So who is actually voting for Jacob Lusk?

Even though I was a little surprised that Casey Abrams was eliminated tonight instead of Jacob Lusk, I knew Casey only had one or two weeks before it was his time anyway. The bigger question to me is who in the world is actually voting for Jacob Lusk? There must be some people out there who like the way he performs and are voting for him passionately. Tonight's results are quite interesting especially how Ryan kept announcing how the order he was sending people to safety was random. I think everybody knew that Scotty was actually safe, especially Casey himself when it was down to the two of them. It would be interesting to know who were the other bottom 3 besides Casey. In any case, the latest Vegas odds are already out with just the Top 5 now. James has again popped in front of Scotty, but just barely with James at 3/2 (1.5) and Scotty at 7/4 (1.75) odds. Lauren continues to trail them at 7/2 (3.5) and her lack of confidence continues to show when she talks. Haley is next at 16/1 and Jacob is still the long shot, now at 30/1. Almost everybody had picked Jacob as being the one to leave tonight, but Casey was the number two pick in most polls. The Idol experts at Zap2It had selected Jacob Lusk by a wide margin of 19 versus 5 for Casey and one each for Haley, Lauren and Scotty. Jacob must have some very powerful text messaging friends voting for him somewhere!

One amazing result after tonight is that we now have two females in the Top 5, and we are very likely to have two females in the Top 4 (assuming Jacob's luck runs out next week.) We have now had three guys in a row be eliminated (Paul, Stefano, Casey) and if we add Jacob that would be 4 in a row, after the first 5 eliminations all being females (Ashthon, Karen, Naima/Thia, Pia). We will have to see how this trend continues.

American Idol Top 6 - Morning After Numbers

Now that the American Idol voting has been closed for the Top 6 (Carole King night) we can start looking at some of the other numbers that are appearing. WhatNotToSing.com has its preliminary scores out, and it seems like the top solos were from James Durbin, Haley Reinhart and Scotty McCreery, followed by Lauren Alaina, then Casey Abrams and finally Jacob Lusk at the bottom. If we look at a line graph of the WNTS scores over the past two months we can see the latest trends:

It looks like James and Haley are battling for the top, and Jacob is headed for elimination with Casey right behind him. The latest bodog.com betting odds have also changed this morning and James has again pulled in front of Scotty.

 Now that there are only six contestants I have put the odds into a line graph with a logarithmic scale to make the lines easier to see:

It looks right now like a finale with Scotty and James and Lauren seems to be losing ground. I do not understand why Casey is still favored over Haley, but I think both of them will have a difficult time breaking the top 3. The final DialIdol.com charts did not change much with Scotty being safe being the only conclusion.

Top 6 American Idol Elimination Predictions

It is time once again to look at the latest numbers to decide where to place my votes and to predict who will be going home. If we look at DialIdol.com, it is pretty inconclusive, only telling us that Scotty is safe. The rest of the contestants are too close together to differentiate. We can see more interesting numbers by looking at the elimination poll at USA Today's Idol Chatter:

With over 1,300 votes the results there are pretty staggering with 4 out of every 5 people picking Jacob Lusk to go home tomorrow night. Last week at this time it was a close call between Stefano and Jacob, but with Stefano out of the picture, Jacob seems the likely person to go home. Having performed his solo first and then giving a not so memorable performance he is definitely at risk. If I actually liked him I might vote for him, but what I noticed in the Idol Chatter poll is that Casey is picked as the second choice to be eliminated at a distant 7% followed by Haley at 6%. If you remember last week, Haley gave one of the top 2 or 3 performances of the week and somehow she still ended up in the bottom 3. So I am doing my duty by again voting online for Haley as much as I can. I also cast a couple votes each for Scotty and James who I both thought did well. For Haley I believe I voted probably 30 or 40 times. As for the other contestants I really do not care, but I am betting Scotty will not land in the bottom 3, and even if Lauren does she will likely not be eliminated.

