9 years ago, Audrey had a disaster of a start but slowly turned it around, and DEALT at £8,500 on a 1p/£20k final two, and had the 1p in her box. Scoring her an unlikely OPW out of an unlucky game!

And to think people groaned when she got a VERY generous £8,500 offer on an all-or-nothing finish with the 1p still there! Nowadays a 1p/£20k showdown would get a joke offer of about £3k or so, to lure the player into a 1p win

Also, 8 years ago was EVERYONE'S FAVOURITE GLAMOUR GIRL AND PROVEOUT!

The Banker usually doesn't make a stigma out of the 1p anymore as players can easily turn that into £10,000.01via Box 23 or a HALF PENNY certificate that the Banker hates as as it costs him 10p to print. In fact, recent 1p/red finishes drew decent offers (I.e. £3,000 on a 1p/£10,000 finish and £10,000 on a 1p/£35,000 finish, both of which were declined ) so I'd say that the Banker would probably offer the standard £4,000 to £6,000 that he normally offers on a blue/£20k finishes even if that blue is the 1p.

4 years ago, Jamie spanked the Banker by dealing at a generous £22,500 on a £250 / £75,000 finish and having the £250 in his box

6 years ago Ellen won £75k after a JOKE JOKE JOKE JOKE JOKE final offer of £5,000!

8 years today since 'Basil Brush' John played!

8 years ago, Sue had a terrible game from start to finish. Her highest offer was £4,999, she was down to £10k by 8-box and ended up with only £5

What a horrible show to watch, that was. Especially when she broke down crying near the end, it was just so sad seeing someone in tears so close to Christmas

3 years ago today, Iain played. He was dressed as Robin Hood. He won £15k & a pair of the banker's underpants.

Those were the days.

A year ago today, Paul the butcher played in the final Ideal Christmas special, which was also the final game to be filmed in the original studio!

He won £16k, a woman's bike, and a pair of the banker's dirty underpants (yes, them again, looking at my last post). He could have won £35k, but it would have taken a less-than-ideal banker's gamble on a £750/£35k finish to get it, so couldn't have begrudged him that really.

Maybe not the sort of game they wanted to close the old studio, but could have been a lot worse. Paul still looked happy at the end at least!

7 years ago was the last of the 2007 Christmas Stars specials. And the final player was John, who had a pretty lackluster game, where he dealt at £5,000 and would've been left with a £500/£20,000 2-box, where he would've been offered £8,800 (Seems a bit inflated, but the offer were overall pretty inflated during the Christmas Stars shows)

6 years ago, Harry played in the unthemed post-christmas shows in the lead up to the new year, and was the second of three games where the 1p was replaced by a 'TURKEY SANDWICH'! . He had a good game, maintaining a strong board and reasonable offers throughout, at 8-box, he no-dealt £25k on a 3-blues/£15k/£20k/Top-3 5-box.

In the fifth round he did some damage by taking the £15k, £20k and £75k but leaving the top 2 and 3 blues in play. What we then saw was the banker setting the trap by lowering the offer to £20k!

Harry bravely no-dealt, sadly losing the £250k in the first box, but keeping the £100k at 2-box. Faced with a 10p/£100k final-2, Harry recieved a final offer of £18,000 (Though I think people had gotten used to sub-£20k offers on £100k/blue finishes by now anyway). Harry DEALT and only had 10p in his box, giving him a very nice TPW

2 years ago, Kristy played in the last of the 2012 Christmas specials and getting a surprise OPW by dealing at £15,000 on a 2-blues/£15k/£50k/£100k 5-box and taking out all three reds in the proveout!

Today is the first anniversary of Box 23. Joey dealt a generous £10,900 on a 10p / £35,000 finish and increased his winnings to £20,900 with +£10,000 in Box 23.

And since him only two players have risked five figures on Box 23. In fact, between his game and the end of April, only one player risked a red amount on Box 23.

You'd have expected it to have been more than that in 2014.

I wouldn't. Don't get your hopes up in 2015.

6 years ago, Alexandra played in the second game of 2009 and hoping for a better result after Alex's shocking crash the day before

Alexandra was an interesting player, with her VERY thick Glaswegian accent and her crazy screams when a blue was revealed In terms of her game, she had average luck throughout and the banker was still kind of in his late-2008 offer slump, until she made to 2-box with a £10/£75,000, where she was offered a rather low £13,500

Alexandra DEALT and could've had the £75,000. It wasn't the worst deal in the history, but definately one of the weaker deals on a blue/power-5 finish (Her deal would probably be considered 'bad' in the Terri or Tink sense, but far from the horror stories of £10k Iris and £1k Michael). Still it was understandable at she could've went home with bark if she no-dealt and ended up with £10.

