I ask this question because I was looking through the other group
and found an interesting debate on there started by David Williams.

Here is his initial post:

Re: recap: Series 33 Supreme Championship Group C Final [post 11669]


"I'm a little surprised no-one has commented on this game. I wasn't
watching at this time, and it's obvious to think of Harvey Freeman
as the all-time great because of his record. But he clearly had a
fair dollop of luck as well. In a nine round game he has two words
disallowed, and misses two straightforward numbers games. His
opponent has three words disallowed, misses the easier of the
numbers games and the conundrum and still only loses by seven
points. Compare that to the standard of the recent Champion of
Champions!

I believe the general standard may be a little lower than it was,
but the best players today are clearly better than in the good old
days. Interested in other people's views.

David"

A few points came up in reply to this. I won't quote any other
posts, but to summarise, it was suggested that Harvey Freeman was
not at his peak in the supreme championships as it was 10 years
after his initial run, and he still won the tournament anyway. Also
the letter distribution was suggested to be harder back then, but
there was some debate over this. And according to Damian Eadie, the
dictionary is more player-friendly now than it used to be and more
similar to Chambers (used for Scrabble).

I would agree with David Williams that Harvey Freeman did have a
fair amount of luck in the supreme championships. All his games
before the final went to a crucial conundrum and he was given a bye
into round two. And in his round two game, his opponent buzzed
before him but got the conundrum wrong. But in the final itself he
beat Allan Saldanha, who had looked dominant in his previous games,
without a crucial conundrum, even though by getting the conundrum,
Allan reduced his lead to 3 points. It could be said that Harvey was
a bit lucky to get an 18-point lead after round one, but after ten
rounds it was 30, so it could be argued he mentally backed off after
that, knowing the game was won.

But based on the supremes alone, it would seem that Harvey would
struggle against today's top players. However, I would go along with
the views that his best days were ten years previously.

His octochamp score was 523, which was a record at the time and was
only beaten by David Williams himself, who would admit that the
letters were easier when he played (even if that has since changed
again). I believe he also took all 8 conundrums which I also believe
has only been done once since (Julian Fell) (don't quote me on this
bit though). Also in his series (including the final stages) his
lowest winning margin was 20 points, and that was in his first game
against a 5-time winner and this being in the 9-round game.

But how does his 523 compare now? Well, looking through some old
posts, apparently Harvey's 523 converts to 850.5 under today's
system and David's 535 converts to 866.8. Here's a list of the top
eight, which would be the all-time quarter finalists:

1. Julian Fell - 924
2. Conor Travers - 890
3. Chris Wills - 875
4. Stewart Holden - 870
5. David Williams - 866.8
6. Chris Cummins - 858
7. John Corby - 856
8. Harvey Freeman - 850.5

So Harvey just makes this list (even if we're assuming it was no
harder back then to score highly). But let's look at who doesn't of
the more recent players: Graham Nash, Paul Gallen (the last two
champion of champions) and Mark Tournoff, who beat Paul Gallen in
their series final but lost to him in the CofC final. To be fair
though, these players seemed to improve after their initial series
and using Paul Gallen as an example, he scored 846 in his octochamp
run, but then scored 472 in four games in the CofC: an average of
118 which would total 944 over eight games.

Anyway, looking at the other names on the list, I see no reason to
suggest that Chris Wills, Stewart Holden, David Williams, Chris
Cummins or John Corby would be favourite to beat Harvey Freeman with
all players at their peak, even if the bookies might have some level
with him. Their scores aren't enough higher, and Harvey has the
winning record. And also while Graham Nash improved, and his game
against Julian Fell was a classic, his other games, while won by
him, were not massive performances at this sort of level.

My conclusion is that the only players that might be favourite to
beat Harvey Freeman in a head to head with all players at their peak
are Julian Fell, Conor Travers and Paul Gallen. Even then it's a
might. And in terms of greatness, it's not just about absolute skill
level, but also having that winning mentality to get you through the
close games (and I think the games against Harvey would be close).
It could still well be argued that Harvey Freeman is the greatest
player of all time.