American Idol Top 6 Numbers

Now that we are down to 6 contestants we can see how the Las Vegas line has changed. Since Pia was eliminated, their odds have been quite accurate in who would be eliminated, first with Paul and then with Stefano. If they continue on their streak Jacob Lusk should be next to depart. However, Jacob's odds to win have actually improved from before elimination day from 25/1 to 18/1, but he remains the long shot to win. As for the favorites, they keep switching positions. On Thursday morning James Durbin had moved ahead of Scotty McCreery as the favorite, but since Scotty was able to not fall in the bottom 3 after his lackluster performance on Wednesday, his odds have actually improved from 9/4 to 2/1. James Durbin saw his odds shift behind Scotty's from 3/2 to 9/4. Lauren Alaina saw her odds improve slightly from 3/1 to 5/2 as did Casey Abrams who moved from 10/1 to 15/2. With her bottom 3 appearance Haley skidded backwards from 12/1 to 15/1, putting her in the 5th slot, only in front of Jacob. If we check the WhatNotToSing.com scores, we see Haley came out on top but still landed in the bottom 3.

What does Haley have to do to not end up in the bottom 3? It seems that she may be one to depart after Jacob's probable departure next week. It seems it does not matter how well she performs, she always ends up in the bottom 3. And Scotty can perform horribly and still end up safe.

The Morning After Bodog Odds for American Idol

 

After last nights Top 7 performances on American Idol, it is interesting to see that the Las Vegas odds has now switched to a new leader to win the contest. James Durbin has now pulled ahead of Scotty McCreery to be a 3/2 favorite, although Scotty is now very close behind at 9/4. I also find it odd that Haley and Casey switched so that Casey is now ahead of Haley to win it (unlike yesterday) since I thought Haley performed much better than Casey did last night. The odds on both Jacob and Stefano to win it all also grew longer since neither of them did anything to help move them among the leaders (Jacob from 20/1 to 25/1, Stefano from 25/1 to 30/1). My guess is that one of the two of them is leaving tonight.

Checking the Zap2It.com exit poll, it appears that so far they are also split between Stefano and Jacob leaving with 13 picking Stefano and 11 picking Jacob. There are also two "experts" there that each picked Casey and Haley to be eliminated, although I think both of them may land in the bottom 3 but will probably be safe.

Where is Scotty? DialIdol says #1, WhatNotToSing says dead last!

Preliminary WhatNotToSing.com Web Ratings 04/20/2011

Here is an interesting contradiction tonight from two of my favorite online American Idol sites. DialIdol.com has Scotty McCreery as the top vote getter and the safest contestant, but WhatNotToSing.com has him dead last among the seven contestants for his performance tonight. So even though most online bloggers think he had the worst performance of the evening he is still the least likely person to go home. Even checking Idol Chatter's poll of who will be eliminated, Scotty is number three in who should be eliminated, but he is a very distant #3. He is just barely ahead of Haley Reinhart in who should be eliminated, and she is considered to have had the best performance this week by the blogosphere. Since you really cannot vote somebody off American Idol, I am pretty sure Scotty will not be eliminated tomorrow, and he will probably not even be in the bottom three.

All signs seem to point to Stefano Langone going home this week, but you never really know what will happen. The bigger question is who the other two contestants will be that stand with Stefano tomorrow night in the bottom three. Jacob Lusk will probably be there but who else? Haley? Casey? Can Lauren, James and Scotty be safe forever?

Pre-performance American Idol Elimination Odds - April 20, 2011

Before tonight's performances, I thought I would check the bodog.com site for any change in American Idol winning odds, and I noticed they also had the elimination odds. I noticed some interesting changes just from this Monday. Lauren Alaina's odds of winning dropped from 5/2 to 3/1 although she is still firmly in third place to win it all. Casey Abrams also shifted from 10/1 (tied with Haley) to 14/1, and both Jacob Lusk and Stefano Langone also saw their odds change (from 12/1 to 20/1 for Jacob, and from 20/1 to 25/1 for Stefano.)

