think will happen this week?

Judges:
Ali 4 (teacher's pet)
Ricky 3
Leila 2
Chris 1

Public:
Ali 1
Ricky 2 (bit of bounce back after last week bottom2)
Leila 3
Chris 4

Giving all with 5, Ricky v Ali dance off

just a slight variation on what's been on here (I think)

I will be amazed if the bottom 2 combos from the bookmakers dont vastly overprice this combo.

That would be nice. Although the ideal is DS maniacs phoning and writing complaints about the silliness of the voting format at this point, and the BBC actually changing the format so the lowest combined total goes out rather than have a bottom 2.

Just imagine the final 3...

Ali 3
Ricky 2
Chris 1

Chris tops public vote with 60% of the vote
Ali comes second with 25%
Ricky comes third with 15%

Chris is then in the bottom 2, because Ali came second with the public, and probably out despite having polled twice as many votes as the next contestant.

For some reason the morons on DS can't even begin to understand how likely the above scenerio is to happen, and actually give enough credit to the majority of the viewers of knowing they have to vote tactically to make sure it doesn't, because apparently people do that when Big Brother is on. Hahaha.

if u were waiting on either ricky or ali for 8k would u lump on chris? having missed the boat at 33s etc, and totally disliking the man, i'm loathe to do so. but as we all know on here, its not about letting ur heart rule ur head. opinions welcome?

ali is clearly bbcs darling and will no doubt win

Sean I always thought the public would support Ali over Ricky even before he drove his car at someone. Its worth saying that the BBC obviously want one of these to win as they are the best dancers, unless one of the others has all excellent dances from now on (not impossible).

I cant see how he wins now. Think of their respective psychologies as they go into the final: Ali has successfully fought back from two injuries; Ricky is awaiting probable police charges and will have lost the love and/or respect of his dance tutor / lover from being caught with his ex in the early hours.

I know we've all slated Mince on here, but seems pretty decent from this person's visit to SCD.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1173779

Admittedly I wouldnt use the DS poll to dictate my bets Glasgow; what I would suggest as probable is that it is a better predictor of SCD and DOI voting than shows like X factor as it mirrors the potential voting public much more closely.

Ricky sounding pretty confident already. Reckons they've done their two dances - just need to "clean" them up for the weekend as they are very technical.

Foxtrot to Sinatra
Cha Cha to a funky soulful version of an Eric Clapton track ?

assume not Cocaine!, maybe Behind The Mask ?

Craig Revel Horwood has said that the dances on Saturday's Strictly Come Dancing made it unfair for the celebrities.

Ricky Whittle and Natalie Cassidy both danced rock 'n' roll routines at the weekend and ended up in the dance-off. The other three celebrities - Laila Rouass, Ali Bastian and Chris Hollins - performed Charlestons.

Speaking on It Takes Two, the judge said: "I sort of thought that it might have been a little bit fairer if everyone had done the Charleston and we'd done it that way - or if everyone had done the rock 'n' roll. One or the other because it's quite hard to compare them."

Speaking about Whittle and Cassidy's problems with the dance, judge Bruno Tonioli added: "I think both of them for different reasons were under-performing. Ricky looked under-rehearsed and in the dance-off he looked about ten times better. But the main show looked under-rehearsed. And Natalie just lacked a certain amount of tricks that are necessary to sell the dance."

but is that confirmed, squares - that in the semi-final they'll be performing the dance out of the rock n' roll or charleston they didn't dance last Sat?