Oh my gosh, I've just realised it's nearly 7 YEARS since £250k Laura!

Hello, age.

Happy 7th Anniversary to £250k Laura!

...which only seems like 5 minutes ago since it happened.

A year ago today was Gary's game, which was one of the most topsy-turvy of the year: an opening offer of 1p, then a reasonable £12,500, then NOTHING due to Gary ignoring the Banker, then a very generous return to £12,500, before an equally generous £20,000, which Gary was allowed to come up with himself, was dealt for the fourth OPW in five games!

If only the Banker was nearly as generous now as he was back then. CURSE YOU, IRIS!!!!!!!!!!!

Today's game reminded me that it's two years since James Trigg's historic game, in which he achieved the first (and thus far only) ALL-RED 8-BOX!

I'm surprised no one has ever done the inverse and had 2 red rounds to start the game, especially considering 4 contestants were one box away from doing so last year.

Well, it's now a whole year since Steve rescued an apparent trainwreck, and turned his game around to a £10k-£20k final two!

And he dealt the mean of £15,000. It's been a while since the Banker has offered 100% of the mean.

On a finish like that, he doesn't have much of a choice. If it were me, I'd always offer the average on such a close finish like that, unless the player is an obvious targetist, like Martin from the LIVE shows.

We've had a few games with talking points on this date:

3 years since Tracey dealt at £10,000, and then, desperate for an 'exciting' finish, the producers intervened by bringing about the mini-box gimmick and a chance for Tracey to double her money or lose it all.

They basically forced her to take the gamble, by giving her more chances to pick the box which had 'Double' in it, which she did. Her first 2 boxes said 'NOTHING', but luckily, Tracey found the 'DOUBLE' box on her last try and doubled her winnings to £20,000!

The twist just didn't work in my opinion. But above all else, I just hated the fact that they basically bullied Tracey into gambling money that she was already happy with, and it just reeked of desperation for a good ending.

Other landmark games on this date were £50k Shell's game 4 year ago, (Don't worry James1978, i haven't forgotten you!) the legendary Stuart aka VENTRESS 7 years ago, and i never saw Terry's game 8 years ago, but it sounded like a good one as he got a healthy OPW from dealing at £24,500 at 5-box

Oh wow, it's really been 3 years since those mini boxes? That was one of the worst gimmicks ever. All you had to do was pick the same number three times. There's no way they'd have put NOTHING in the same 3 boxes.

Of course since then they came up Box 23, which in a way is a harder variant on that twist.

It's now three years since Jenna dealt a weak offer of £24,000 on a 5-box of the Top 2, £20k and two blues, before having the worst possible proveout, and ending up with the Dream Finish!

Jenna's game was so ironic happening the day after the controversies of Tracey's game. First, a player gets bullied into gambling money they're happy with and succeeds (All because of the producers' desperation for a feel-good ending). And the next day, a cautious deal followed by the proveout gone badly wrong!

It's 8 years since £33k Julie & 7 years since Psychic Sarah too!

Next week will be the third anniversary of a certain 'go for it' player!

4 years since poor old Debbie had a trainwreck of a game, dealing for 13p on a 10p/50p ending!

1 year since i was given a warning for my strongly-worded rant in the "What irritates you?" thread, just thought i'd add that in P.S It should be "Overseas call centres with their telemarketing and surveys drivel", not "Overseas call centres with their telemarketing and surveys", it doesn't flow


Also, 5 years since Carl's game, where he played a £100k-strong game on a precarious board and kept the £100k to 2-box, where he dealt at £21,500, only to find he did have the big money! This was also the debut of Stat Man Daniel Judge, who was a huge character both on the show and on the forums (A lot of the February 09 players posted here at the time. Sigh....those were the days), and one of the best statspersons in DoND history

Can you beleive it's been FIVE YEARS since the likes of Stat Man Daniel, Walter, Ade, Clare-Louise, Alfonso, Melissa etc. were on the wings???!! Where does time go?!

Last year, Trev was having what looked like was going to be a trainwreck when he took out several big reds in the first 4 rounds. At 8-box, he had a £75,000/£10,000/£1,000/5 blue board and declined a very derisory offer of £2,100. Luckily he had the best possible round after that by taking out the lowest 3 blues. The Banker made a very generous offer of £9,000 which Trev dealt at. He made the right decision as he would have wiped out all the remaining reds!

Thank goodness Daniel was on the wings 5 years ago, for if it wasn't for him the Banker may have continued making mid-2008 HORRIBLE offers down to this day.

Sadly, the show is too stingy nowadays to have a Stat Man on the wings, as they generally force the Banker to be more generous with his offers. In fact, I think the last Stat Man on the wings was Marc from November 2011. If any current contestant is reading this, please consider adopting a Stats Man/Woman persona, as I promise that will get both you and your fellow wingers better offers.