One interesting thing to note, however, is that the order in their odds to win does not correspond 100% to their odds of being eliminated tonight. The biggest example of this is Haley, who is the #4 contestant to win it all, yet she is also the #2 person to be eliminated this week. I suppose she was in the bottom 3 last week with Stefano, and yet she is still considered more likely to win it all than Casey or Jacob.

Latest Vegas American Idol Odds with Seven Remaining

With Paul McDonald now gone, Stefano Langone is now left as the longest odds winner on American Idol with 20/1 odds. From the latest Bodog numbers, it also appears that James Durbin has moved in front of Lauren Alaina to be tied with Scotty McCreery as the most likely to win, both now at 2/1 odds. Lauren is very close behind at 5/2. Casey Abrams and Haley Reinhart remain tied behind Lauren, but their odds have changed from 15/2 last week to be 10/1 today. Jacob Lusk remains second to last at 12/1 and he needs something big to happen to help him out (something better than being known to have been in jail!)

Changing Age Profile of American Idol Contestants

 With Paul McDonald's elimination last night on American Idol, we can at least rest safely that not another female went home. One thing I did realize, however, is that all the older contestants are getting picked off one by one. During the "songs from the year you were born" episode I made a bar graph of the birth dates of the 12 contestants and I have since added Ashthon as well who was born in 1986 (turned 25 this year.) During the Top 13 there were 8 contestants born before 1990 and 5 born after 1990. Now six contestants have been eliminated (including the 3 oldest, Paul, Naima and Ashthon) and now in the Top 7 we have 3 born before 1990 and 4 born after 1990. Thia was the only "young" contestant to be eliminated and Jacob at 23 is now the only contestant left over 22. If Jacob and Stefano (22) are the next two to go, that would make James (22) the oldest with everyone else 20 or younger.

If we look back over the past three years of Idol all the winners have been 23 or older when they won (Lee DeWyze was 24, Kris Allen was 23 and David Cook was 25) and the runners up were all in their mid 20's except for David Archuleta who was 17 (Crystal Bowersox was 24, Adam Lambert was 27.) So this looks to be one of the youngest group of contestants in the Top 5 with the two strongest candidates for winning currently being teenagers (Lauren and Scotty.)

Slight Shift in American Idol Winning Odds after Top 8 Performances

I noticed there was a slight change in the on-line betting odds at bodog.com after last night performance episode. It looks like Scotty McCreery is narrowly back in front of Lauren Alaina as a 9/4 favorite to her 5/2 odds. Remember again that Pia Toscano was a 2/1 favorite going into her elimination last week. The odds for James Durbin winning are down to 3/1 (he was 4/1 last week), and now both Casey Abrams and Haley Reinhart are tied with 15/2 odds. Jacob Lusk's odds have actually improved from 14/1 to 12/1 and now Paul McDonald and Stefano Langone are tied as long shots at 18/1. In reality anybody could be going home tonight, so we will have to wait and see.

 

Last week nobody on the Zap2It exit poll had correctly picked Pia to be eliminated and this week their overwhelming favorite to leave is Paul with 21 of 28 "experts" picking him to leave. The second most popular picked to leave surprisingly is Casey with 3 picks, followed by Stefano with 2 folks. One person also picked Jacob and one other person picked Lauren (which I seriously doubt.) I noticed that none of them picked Haley which I bet they all think is safe because she is female.

WhatNotToSing Ratings April 14 - Top 8 Night

The WhatNotToSing.com preliminary numbers are up for Top 8 Night (Movie night) of American Idol with some interesting results. There are a whole bunch of people hanging together in the middle of the pack, with four contestants rated 39 to 46. Bear in mind last week the highest scoring contestant (you know who!) was eliminated, but the score rankings were still accurate in predicting the other two people in the bottom 3. Now that we have seven data points for eight contestants, the bar graph is starting to look pretty messy, but I will still compile it because it is so colorful:

It helps to demonstrates when contestants had their "peaks" and if they have been very  consistent (i.e. like James or Scotty) or not (like Jacob or Casey). The line graph demonstrates this pretty well too:

With Pia Toscano eliminated, James now dominates the top of the graphs with Lauren Alaina's numbers now showing some consistency. Scotty McCreery has always been consistent, but with lower numbers than James, Lauren or Pia. Haley Reinhart had been showing a nice steady improvement until this week, and Jacob is now showing a slow descent in the past three weeks. Stefano Langone and Paul McDonald have been the most erratic the past few weeks, with the two of them seemingly alternating between strong and weak weeks in their performances. What's up with that? Are they sharing a brain or something?