Of course, Alexandra's departure from W4 would see her replacement instantly become one of the biggest characters of Season 4 and 2009

I actually wasn't that surprised by this. The contestants from the start of last year must have found being on the show quite surreal. They were arriving in the studio to find it looked nothing like it did on TV (as they'd have been filmed in late 2013 when shows from the old studio were still being aired) and suddenly they had to factor in this bonus box, which was as likely to lose you money as it was to enhance winnings. I think a lot of players arrive with a strategy for certain situations (even if they don't stick to them) but as they weren't aware of box 23 before arriving at the studio, I think most of them weren't confident about taking it on after winning an amount of money that meant a lot to them (the majority of banker's gambles have been turned down for similar reasons). We saw a few bigger sums being gambled from June onwards (Matt, Peter etc) as those players may have seen 23 used on TV and had had time to factor that into their potential strategies.

Of course it encouraged a few players to turn down offers they might have previously taken knowing they could get an extra £10k at the end, which may not have been the original intention of the producers, but it added some extra tension towards the end so I doubt the producers were complaining!

6 years ago was Tony crashing from £40,000 to 50p

9 years was Vaughan saying "I could make £4,900 in a week by doing a commission" and then taking it seconds later!

3 years since Paul taking £70,000, and being devastated about missing out on the £250k!

8 years since Gabrielle had a feel-good game by playing to the end and winning £15,000

A year ago today, Laura dealt a fairly generous (at least by the Banker's standards at the time ) £7,500 offer at 5 box (on a 3 blues/£5k/£100k board), but missed out on £100,000 in her box.

2 years ago today, Leo dealt a fairly generous £8,250 offer on a 4 blues/£1k/£20k/£35k/£75k 8 box, but missed out on an £18,000 5 box offer and £20,000 in his box.

4 years ago today, Dave got an EXTREMELY generous opening offer of £10,000 after hitting £15k, £50k, AND £75k in his opening round (and fyi, I DEFINITELY would've dealt that myself!). However, like every other player who received a generous opening offer, he felt that it was too early to Deal, so he went on. That proved to be a bad decision, however, as board slowly crumbled over the course of the game and he left with just £100.

7 years ago today, MJ gave the Banker a HUGE run for his money, declining £26,000 on a 3 blues/£1k/£3k/£10k/£50k/£250k 8 box, which then prompted to offer £41,000 at 5 box despite her hitting the £50k in the preceding round. She thankfully dealt this ultra-generous offer, and got a deserved Banker spanking out of it as she found the £250,000 on the final round and had only £1,000 in her box.

OK, Today's anniversaries

I forgot what Jason and Gaz won, sorry

4 years since Derrick's comedy game where he scored a £12,000 OPW after dealing at 5-box

5 years since Tracey played an exciting game. She No-dealt £26k at 5-box but found the £250k in the last round! However she no-dealt the 2-box offer of £13,000 on a 50p/£35,000 finish and won £35,000!

6 years since advice-giving Ade received good offers throughout much of his game, but then dealt at £17,500 on a £750/£75,000 ending and could've won £75,000

7 years since Geoff took £20,000 but missed out on a £10k/£100k finish and a final offer of £44,000. He had £10k in his box

8 years since Daniel dealt at £24,500 on a 2-blues/£1k/£20k/£250k 5-box, but would've had the perfect round and had a £20k/£250k showdown (at which he received a rather low proveout offer of £75,000 ), and had the big money on the table!

9 years since Marie declined £30k at 11-box with all P5's in play and then slowly crashed to a 1p/£10k final 2, where she dealt at the last offer of £4,000, but could've made something of a recovery by winning £10,000 from her box. Making Marie the first player to win the lowest amount of money avaliable in their game by dealing

Jason won 50p after declining a VERY POOR 5 box offer of £14,000 on a 50p/£5k/£20k/£35k/£75k board and then having the nightmare round.

Gaz won £20,000 after dealing a VERY GENEROUS 8 box offer on a 3 blues/£1k/£20k/£50k/£75k/£100k board, reaulting in a classic comedy OPW.

Can't believe it's been 4 years since Derrick's game. That show was comedy gold! Loved the part where he accidentally did a 'number 1' on a woman from a crane. I cracked up at that!