The combo I get that works is,

Ali 5 + 2 = 7
Chris 4 + 5 = 9
Ricky 3+ 1 = 4
laila 2 + 4 = 6
Natalie 1 + 3 = 4

ricky and Ali bottom with public ?

I think we know that Laila beat Ricky and Natalie in the televote...but not much more.

how could you ever work that out.. id say ali got 5 + 5 myself..

No chance Ali got 5+5.

We also know Chris got more votes than Ricky.

The OP's combo would be my guess too

There are plenty of possible permutations. Just looking at your example, I can see a few ways of swapping two couples scores in the public vote that would not change the dance-off, i.e Ali and Chris, Ali and Ricky, Ali and Natalie, Chris and Laila.

The other possibility is

Ali - 5 + 1 =6
Chris 4 + 5 = 9
Ricky 3 + 2 = 5
Laila 2 + 4 = 6
Natalie 1 + 3 = 4

Ali 5 + 5
Chris 4 +4
Ricky 3 +2
Laila 2+3
Nat 1+1

or

Ali 5+1
Chris 4 + 5
Ricky 3 +2
Laila 2 +4
Nat 1+3

Ali 5 + 4
Chris 4 +5
Ricky 3 + 2
Laila 2+ 3
Nat 1 + 1

all work as do others.

Ali 5 4 = 9
Chris 4 5 = 9
Ricky 3 1 = 4
Laila 2 3 = 5
Natalie 1 2 3

Works just as well

or

Ali 5 3 = 8
Chris 4 5 = 9
Ricky 3 2 = 5
Laila 2 4 = 6
Natalie 1 1 =2

or

Ali 5 5 = 10
Chris 4 4 = 8
Ricky 3 1 = 4
Laila 2 3 = 5
Natalie 1 2 = 3

We can't read too much into what the public vote could be.

The only thing we know for 100%, is that Chris and Laila recieved more public support than Ricky. We also know Laila got more public support than Natalie.

Laila because she got one less on the judges leaderboard so therefore needed to get more than Ricky from the public to overtake him.

We also know for Chris because he received one more point from the judges than Ricky, and therefore if Ricky got more from the public than Chris he would have overtaken him on the combined. As he did not, we know Chris got more public support. This is the same formula for which we know Laila got more public votes than Natalie.

As for Ali, Natalie and Ricky, we really can't read all that much into it, except Ricky couldn't be higher than 3rd. Ali could have been bottom with the public, Ricky could have, or Natalie could have.

We also know that if any couple has topped the public vote every week then it is Chris & Ola

I can't imagine anyone else topping the public vote other than Chris to be honest.

i would also think it unlikely that natalies public vote collapsed from last week.

...Am I the only one who doesn't understand the scoring system and how you guys get these numbers?

If so...
I shall just keep quiet and accept. Hmm...

Tis all very simple, honest.

As you see on the show, the positions on the final leaderboard are turned into a score . The same then happens with the public vote - the couple with the hightest public vote tonight would have got 5 points and so on. The totals are calculated and whoever has the lowest overall score is in the dance off.

If the combination of public and judges' score leaves any couple tied on points, the one with the highest public vote gets precedence.

For example, Ricky got 3pts and Laila 2pts tonight from the judges leaderboard. If the public vote ended up giving Ricky 2pts and Laila 3pts, they'd be tied on score but Laila would end up above Ricky because she has the highest public vote.

Simples!

There are 120 possible permutations, 23 of which would have given a Ricky vs. Natalie dance-off. So it might be a bit premature to decide that you've worked out what the actual result was

Here's what we can conclude about the public vote this week:
Ali is 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th
Chris is 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th
Ricky is 3rd, 4th or 5th
Laila is 1st, 2nd or 3rd
Natalie is 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th

Wow excellent work Techno. So 23 combos possible out of 120 but what happens when you factor in assumptions that while not strictly fact are highly likely such as Chris's and Natalies popularitywith the public.

If you do that then my combo looks good out of that 23.

Oh I see! Ok, I get it now! Thank you

While Natalie may be quite popular, her dance clearly was the worst one of the evening. There may well have been a number of people who like her but just couldn't vote for her based on the performance given on the night.

My point being that we can't assume that just because someone is popular they will get the votes every week, there is a high chance that a great number of people will vote on week by week performance.

Rumour has it that Cola are way out in front publicly.
All results to date support these allegations.

If you make the assumption that Chris is 1st in the public vote, then 7 of the 23 combos are valid. For the other celebs, you'd get:
Ali is 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th
Chris is assumed 1st
Ricky is 3rd, 4th or 5th
Laila is 2nd, or 3rd
Natalie is 3rd, 4th or 5th

So it doesn't really add any information, apart from eliminating the possibility of the other celebs topping the public vote. The only thing it adds, is that if Chris topped the public vote, Natalie could not have come 2nd in the public vote.

Unless the BBC decide to release the figures you can never really work it out. There are too many variables.

From next week (QF) they will be letting us know what order the couples are in, so although we won't know how many votes seperate them we will have a better idea of popularity

Quote:
“ where the audience voting results and the combined scores will be announced”

The above is taken from the BBC website

This is quite true. There is also often a "cut off" week with certain celebs who entertain but don't come up to scratch in the ability stakes where fans of that celeb decide enough is enough. The celeb has had a good run but it's starting to become obvious that they're not good enough to win so they decide to stop supporting them. I think it happened with Christine last year (the ability gap between her and the other four was so apparent that I reckon her supporters just thought - okay, she isn't going to have a breakthrough week, we'd better stop voting) and it certainly happened with Colleen Nolan on "Dancing on Ice".