Well that was a surreal game! Insanely generous offers from the start up until 8-box, which were all turned down, only for him to deal at £1,300. If you're going to turn down five-figure offers that are near the mean, it seems very strange that you wouldn't risk £1,050 for the chance of an extra £1,700. Oh well, at least it had some funny banter along the way...

Regarding the message that firefighters tend to win big, how many have there been that have done so? I know there's 100k Gaz, but who else?

£35k Matt was also a fireman

Well I'm sure KP really enjoyed that!!

Funny, I'd have been dealing all the second, third and fourth offers (I'd have never even thought of asking for an increase for an offer as generous as that anyway, and Rob should have known that would upset the banker!!) but then he goes and deals the one less generous that I'd have turned down. Odd. I guess there was no longer any life-changing money to chase but still it seemed very odd in light of what he'd earlier declined!

The board and offers reminded me a bit of Gaz from earlier this year, only Rob had the disaster round one round earlier!

Ovie's moment at the end had me in stitches though!

Has the banker ever been more generous? Rob kept bashing away at the reds, but the banker never went down until Rob had taken out the last red to be above the offers! Incredible. £13,750 was a very good offer, and one I would have taken before the banker got a chance to dock me.

I can see why he went on though. He was really after the big money, and unfortunately it didn't pay off for him. Then to rub salt in the wound, he deals a low 4 figure offer so that he has money guaranteed, only to find £3,000 in the box. Disappointing game. Loved Ovie's scream of joy at the end though. Funny moments are funny.

Well I'm not sure what to make of today's game really - I don't think I actually really liked it

The first of the three £11,500 offers was the only one that I found reasonable in relation to the board, the 3rd was definately worth dealing without a doubt. Then came the 8-box offer which I still found to be a bit inflated, and went off Rob entirely when he asked for more! He'd had consecutive high offers and he asked for more on a very precarious board - too right that the offer went down (and not even by that much really, I'd have dealt at £12,500 had it been the offer in the first place).

Then, in a repeat (kind of) of Kelly's game, dealt at the end, when there had been a much bigger risk at previous offers that had been "no deal"ed. At least the last bit made me laugh with Ovie's misjudgement as regards cheering

I thought 100K Gaz ran an ice cream business?

"Atmosphere of courage". Most overt praise yet for the fire service. Am I watching Channel 4 or Telegraph TV?

Contestants from Chelmsford will never be as well-remembered as firefighters in the eyes of Noel, but if Keeley is half as entertaining as our commentator today, she'll be better entertainment than 90% of the firefighters to have played the game. Decent opening round, horrible flirtation from the Banker, good opening offer... bam. It all goes downhill. Hang on, it's a stick? Erm... is that a joke?

Let's do the maths. £175,000 in the top two boxes. The block of five below... 3+5+10+15+20=53 - so £228,000 on the board. Eleven and a half, times fourteen, is... oh sod it, I'm Dealing. Crumbs, Noel's even talking it up! However, Rob is still under what may not actually be contractual obligation, but only because it doesn't actually need to be written down for players to go on against their better judgement to at least 11-box, and preferably beyond.

£75,000 goes. £143,000 on the board. The double-stick makes this offer eighty-mumble percent of the mean, on what even Noel is describing as a one-box game, and if you're turning this down then I'd love to know your justification. What's your reason, Rob? Is it because your job involves a great deal of risk-taking? Or is it because a combination of that fact and this show's fiction are placing unbearable pressure on you to play in a reckless manner, which turning down that offer frankly was?

£5,000 and £15,000 go. Even if this is a blue, another stick would still be an instant Deal. It's a blue. £123,000 on the board. Mean a shade over fifteen grand. Fifteen grand offered? Just shy of fourteen. Hahahahaha the Banker taunts him for pushing his luck. And so do the fates. Bam.

If there's been a more thoroughly deserved crash this season, I've forgotten it. Just to taunt him further, he nails the 10% chance when it really doesn't matter, and just to complete the irony, he Deals an appreciably below-mean offer and ends up losing money from that. And someone on the wings is obviously so confused at the fact that this reckless contestant has actually Dealt that he's cheered the reveal of the red in the box, and said contestant ends up opening the last box.