As for predicting who will be in the bottom 3 this evening I wonder if anyone is safe besides James (who performed last) and probably Scotty and Lauren. All bets are off for everybody else.

Top 8 Night and Leaked voting results numbers

In Nigel Lythgoe's efforts to convince everybody that Pia Toscano was not the real "front runner", it has been leaked who the real vote getters are on the show.  It sounds like Scotty and Lauren are consistently on top of the votes and James is usually #3. So why do the other five contestants even need to be there? I suppose they are all competing for #4 through #8, but it must not be very encouraging to know they most likely do not have much of a chance of winning. The bodog odds do reflect these same odds with Scotty and Lauren still positioned as the favorites and James right behind them. And Haley still is next by the odds makers with Casey right behind her (where he probably likes it!)

And that takes us to tonight's show. I watched all 8 performances live, and I will have to say I was overall underwhelmed tonight. Nevertheless the three people with the worst performances were very easy to pick: Jennifer, Randy and Steven. Even after last week's mess they continue to say that everybody is wonderful... except for Haley! That made it easy for me to pick who deserved my 50 online votes. My least favorite picks of the evenings were Paul (yikes!), Jacob (can't stand to watch him) and unfortunately Casey. Yes, Casey was definitely "artistic" and "jazzy", but was he actually pleasant to listen to? In my opinion I just could not enjoy it. Even James and Scotty were not as good as usual and I found Lauren somewhat lifeless and Stefano substantially more boring for my tastes. Haley was definitely not that great either, but I would rather have her stick around another week than Paul, Stefano or Jacob. Time to check DialIdol.com, but I will definitely not trust who they say are safe after last week, when they said Pia was safe:

Wow, they have Casey as dead last and Haley right behind him. I had better vote some more for Haley! I also checked who they thought would be eliminated at the Idol Chatter Poll and here are the results:

Here the top pick to leave is Paul, with Haley behind him and Jacob third, but Stefano close behind. Last week the poll had Stefano then Paul then Jacob and Pia was not even a choice. Who are these crazy people who are voting for Paul, Stefano and Jacob to stay? I will do my best to counteract them by voting for Haley. Did I think she was the best this evening? No, I thought Scotty, James, Lauren and even Casey were a little better than her, but I still prefer her over the other three, so I have to try to help save her.

Pia's Elimination Means a Big Shift on American Idol Betting Odds

When the front runner is surprisingly eliminated a lot can happen to the betting odds in a competition, and American Idol is no exception. With Pia Toscano now off to work on her choreography and stage presence for the summer Idol tour, the remaining eight contestants all move up in their odds to win the competition. As expected Scotty McCreery has now moved into the front runner status, and Lauren Alaina has joined him to make them both set as favorites at 5/2 odds. James remains right behind them at 4/1, but look who is now in fourth at 7/1: Haley Reinhart. Haley is now in front of Casey (at 8/1) and has a good chance of ending up in the top 5. I know she will definitely pick up a lot of Pia's voting block, as the only remaining female over the legal age. Who would have thought just a few weeks ago that Haley would outlast Pia?

Well, I guess you cannot always trust the numbers!

Well, that was an exciting episode of American Idol! The final WhatNotToSing.com ratings are in for the week, and in what might be a first, the top ranking contestant of the week, Pia Toscano, was actually eliminated! I will have to admit I sure was not expecting it. However, this does give Pia the distinction of being the contestant with the highest WNTS average score ever (78.8) barely beating out Melinda Doolittle. In fact, if you look at the top 10 contestants with the highest scores ever on WNTS, 9 out of 10 are female:

The only guy on the Top 10 list is James Durbin from the current Season 10. Yet, Kelly Clarkson is the only one among the top 10 to actually win, with the only runner-up being Crystal Bowersox from last year.

