c4countdown

Spoiler alert - if you don't know who Jack Hurst is, watch his games first.






There was a belief expressed in a spoiler thread that the victims of a recent octochamp were an unusually stong group. Here are some cold stats comparing the overall performance of these players with the following groups:

- All octochamps from series 49 to 61 inclusive (66 in all)
- Their victims

Letters and numbers have been separated. The conundrum has been disregarded for this exercise since it is usually impossible to infer anything about the ability of the player who does not solve it.

Letters - average max score per game:

Jack's victims 89.6
Octos S49-S91 incl 87.8
Their victims 87.8

Letters - average percentage of max (raw scores):

Jack's victims 69.0
Octos S49-S91 incl 82.8
Their victims 71.6


Numbers - average max score per game:

Jack's victims 29.3
Octos S49-S91 incl 29.5
Their victims 29.5

Numbers - average percentage of max (raw scores):

Jack's victims 79.5
Octos S49-S91 incl 84.0
Their victims 66.6


Letters and Numbers - average max score per game:

Jack's victims 118.9
Octos S49-S91 incl 117.3
Their victims 117.3

Letters and Numbers - average percentage of max (raw scores):

Jack's victims 71.6
Octos S49-S91 incl 83.1
Their victims 70.4


Average number of invalid or null contributions per game:

Jack's victims 2.00
Octos S49-S91 incl 0.81
Their victims 1.95


Average number of maxes achieved per game:

Jack's victims 5.0
Octos S49-S91 incl 7.2
Their victims 4.3


The one noticeable difference is that Jack's victims performed markedly better on the numbers, but this could well be due to a comparatively high proportion of undemanding rounds which will also have helped them to get slightly more maxes per game. Otherwise the groups seem quite similar.

The next thing I will do is look at how the performance of the 66 octochamps' victims has changed over time (that's badly worded but you'll know what I mean). My belief is that the range in ability of contestants has extended over the years in both directions, so it could be that Jack's opponents were a strong group compared with the norm nowadays.

Clive Brooker wrote:The conundrum has been disregarded for this exercise since it is usually impossible to infer anything about the ability of the player who does not solve it.

I wouldn't say "impossible". You learn at least that the player did not solve it in less than the time his opponent, which is quite a significant point if neither player could solve it in 30 seconds. There's definitely some data there.