Nick D was a massively under rated game because Lance played next! But to have an all-red squashdown in proveout and still have an OPW is quite something.

Two players called Gaz could qualify for very different reasons - the first for a startling £100k win from a board that had one-box game written over it from eight-box (and I nearly switched to Fifteen-to-One on Challenge at that point!!), the more recent one for an 11-box OPW in a twist week. I love how the games immediately after that in TV time (but a summer recording break later in Bristol) had a 6-box break instead of an 8-box one

I'm glad Marshall was mentioned, that's a game so underrated I forgot it too! I love games like that where the stakes are high and the player gets an OPW after taking a good offer having turned down an offer or two that a fair few people wouldn't.

You must be thinking of Baz, not Gaz!

That is the one, yes

Gaz and Baz were both great. I especially loved Baz's game, thinking about it, for how it subverted the "brave firefighter" trope the show created after Matt 1, one of the most overrated P5 wins ever in my opinion (though wasn't it the first from the box? That would explain the reaction to it!).

It was the second, but it came right after two blue wins (admittedly though, one was far more depressing than the other...)

Saj won £50k from the box a few games before £35k Matt did. With similar rubbish offers towards the end of the game.

2 early games - Lance (start of season 2) and Chris (Halloween 2007 - first themed show)

Personally, I’ll hark back to the good old days again...

...and say one of my favourites was Kirsty (04/04/06 – yeah, I do remember the date...). 4th of April is an historic day in my life also, which makes remembering it slightly easier...but this game was brilliant. Not only did Kirsty catch my astute 11-year-old eye, I thought she played very well.

Especially to turn down what I think was £52,000, to go on and have the £75k, £100k and £250k as her final three...and the £125,000 at that time was absolutely wild, unheard of since the days of Jennifer, and even then that was the only other occasion back then, when anything near that had been offered. It was amazing, the atmosphere electric....

...Geordie’s game was another. His was one of the first I watched, I can’t remember too much about it but I think he had a pretty torrid time of it, with some paltry offers. The £20 deal at the end – again, at this point a record for lowest deal – kind of summed it all up in my view. Very entertaining regardless of the outcome.

James from March 2006, “sartorially elegant” James, who read a newspaper while at the table.

Trevor, 1p Trevor....the atmosphere with the 1p, £250 and £250,000 remaining, absolutely on ice. You could hear a pin drop as Trevor went for box 1...had he chosen the other box left, he would have been in a situation we’ve seen a few times since – 1p and £250k. Who knows what might have happened?
But box 1 it was, £250,000 was in it, and Trevor’s dream of seeing his brother (in Australia?) was, temporarily at least, over. I recall the Banker had stuck at £9,900 as his fifth offer, and Trevor had thought about it a lot before turning it down. With 1p and £250 left, I think the offer was £90. It was just one of the most depressing endings, this one, you could sense the sadness in the air at what could have been and wasn’t to be. I thought he handled it all rather well, in the circumstances.

Gaz...took out the £250,000 with his first box and the rest was history...

Daniel who I believe won £90,000, who had one of the strongest – if not the strongest – 5-box boards we’ve ever seen...

Germaine, who dealt at £75,000 and had the £250k in his box 12...

...Laura who won it...

Lance. Ah, Lance! With the little contraption he showed us all, great sense of humour and a decent outcome for him as well.

I could think of many, many more...as far back as 1p Nick, Andy Kelly, Jennifer, £41,000 Jessica, Mumtaz going forward a bit in time....so many memorable games.

For my personal best however....I’m going to stick with my original choice. £125,000 Kirsty from April 2006...

I remember the day this was on, it was wetter than a drenched dog... than Rihanna on last night's X Factor... than Marti Pellow. I had gone to the town library to use the internet, a real privilege at the time (we had none at home) and ended up missing the game.

Considering his faux nonchalent attitude to the game, he was a pretty lucky bugger an' all. Took the bottom 3 in his first 3 boxes (1 in 1540 chance) and scooped up £32,000 from an all red 5-box.

Jesus, I'm starting to get pangs of nostalgia just typing that. Jesus, 2006 still almost feels recent !


... oh and by the way, Kirsty also caught my astute eye. And my brother's...

Glad I wasn’t the only one...

...yes, your memory of James is very good. Brings back my own memory...he didn’t look as if he wanted to interact with the peasants who filled the rest of the room, I think everyone kind of sensed that. It was an odd atmosphere, for me at least.

Rather like...when.....that girl played in June/July 2006, the one nobody seemed to like? Can’t remember her name but she springs to mind, I think she may have only stayed for 9 shows?

Yes....yes...nostalgia, haha. To us, 2006 was like yesterday....to me even more so, because I haven’t properly watched the show for nearly 5 years. So all that’s happened in the past 5 years is completely blank to me...

That would have been Janelle. And the episode ended up airing directly against a World Cup quarter final involving England, the ultimate insult! (The More4 repeat was one of the highest rated shows in that channel's history, I believe...)

My favourite game/player is easily Betty from 2008 who won £100,000 from her box :]

Yep, and she had that amount the day before. I think she went for it because she believed she had it again... from what I can remember.

There was a game when a woman believed £100,000 couldn't be in the box three times in a row, so she kept her box because she really thought it was the £100,000... but she won something like £100 instead, whose game was that?

Mary from January 2009 - She accidentally said No Deal to £20,000. Noel asked the question again, Mary said No Deal and she went on to win £75,000!

One of my favourites was when a 97-year-old man named Joe played. He was a laugh riot, and ended up as the oldest contestant in the show's history.

Also enjoyed Ramesh's £77,000 win from a couple of years ago. He was fun to watch, and he scored a mega-spanking as well. And I can't forget about the five £250,000 winners.

Regarding some of the posts above, Nick Bain was the inventor of idiocy, while Trevor proved to be quite stupid as well.

The levels of stupidity in this post have measured an alarming 8.4 on the fabled 'Logic-Deprivation Measurement Scale' (LDMS).

The record high was set by Mariyam in June of 2012, which saw her failure to grasp the most rudimentary game logic in the most critical of gameplay stages achieve a monumental 9.8 on the scale.

Runner up is Ralph, who in June of 2010 used every minute of his game recording to ask each player what the contents of their box from yesterday were in order to base his decisions when picking them. This feat of nonsensicalness reached 9.6 on the LDMS.

Ah, yes, Mariyam. How I absolutely loathe her. Forever enshrined as the Queen of the Damned.

I have a handheld version of the LDMS at home, and let's just say that her complete ineptitude and lack of brains was so severe, it caused my handheld LDMS to explode. Although the scale itself only goes up to 10, my device flashed "IDIOCY OVERLOAD" on its display before it blew up.

I've been trying to find a new one via ebay, but I haven't has much success with that so far.

Think you may be going a bit too far there Mad Mark. Just because she gambled, and it didn't pay off, doesn't make her stupid. Others have taken similar gambles that paid off.
(Er, no offense intended, you understand)

I've made reference to her game resembling a circus, with Ringmaster Edmonds and his faithful assistant Mariyam orchestrating the affair. That said, I think I would rather have watched a county circus instead of that episode

My LDMS is actually itself quite near to breaking point, what with the sensory over-stimulation of Mark and BankerSpanker's regular presentation of fried sh*t, which leave a lingering smell of rot and disease over the forum on a fair few occasions.

I predict that the LDMS will finally reach the hallowed '10' scale in tomorrow's game and self-destruct quite like mines in the Windows 95 classic 'Minesweeper'. IF it is Mark who achieves this, not a contestant on the show, then I may have to bill him for the damage.

Something like that, it was such an exciting game and the best year of DOND imo...