I can remember Endemol's C&D YouTube shakedown in October 2007. Basically every DoND-related upload wiped from existence in 24 hours! The last 10 minutes of people's games that were lost were saved and transferred to the now long-gone ilovedond site and everything else on YouTube - Cleaned, killed, sanitised, homogenised and vaporised, nice knowing ya!

Anyway back on topic and speaking of reckless gamblers from 2005, I can't help but think that Jennifer would've been villainised by the forum if she crashed after no-dealing £52k at 5-box (it would've taken just 2 boxes to kill her game, let alone a nightmare round)

I do remember ILoveDond, and Simon who ran the website. He was a member here too for a while. Jennifer I think would absolutely have been an antihero if her game had gone wrong - besides, imagine what the rest of DoND's life would have been like if she'd finished with £100k and the quarter-mill? Or even won the £250,000 itself?

I get the feeling the show would have gone downhill a lot quicker than it did; that was part of the allure, or, it's always seemed that way, that a fair amount of what kept people viewing was the intrigue as to what new scenario might happen in today's episode. If we'd had the dream finish, highest ever offer, and a quarter-millionaire - and, of course, a 1p winner - before the initial run of 66 episodes was even over, where would we have gone from there?

Actually, speaking of early gamblers who would've looked like fools - how about the very first of them all, Lynn? £14,000 on £10/£35,000 was a fantastic offer, even by the 2005 standard that would be set in the coming few months, and call me senile and soft in my advancing antiquity but for me it's a stone-wall deal.

I mean, come on, risking £14,000 for a tenner? I think the percentage of people who'd do that would be in the twenties, at most. Imagine if she'd still said no deal but won the £10? Like, where would we have gone from there? My hypothetical 66-show pilot run would have featured the first quarter-millionaire, the first 1p winner, the very first player winning a low blue...

You know what i just thought of - We always seem to criticise £1 Gary from May 2006 for being one of the most reckless gamblers ever by no-dealing £21,000 with just the £100k, £250k and next to squat else, then immediately crashing after the deal. But compared to some of the no-deals from about the same time a year later (where almost everyone was crashing and burning after no-dealing £20k+ offers on £250k/£50k/not much else 8-box boards, and of course Theresa no-dealing £21,000 - 92% of the mean - at 8-box with just the £75k and £100k in terms of significant money, and subsequently destroying her board in the next couple of boxes), it actually seems somewhat tame in comparison to failed no-deals like Savvas, Doughnut Kirsty, Theresa etc.!

People also seem to forget that £101k Graeme also took some VERY questionable risks to reach that 6-figure offer!

Exactly that James, it's about - in a lot of cases - whether the given decision was successful or not, but there's a certain flawed logic in it, because for me, we use hindsight to determine whether a decision was wise in the moment. The proveout as we know is just as much about luck as the in-game play, but we've always tended to treat it differently. If the game goes in an upward trajectory, it's - like Nev or Ned (I think it was Nev, I've just watched his game, the 250th show) - 'Nev...you've got £41,000...you SQUANDERED SEVENTY-SIX GRAND!'. If it goes downhill after the deal, fair enough, no problems there, but Noel seemed to have a great knack of making a player completely sad with whatever they'd won, however much it was, and we here on the forum were very one-dimensional in our analysis of the players and their wisdom and sense (or lack thereof).

I think £41k Nev's game was arguably Noel's first really melodramatic post-deal guilt trip

You may very well be right, although watching the first episodes again (well, tell a lie, watching most of the first episodes for the first time...my era began with Jessica who, weirdly, also dealt at £41,000) he didn't half rub it in anyway. 'Maurice...you're not going to like this...this would've been the GENUINE DEAL he'd have HAD to offer...[Maurice already has £35,000, but looks mortified] it'd have been A HUNDRED - AND FIVE - THOUSAND POUNDS, MAURICE!'

Stuff like that. I watched Morris's game again tonight; OK, everyone was deflated, but Morris himself had 'zero regrets' at going away with his £20,000. It was almost like Noel was actively trying to let him know how foolish he'd been at £101,000 - despite Noel soon developing a reputation as a fierce Wakeyist in his own right! If the proveout went in the player's favour, it was a nice touch; if the player was reckless and it worked out, they were a hero, and if it didn't work out, then 'boy, did they have guts...'. If a player dealt and the proveout was retrospectively unlucky, they were dressed down and made to look - and feel - cowardly. For the sake of entertainment, I suppose.

I'm going to be honest, I'm a hypocrite.

I do feel guilty for having a go at contestants for having gambles that have gone wrong, while I praise others for taking the right gamble.

On reflection looking back, I should have a lot more sympathy with those who had gambles go wrong and I apologize for that.