Stan wasn't an idiot; it was just a shame his opinion of the 5-box situation wasn't validated with finding the £250,000 straightaway.

At least it was gone by 2-box anyway! Great game today!

OK, I did tune in just as the £250k was revealed. Probably felt a lot worse in the studio than it really was, it was a one-box game and pushing it one more box to hit that, when ordinarily you'd have dealt it in a instant, would've hurt. In Stan's mind, that wasn't a risk worth taking. In others' eyes (including myself), it may well have been. Either way, as I said, he'd have left the dream factory with his head held high.

That was the Laura final five (different blues yes?) and the Laura offer rounded up - and I thought Laura should have taken that one, it was by far a bigger gamble than the final one.

But with one to open, different story. With a 40% chance of £40k and a 40% chance of maybe £30k, I'm playing on for sure, and then Dealing at £40k.

It was a rather subdued atmosphere at the end there, despite it not being the most disastrous results! The deal was admittedly disappointed, especially after the promise of £40k if Stan hit a blue next. That would've been enough to tempt the majority of people on, but it is a different proposition in the chair. Thankfully, he didn't have the biggie.

It is quite weird how the banker has had much more success with the santas than the scrooges this week. Will this pattern continue for the rest of these special games?

I'd have been wanting to know the offer for an orange at 5 box but £30k sounds about right. Great game today. Can't blame him for his caution at 5-box. Even though the odds were with him, the scariness of hitting the £250k first box is very real.

I'd actually got a bit mixed up when I posted on the "what I would have done" thread, I thought it was 40k for avoiding the 250k next box, not just a blue, but I was wrong. That made the decision a lot less clear-cut to me.

Still, I thought Stan was absolutely hilarious, I knew from his time of the wings that his game was going to be good, and I absolutely loved his "BAM" system, (I may have a game myself online doing that by hovering the mouse over the boxes and just picking where it stops!!) . And plenty of comedy moments with Tony's robotic opening, and Stan trying to listen in on Noel's calls with the banker and doing banker impressions and all that. I think the show really has picked up in the last few weeks of the year.

And I don't blame him one bit for the deal, he was fully weighing up the pros and cons of the board when making his decision and was obviously more worried about losing the lot in one box rather than the potential upside, and at least he didn't celebrate the 250k going when it goes way too late like some people do after they would have had a much bigger hypo offer.....

Quite often in one-to-open one-box games, it's really difficult to time the exit point correctly, it's just pure luck really. Especially when the one box is the 250k it had the potential to go drastically wrong either way, especialy when the banker promises future offers, it's easy to get lured into going on and losing the lot like Pammy and Tony at Halloween did! All very fascinating.

Really going to miss Stan!!

Well...odd game I think, good right up until round 6. I do say I hate that system of offers after each box, and what happened with Stan is half the reason why. I would have gone at, er, £65,000 actually. IMO it would be worth the risk going on, and I would, however it'd only pay off if the £250k was in the box - a)there's no way I'd swap and b)if he had gone on and revealed £3k or £5k in the last box, I don't reckon that, at the moment, the offer would be anywhere near £65k - or certainly not much more if it was.
So I think even I would have dealt yesterday. But still, £20,000 is a lot of money. Welldone Stan and spend it well.

A very entertaining game, until the prove-out part anyway. The deal was understandable, even though it was a one box to open situation. Obviously if Stan had found the £250,000 in the first box there was no significant fall back. It did seem that the Banker's promise of £40,000 nearly swayed his original thought to deal, but not quite. Of course had this been a normal game it would have actually been the right deal and turn out to be an OPW.

Stan played well and was very entertaining, he was unlucky in the end though of course without the offer after every box it would have actually proved to be a perfect deal.

Genuinely don't know what i would have done, in some respects the 4-1 odds against hitting the £250k would be enough incentive to give it a whirl and play on at least one more box but with no fallback the drop would have been so vast i'm not sure i would have wanted to chance it

Still £20k and a holiday that is an excellent result so well done Stan

Another decent game. The entertainment was there in bucket loads, but then again, we didn't expect anything different from Stan did we?

I don't criticise him for dealing when he did. Completely understandable. I personally would have gone on one (or maybe two) more but it could have easily crashed.