I thought it was a good time to look at these odds again in the light of Stella's game today 26/01/07 where she avoided the Power 5 for 15 boxes:

These amounts are approximate using decimals and not fractions:

First 5 Boxes= 23.5% chance of avoiding the Power 5
First 8 boxes= 7.6% chance of avoiding the Power 5
First 11 boxes= 1.75% chance of avoiding the Power 5
First 14 boxes= 0.21% chance of avoiding the Power 5
First 17 boxes= .000379% chance of avoiding the Power 5

The odds that were achieved today for Stella in avoiding the Power 5 in opening 15 boxes from the start are approximately 0.079% which is less than one tenth of 1% so statistically you would expect to see that just one time in well over 1,000 shows!

we have seen it twice in 368 shows

...precisely, one time in 1254 shows (calculated exactly using fractions and not decimals). We've been very lucky to have already seen it twice!

Good work there, Rico.

Thanks misteral, yes it's great that we've seen it twice with Brenda likewise opening 15 boxes from the start before opening a Power 5 amount, and hopefully we won't have to wait another 1254 shows before we see it again!

This thread needs bumping too!

Daniel went 1 box further than Brenda/Stella and had the power 5 intact at the final 6! He also had the top 4 intact at the final 4

There are 74,613 possible final sixes - just 17 contain the entire power 5, so this will occur once in every 4,389 shows.

Even more remarkable is the "no squashdown" situation we saw - for this to happen we need the last six boxes to be either the highest six reds, the highest five and £750 (as in today's game), the highest four with £500 and £750, etc. There are 7 scenarios out of 74,613 where this happens, so once in every 10,659 shows!