I am definitely somewhat shocked by tonight's results, but can see how it could have happened. I know my own response last night was to vote for Haley instead of Pia, since I thought Pia was safe and Haley was not. I have a feeling many other people acted the same way that I did in voting for the ones they thought needed votes instead of who was "safe". My guess is this will make it even harder now for anyone else to beat Scotty this year, since his fans will now have the "Pia Scare" to keep them voting for him relentlessly. They can all chant "remember what happened to Pia" and vote for him nonstop for hours on their unlimited AT&T text messaging plans.

With Pia's elimination and Jacob's stint in the bottom 3, there are now only 3 contestants this season who have never been in the bottom 3: James, Lauren and Scotty. There is a good chance they will now be the final 3, unless another "Pia-esque" moment occurs in the next few weeks.

I will have to admit I really liked Pia after her initial "Stand By Me" performance, but after the last few weeks my impression of her had faded. I was hoping she could improve her performances and show more excitement and personality, but that never really happened. And over that same time period my positive impression of Lauren has also diminished, so the only remaining female I like is Haley, and I get really tired of her overuse of the "growl". So much for the year of a female American Idol winner...

Latest Pre-Results Bodog Odds Shows More Movement

Before tonight's American Idol elimination episode, Bodog.com has posted updated odds on who will win the full competition as well as who will be eliminated tonight. After the performances last night, the big loser appears to be Jacob Luck, possibly more with his "look in the mirror" comment than with his actual performance. His odds of winning have slipped from 10/1 to 14/1 moving him to 7th position behind Haley Reinhart who is now in 6th position. Haley's odds continue to improve as they shifted from 16/1 to 12/1. Last night also Scotty moved back into lone 2nd place since he improved from 7/2 to 3/1, while James Durbin slipped from 7/2 to 9/2 to be alone in 3rd. They are still close but Scotty has a slight edge. The bottom two long shots, Paul and Stefano have also shifted. On April 1 they were both at 25/1, but Paul has improved to 16/1 while Stefano has fallen back to 35/1.

As for who will be eliminated tonight the odds on favorite is currently Stefano Langone with 3/2 elimination odds. Paul and Jacob are tied for second with 3/1 odds with Haley right behind them at 4/1. Even the favorites have seen there elimination chances increasing with Lauren dropping from 14/1 to 10/1, James moving from 16/1 to 10/1, and even Pia seeing her long shot odds dropping from 50/1 to 30/1 for elimination.

Another interesting poll of "experts" has tried to guess who is going home tonight on zap2it.com. With 29 people casting votes the most selected contestant is Stefano with 13 picks, followed by Jacob with 7 and Paul with 4. There are also 2 vote each for Haley and James and one for Casey.

Of course, we all know who really should have been eliminated from last night's show -- Gwen Stefani for dressing the ladies. Ugh!

American Idol Season 10 - Who will leave tomorrow April 7

Okay, the rankings at DialIdol.com are always a good way of guessing who is safe at the top, and it appears at usual it is Scotty, James and Pia. I also checked the online poll at USA Today's Idol Chatter to see who is being picked to be eliminated and the most likely three picked there are Stefano, then Paul and then Jacob. Could the bottom 3 this week be all guys? I could definitely see it happening. Among the two other girls, I would think Haley would have the higher chance of being voted in the bottom 3, so I actually submitted quite a few online votes for her, even though I did not really think her "Piece of My Heart" was so stellar (she should watch a real American Idol perform "Piece of My Heart"). I still preferred Haley's over Lauren's performance, but I actually prefer Lauren over Jacob, Stefano or Paul. I also do not understand why they do not let me vote online here in St. Louis until after 10:30pm our time. The show ended here at 8:30pm, not 10:30pm! Oh, well, I will vote for Haley and try to make sure the bottom three are all guys this week, since one of them needs to go. I found it interesting that DialIdol still has Haley ranked over Lauren. I had always thought that Lauren had a larger fan base, especially since Haley had landed in the bottom 3 twice already. I find Haley a much more likable contestant that Lauren and she actually has better stage presence now than either of the other two ladies, even if her voice is the weakest of the three. If Paul McDonald can survive with weak vocals, why can't Haley too? She is definitely a lot more entertaining to watch than anyone left not named James Durbin. Nevertheless on the Idol Chatter poll she was #4 among the contestants to go home:

