- Candice who played 11 years ago yesterday had the first ever hypo-swap (She dealt at £19,000 and really undersold a £75k box but Noel hypo-swapped to make it look like she sold a £500 box
)
- The game you're referring to with the man in the audience being kicked out by Noel was Sandra (who arguably squandered THE easiest £100k win ever!). As you said, it was funny at the time, and then the whole 'Noel kicking people out for no reason' thing just got stupid from 2011-onwards
- Phyllis from October 2007 had the first 'Banker's gamble', but it wasn't referred to as the 'Banker's gamble' until its second use in Semi's game, months later. Another gimmick that was alright at first, and then got flogged to death and become predictable
- I think Pierre from July 2006 was the first player to receive a 5-figure opening offer after losing one of the power 5 in the opening round (IIRC he took out 2 blues/£1k/£15k/£50k and got offered £10,000, then got up to £24,000, then crashed and dealt at his lowest offer, £7,000, largely thanks to pressure from his girlfriend
)
- Speaking of which, the first game that featured heavy pressure from the player's spouse/friend/relative to deal was probably Chris 2005. Everyone considers the infamous Donna from about the same time a year later to be when players having someone with them first became really frowned upon on here. But in Chris' game, his wife practically ORDERED him to deal at £24k by saying "if the £250k goes, you've got no fallback (by the way, he did have £20k and £35k backing it up!) and if you lose it, you're sleeping in the cold car"
Chris seemingly just laughed off his wife's comments but he did take the £24k