Stephen's wife says if he wants to go on then he should. He asks Lyn, who says there's probably another round in it. David says it's still a good board.

Stephen says NO DEAL

Round 5

Stephen now says he's worried about the curse of box 22, so he's leaving it for now.

16 - Tom - £10,000

Noel gets Stephen's wife to join them at the pound table.

15 - Glenda - £50

11 - Mark - £5,000

Banker time

Stephen says that's ok, and Noel says it's interesting but risky. The banker agrees and says the symmetry on the board shows how it could swing.

Banker's offer:

£9,000

The way this game has gone, box 22 should be avoided at all costs!

£10
£100
1,000

£20,000
£50,000

Stephen's partner reminds me of Helen Chamberlain; of Soccer AM fame, and girlfriend of darts player James Wade!

Noel says that's a clever offer. Stephen's wife says it's very respectable. She discusses it with Stephen, and Noel says we're about to see a row occurring! They try and work out how they'd feel if he won a blue. Lyn says if he leaves £50k to the end with a blue, the offer won't be massive.

Stephen says DEAL

Definitely a good call; the offer would have gone down if the £50,000 went, even if his final two were £1,000 and £20,000!

Round 6 (proveout)

Stephen says that was tough.

13 - Courtney - £10

7 - Lyn - £1,000

"NO" shouts Noel

21 - Carmine - £20,000

Not enough, says Noel

Banker time with £100 and £50,000 remaining

Banker's Gamble anyone?


£100



£50,000

The banker said that was like watching a soap opera!

Banker's offer would've been:

£19,000

£19,000 is a tad high...but then again it's believable considering box 22 is still not opened!

Stephen said he'd definitely have dealt there. He says he thinks £50k is in box 22.

Stephen has £100 in his box 20

Noel says that's a good result.

Box 22 with David contains £50,000

Stephen says they'll enjoy having holidays and doing up the house with that money.

It just had that feel to it...box 22 having a big amount, after he said he thought it was big, and the way the game was going.

Ah well, still a decent game - his partner cost him £10,000 but it was all resting on one amount staying!

lovely man and lots of smile money.Happy New Year Stephen,enjoy spending the dosh.

Well, there you have it

Another reason why a relative should let the player decide for him/herself

So we're back to stupid inflated proveout offers again. Marvellous. They seem to have stopped promised future offers which would at least make them believable!! (And maybe it was done to scupper Lyn's rather good advice I thought)

Apart from that, quite an enjoyable show, game and contestant, even if the offers never got very large. The discussions between Stephen and his wife were rather amusing!

Of course it was. Note also the incitement to gamble in the introduction.

Decent, interesting game. Far-from-decent, manipulative hosting. Remind me why I don't actually watch this show anymore, why don't you.

I'd like to think that most of the contestants would be able to rise above that implicit pressure with their aims already set before they play their game, and that mostly seems to be the case since there have been a number of cautious deals recently.

Besides, Noel was far worse back in early 2007.

So would I. We shall see.



Quite. That was when I stopped watching the show.

You do, at least, admit it's there, and to me that's the problem. Twenty contestants with their own games to play is one thing, two million viewers quite another matter. Still, it's been worse before, and may it never reach those depths again. Even modest interventions like this can leave a sour taste in the mouth after what was a decent too-soon-beats-too-late TPW.

Hmm... this show is taken too seriously
It's all fun afternoon TV, after all.