One thing I found interesting on the Idol Chatter poll was that they also asked who people thought was the best of the evening, and they only listed 8 of the 9 contestants, leaving out Stefano:

I guess they were just assuming nobody would pick Stefano as being the best of the night! And whereas Haley was picked as #4 on who to go home, she was also picked as #4 on who was the best of the evening. More people selected she was best than thought so for Casey, Paul or Lauren.

Preliminary WhatNotToSing.com numbers just came out to, and they rank a bottom 3 of Stefano, Jacob and Haley:

 

They currently have Paul tied at #5 with Lauren with a score of 61 which is hard to believe (although he has a huge standard deviation of 29). Excuse me as I vote some more for Haley. I will leave you with my latest line graph of the WhatNotToSing trends over the past six weeks. Who are all these people who think Paul McDonald is any good?

Pre-performance American Idol Elimination Odds

With the American Idol Top 9 preparing for their performances tomorrow night, there are already odds up for who will be eliminated this week. I have the elimination odds from the morning of March 24 of the remaining nine, and sorted them by the current odds of being eliminated. Two weeks ago Haley Reinhart was the odds on favorite to leave, but now Paul McDonald is the favorite with 5/2 odds and Haley's odds have shifted from 1/2 to 3/1 making her tied with Stefano Langone. Jacob is next in line at 5/1. followed by Casey at 6/1. Two weeks ago there were five contestants who were 50/1 long shots to leave and now Pia is the only one at that lofty of odds. Lauren, James and Scotty are still pretty safe this week, but one more weak performance could put Casey back into the "dangerous" crowd.

Post Elimination Vegas Odds and Final WNTS numbers

As expected Thia Megia and Naima Adedapo were eliminated last night on American Idol, but I was a little surprised to see Paul in the bottom 3 with them. I actually find his singing unpleasant, but I thought he had a lot of fans voting for him. That bottom 3 placement may actually be good for him to rally his fans and make sure he does not get eliminated next week. His bottom 3 placement has helped drop him in the Las Vegas odds to now be one of the two 25/1 long shots along with Stefano Langone. What is even more striking is to see my two week bar graph where Paul has fallen to now be behind Haley who has come back from near death to be in the middle of the pack again at 16/1.

 Since yesterday the top 4 have remained exactly the same and only the bottom 5 have changed numbers a bit. Casey and Jacob have now dropped back to have 10/1 odds. The performance with Haley, Thia and Pia performing was quite interesting since they did not let Thia solo (foreshadowing of her elimination?) but there was quite a difference between Haley and Pia's deliveries of "Teenage Dream". Haley seemed much more relaxed and more at ease, and even though her vocals were not as strong as Pia's, she seemed to be putting more of herself into it. I would still be happier with a little less growling from her, but I will have to say she is starting to grow on me.

WhatNotToSing.com also released their final numbers for the week and they changed a bit from their preliminary numbers (which I had luckily grabbed already.) Initially James has placed just barely over Haley at 72 versus 71, but with the final numbers Haley has ended up over James as his number slipped to 70 but she remained at 71. Lauren still leads the pack with a 79 rating which I find surprising since I actually liked Haley, James and even Pia's performances better than Lauren's on Wednesday. Casey inched up to 68 to pass Pia at 67 and Scotty dropped from 60 to 57 with the final ratings. And sure enough WNTS picked the bottom 3 perfectly even though I was not expecting Paul to end up there myself. So next week Paul and Stefano will both be in danger without Thia or Naima around any more. It will be interesting to see how they do. I updated the final numbers in my spreadsheet and removed Thia and Naima to make it easier to read with just 9 lines: