Spoilers for Friday December 12th 2014 (Special)

[Jordan F]

We're going to take a break from the finals to showcase one of three specials recently recorded. This one is a Battle Of The Bobbies, featuring two strong competitors from series 70. One is 6 game winner and #6 seed, Bobby Banerjee, who lost to eventual runner-up, Andy Naylor. The other is Bobby Johnson, who won 3 games before losing to eventual series winner, Mark Murray. Who'll add one more win?

Join Anthony for the recap later.

[James Robinson]

Merging from the other side........

So, with the horse racing being on, you'd be forgiven for thinking that it'd be an early weekend for us lot....

But, no, someone has thought ahead for once, and decided that getting a special episode on AFTER the racing has finished.

So, at 15:30 GMT today, we have a special between 2 Bobby's, not police officers, but 2 players from the last series, called Bobby.

First up, we have the #6 seed, Bobby Banerjee, who gave us a blistering start to 2014, by winning the first 6 games, before succumbing to Ciarán Crawley, and then losing to eventual runner-up, Andy Naylor in the quarter-finals.

Secondly, we have Bobby Johnson, who first appeared in Series 40, before losing the first game of Series 41 to Scott Mearns by a score of 80-12 (and that's in the 9 rounder days!!). But, he made a successful return in Series 70, winning 3 games, before coming up against a certain Mark Murray, but he wouldn't crumble to the man who would win the series. In fact, for the majority of the game he was in the lead thanks to his back-to-back 9's of SIMPLETON and OBTAINERS, but missing 3 numbers games and losing on a crucial conundrum ended his run at game 4, and he would eventually drop down the leaderboard to #14 seed.........

But, looking at the statistics suggests that this will be an exciting contest.

Statistics Corner:

Firstly, No.6 Seed Bobby Banerjee - 8 Games, 6 Wins, 667 Points. (Average: 83.38)
Highest Score: 104 vs. Ray Sykes (6th Game)
Lowest Score: 65 vs. Ciarán Crawley (7th Game)
9's Achieved: 0/7
Total Points/Max/%: 667/1059 (63%)
Letters Points/Max/%: 400/659 (61%)
Numbers Points/Max/%: 227/320 (71%)
Conundrum Points/Max/%: 40/80 (50%)

Secondly, No.14 Seed Bobby Johnson - 4 Games, 3 Wins, 360 Points. (Average: 90) (15-Rounders Only)
Highest Score: 96 vs. Mark Murray (4th Game)
Lowest Score: 85 vs. Peter Littleton (3rd Game)
9's Achieved: 2/3
Total Points/Max/%: 360/523 (69%)
Letters Points/Max/%: 266/323 (82%)
Numbers Points/Max/%: 84/160 (53%)
Conundrum Points/Max/%: 10/40 (25%)

[Jon Corby]

I don't get the logic of running a special in the middle of the quarter finals. I mean I could understand it if it was a last-minute thing, but Nick announced it at the end of yesterday's.

Maybe it was only tentatively scheduled, so it was easier to edit out Nick's line?

[Jennifer Steadman]

R1: EPIPHORA

[Bradley Cates]

HORNPIPE in R1

[Rhys Benjamin]

Odd that there was no anecdote from Arlene.

[Steven M. McCann]

What a joke! sticking on this meaningless game between two also rans in the middle of the quarter-finals!
There will be some viewers under the impression this is a quarter-final! especially if they do what I do and have the sound off when Nick's doing his tedious waffle at the beginning of the show!

[Bradley Cates]

OESTRIOL in R11

[Tony Atkins]

Odd that there was no anecdote from Arlene.

I was hoping Susie's bit would get cut out too...

[Tony Atkins]

So the loser get's a goodie bag and the winner a "well done"?

[Tony Atkins]

My alt way to 524 in the second numbers was (50+8)x9+6-4

[Fred Mumford]

What a joke! sticking on this meaningless game between two also rans in the middle of the quarter-finals!

I agree on the timing, but one player was a finalist and the other was an excellent player who has been extremely unlucky to come up against a couple of all time greats during his preliminary runs. Many octochamps would lose to Bobby Johnson.

[Graeme Cole]

I also wondered whether the casual viewer might assume this was the third quarter-final, but describing it as "a meaningless game between two also rans" is a bit harsh.

Why there was a special in an unusual place in the running order is probably to do with the horse racing. Note that today's episode was not only on at a different time but had a 45 minute slot rather than the usual 50. This explains the lack of the DC guest bit. As for why they did a special rather than the third quarter-final, I think Channel 4 perhaps wanted to keep open the option of not showing today's episode at all, in case the horse racing overran or whatever. It's easier to postpone a one-off special without breaking the continuity, but not so much with a finals match.

[Steven M. McCann]

A bit harsh? Bobby Banerjee only reached the QF's because he was spoon fed some of the easiest opponents in Countdown history, to (I'm surprised he didn't come up against Joey Essex!), Bobby Johnson is a decent player, but what octochamps would he beat, I'm struggling to think of any.

[Fred Mumford]

The median octochamp achieves about 63 maxes, I think Bobby's max rate was higher than that during his Series 70 run. There have been about 130 15-round octochamps.

Therefore, whilst accepting that max rates aren't the be all and end all, I believe he would have beaten "many" octochamps.

[Graeme Cole]

A bit harsh? Bobby Banerjee only reached the QF's because he was spoon fed some of the easiest opponents in Countdown history, to (I'm surprised he didn't come up against Joey Essex!)

So not content with belittling both of today's contestants, you're now insulting six other people as well?

Bobby Johnson is a decent player, but what octochamps would he beat, I'm struggling to think of any.

The median octochamp achieves about 63 maxes, I think Bobby's max rate was higher than that during his Series 70 run. There have been about 130 15-round octochamps.

Therefore, whilst accepting that max rates aren't the be all and end all, I believe he would have beaten "many" octochamps.

Yes.

Obviously we can't know for sure whether Bobby Johnson would or wouldn't have beaten a particular octochamp on a particular day, but we can get some idea from the number of maxes he scored in each game. Yes, of course it's possible for someone to score more maxes than their opponent and lose, but that's rare. It's happened in 169 out of 2887 15-round matches, or 5.9%.

In Bobby Johnson's four games in series 70, including the one he lost to future series champion Mark Murray, he averaged 8.25 maxes out of 15. He got 9, 7, 8 and 9, if you want the exact figures.

Up to the end of series 70 there have been 123 15-round octochamps, making 984 heat games involving an octochamp. Of those 984 games, the octochamp got fewer than 7 maxes on 258 occasions, fewer than 8 on 413 occasions, and fewer than 9 on 588 occasions. So if you put Bobby against a random 15-round octochamp during their run, I'd say he'd have about a 50% chance of winning. Even his weakest performance of the four would expect to win in a quarter of those games against octochamps.

You might say that an 8-max performance in one game can't be compared to an 8-max performance in another game, because the numbers rounds might have been harder in one game or the letters rounds more darrenic or whatever. That's certainly true for specific games, but over a large number of games it should even out. I don't think the rounds in Bobby's games were significantly easier or harder than average.

What about octochamps' average maxes per game? Bobby's was 8.25. This is higher than the average maxes per game of 71 of the 123 15-round octochamps. (He gets a tiebreak situation against Jack Worsley, who averaged exactly 8.25.)

What about octochamps that Bobby could have beaten on the right day? Loads. 83 15-round octochamps scored fewer than seven maxes in at least one of their games. 105 15-round octochamps scored fewer than eight maxes in at least one of their games. So over 80% of them were beatable by Bobby.

How many 15-round octochamps scored at least nine maxes in all their heat games, the same number Bobby got in his first (recent) game and in the game he lost? Very few. So few that I'll list them: Julian Fell, Craig Beevers, Jack Hurst, Edward McCullagh, Jonathan Rawlinson, Andy Platt, Giles Hutchings, Dylan Taylor and Jen Steadman.

So "also-ran" Bobby Johnson played just as well as over half the show's octochamps. And "spoon fed some of the easiest opponents" Bobby Banerjee took him to a crucial.

[Steven M. McCann]

Two of Bobby Banerjees opponent's scored less than 20! It's hardly insulting or belittling,to state this fact.
Would it be insulting to Brazilians to point out Germany beat them 7-1 at the World Cup?
When I said I was struggling to think of any octochamp Bobby Johnson would beat, I should have made it clear, I meant in recent years, were the standard is now so much higher, probably due to Apterous.
For instance I don't think he would beat any of the 6 octochamps in this years QF's, but that's just my opinion.
I do accept he could probably beat a few of the "early" octochamps, when the standard maybe wasn't so great.

[Gavin Chipper]

Awesome post, Graeme. As well as pointing out how good Bobby Johnson actually was, you nicely anticipated several future "Ask Graeme" questions.

What about octochamps' average maxes per game? Bobby's was 8.25. This is higher than the average maxes per game of 71

Wait - what?

of the 123 15-round octochamps. (He gets a tiebreak situation against Jack Worsley, who averaged exactly 8.25.)

Oh right.

[Graeme Cole]

Two of Bobby Banerjees opponent's scored less than 20! It's hardly insulting or belittling,to state this fact.

It isn't insulting just to state the fact, no. It also isn't insulting to express an honest opinion in a reasonable way, such as "C1 was off form today", or "a costly blunder by C2 as he forgets to add the S", or "C2 should have spotted that numbers", or "C1 was lucky to win today", etc - comments like these appear regularly in spoiler threads and recaps and I don't think they do any harm. But describing Bobby Banerjee's opponents as "some of the easiest opponents in Countdown history" isn't a statement of fact, and even as an opinion it's insulting to those players, especially as some of them might well be reading this forum.

Would it be insulting to Brazilians to point out Germany beat them 7-1 at the World Cup?

No. I'd even go further and say that a team of professional footballers who are paid millions for what they do can fully expect to be the butt of jokes after a poor performance. When a member of the public whose occupation doesn't involve solving anagrams applies for Countdown (because, you know, it's Countdown, and they want to say they've been on and possibly get the teapot), passes the audition, treks up to Salford, then only scores 20 because they made a few mistakes and their opponent was better than them, they can be given a bit more slack.

When I said I was struggling to think of any octochamp Bobby Johnson would beat, I should have made it clear, I meant in recent years, were the standard is now so much higher, probably due to Apterous.
For instance I don't think he would beat any of the 6 octochamps in this years QF's, but that's just my opinion.
I do accept he could probably beat a few of the "early" octochamps, when the standard maybe wasn't so great.

Nearly half the octochamps between series 60-70 averaged less than 8.25 maxes per game in their heats.

[James Robinson]

If anything, I think the only controversial thing about the show as the easy conundrum

SERTAOS in round 5 and ROOTSIER in round 11.

1st Numbers Alt.: (75 - 1) x (25 - 8 - 7 - 6) = 296
2nd Numbers Alt.: ((50 + 9 + 6) x 8) + 4 = 524

[Steven M. McCann]

Unless I'm missing something, being described as an "also ran" is not a term of abuse! (It usually means not in the first 3!)
Anyone reading this thread, could be forgiven for thinking, Bobby Johnson is the Champion we never had!
OK, he was unlucky to come up against future Champion Mark Murray in his 4th game, but the fact is, he did and he lost.
As for Bobby Banerjee, do you reckon he would beat any octochamps from series 60-70?, I was just making the point, his reaching the QF's had a lot more to do with the calibre of opponent he had to face, than any outstanding ability he has, that's just my opinion.
A bit like Hull City in last seasons FA Cup!
Obviously I could have worded it a bit more tactfully!

[Jon O'Neill]

It doesn't matter how tactful you are if your "opinion" is contradicted by facts.