My brain hurts.

Rob seems like a great guy and it was sad to see his game crash.
I'm amazed by the generosity of £13,750 at 8 box though. Even if he hadn't taken out the 20K and 100K the banker could've stuck at 5 box and that offer would have still been worth dealing.

Well, in theory it could be claimed that he believed that any offer below the mean was worth declining due to positive expectations, but then he completely went against that by dealing the final offer. Yeah...





Gaz? He got even more generous offers relative to the mean from 11-box onwards IIRC (and on a similar board, no less)...

Some of the most inconsistent play ever though, tbh.

Gaz immediately sprung to mind as having an even more deserved crash than Rob. Turned down the mean a couple of times and crashed to a blue.

14 box offer 70.5% of the mean, 181% of the FD
11 box offer 88.2% of the mean, 253% of the FD
8 box offer 89% of the mean, 304% of the FD

If you are going to turn down offers that generous on a volatile board, you have to be prepared for the worst and trying to get the banker to be even more generous at 8-box probably deserved the offer being reduced.

Finally caught up on the last few weeks after days at various sporting events. Been a rollercoaster time lately, astonishing to have 3 power 5 wins close together!

Anyway, back to today's frankly bizarre game - hard to really have a lot of sympathy for Rob turning down such generous offers, not often I think about dealing at the 2nd offer, but today was probably one of those occasions, failing that certainly the 3rd offer.

He clearly was after the big money, blindly chasing it nearly as recklessly as Gaz. It's what firefighters generally do on this show, and why the producers continue to recruit them, but pulling off a sensible deal would've been far more entertaining than that farce for me

Ok, seem to have duplicated posts, but it gives me an opportunity to check on the EV stats using my calculator, which normally gives a fairly accurate forecast for what the banker would typically offer at each stage based on Expected Value (and taking into account instability), so mathematically anything above the figure should be strongly considered. Today's figure were off the scale:

1st offer: £11,500 EV Estimate: £13,228.17
2nd: £11,500 Estimate: £7,419.83
3rd: £11,500 Estimate: £6,059.74
4th: £13,750 Estimate: £5,145.18

Or in percentage terms of the offer from the estimate:
1st: 87%
2nd: 155%
3rd: 190%
4th: 267%

Those figures suggest a glaring mistake from the player, and what an irony that in the end he accepted a deal that a lot of people here would've turned down!

Exactly, taking a defeatist deal isn't a good idea...just look at Cyril from last year any many others

Neither is turning down 3 offers over 70% of the mean on an unstable board. It's OK if the board is strong enough that you can expect good offers unless you are really unlucky but even at 14 box, it was only a 60% chance of keeping the top 2 in play.

Anyway, the £1,300 offer, while not the best of deals, probably seemed more significant a sum than it really was when it followed an offer in the low hundreds. That and Rob had already put some significance in the other box on the wings, so maybe dealing was his way of not having to worry about the swap (which he may well have taken).

He perhaps had a touch of the 50p Dennis mentality with the early offers, particularly after having seen a few big wins in the last few games - some players turn down those sorts of amounts simply for the amounts they are, because they see the offers and amounts on the board as separate entities.

Like others, I'm struggling to think of that many firemen who've won big on the show apart from 35k Matt. I think the last fireman on the show was Ralph who only won £100!

Is it me or does Yvonne have a big red nearly every show?

Nasty game...it's one of those games where you deep down wonder how generous the 5-box offer would have been if he'd have kept all three reds there; £25,000 at least?! He wasn't necessarily reckless, he just did what I would have thought of doing (although not followed through with it!) and try playing the game based on the generous offers...just bad luck the blues weren't found at the right time, and a nasty result in the end...but hey ho £1,300 is not to be sniffed at

It does seem like it, but I bet that her game will not have a huge red, cause I've seen it all before

yeah i don,t get that he dealt on £1300 when he had previously turned down decent money i really dont get that ah well WHATEVER!!!!!!!!!!