Del, you had balls today!!!

Well done!!!!!!!!!!!!


Do us a sarnie mate!!!!

Rob

There have definitely been contestants who have played after 9 or 10, though I've not followed it as closely the last year or so I think that's still the record. Apart from those who played in the first eight shows when the show started of course, and the Christmas Stars which were one-offs...

If it was truly random we would get a first show player every 22 games, and would have had some doing a lot more than record-holder Lucy's 50 as well.

Well unless someone wins a power 5 box, it's going to be difficult to top this game for Game Of The Month!

I thought that was brilliant. I loved how Del didn't get bluffed by the banker into playing the necklace just after the derisory £4k offer, or allowed himself to be goaded on by the banker offering an £130k "carrot" if he hit the two blues following the £30k offer. Plus he did it without any sort of indecision and was absolutely decisive about what he wanted to do - he kept the cards close to his chest. Going up from £24k to £30k after taking out what was quite an inportant safety net pushed it right into deal territory, and then to have the 1p in the box was absolutely awesome. I was scared that he'd gone on as well as he'd come across a bit aggressive on the wings.

I thought he played the necklace at the perfect time becuase even if Jimmy did have the quarter-million, the £35k and £20k would have provided a decent get out before the game became a total trainwreck.

Fantastic game. Well done Del!!

That, my friends, is how to play an almost perfect game (aided by a very deliberate joke offer at 8 box to force the necklace to be played between 5 box and 2 box).

For the first time this week, we had the marrying of a sensible deal and then the destruction of the game after. It certainly wasn't worth risking going 2 boxes from 5 box before getting an offer at it would have reduced the odds of missing the £250k from 80% to 60%.

Once again, we got the guarantee of the 1/6 chance from the banker when the more usual guarantee would have been the 1/2 chance of the £250k/blue finish but it was certainly prudent not to risk the £30k on the coin flip that would have been keeping the £250k in play to 2 box.

The second best deal of all time as a % of the box value can't be argued with.

Fantastic game today! And apologies for not being here earlier for board duties! Spank me too!

Great game for Del - for Jimmy's box to simply not have the £250,000 would have surely sent the offer up, so well done to him for knowing just when to quit and not get greedy!

And a fantastic sale for a 1p box! One of the highest, behind Julie's over three years ago now!

Asim sold the 1p for a grand more than Del too, what a fab feel-good game that was!

Oh yeah, Del takes 3rd place is in the top three biggest profits made for a 1p box, almost Hall Of Fame material

Dels a top bloke too. I knew that this game would be the "ticks all boxes" kind of game for the viewers. Big money, took it to the wire (well almost), and had the justification at the end. Notice the joke offer at 8 box, the producers definitely didn't want safe 8 box deal again and they weren't going to chance it. They chose the right man for the job. He was always going to go near to the end of the game and all the advice that has been shown of him backs that up (this is pretty close to the general outlook of Del, but the aggressive side has been played up a smidge by the editors methinks).

To a defensive player, the necklace is a burden. Everyone expects miracles from it, but it is only any real use near the end. So defensive players get pressured into either playing it early where it has little value or pushing further into the game when they don't want to go that far. I saw Clares game for the first time tonight and the pressure for her to go beyond her comfort zone was horrible for me to watch because it paints an inaccurate picture of how it really went down in the studio. There was much more support in the studio at the time, but I guess they wanted to try and make a fool of her and a bit of a scapegoat and it's upset me a bit to be honest. I'm getting more KP-minded by the day since love week has started. I've been edited to sound like some moron, with all my reasoning being edited to be left with the "lets go another round". I have no clue how anyone would think I could be a statsman by watching the show. I've barely uttered a stat, I'd think I were a fraud!, ha ha ha ha.

Now, cut to Del and the Necklace is an asset. It is a useful tool when played semi-defensively at 6 box or aggressively at 4 or even 3 box. By this stage of the game, the risks are bad and can easily backfire, but the gains are generous. It suits a more aggressive player. I think it spurred Del onto carrying on. I reckon he'd have dealt at 5 box if he knew he had to complete the round like in regular play. That extra box just tweaked his deal to the right amount. He wasn't a "go all the way" man. He tried telling me that when we first got to Bristol, but he opened up as the games went on and he saw a few burns. So not a Wakeyist, but he was aggressive enough to be put into the "£20k+" band. Last 3 shows have been by players in the £10k-20k band.

Top guy Del, bought us all chips and curry sauce from the chippie and we ate it in the pub. Now that celebrating!

Any guesses to which two contestants would be lined up for the last 2 loveweek shows?

Whoops. Forgot about that game.

In response to Daniel, I'm amazed that there's a pub which lets you take your own food in there!!

As did I! Good all the same!

My first thoughts were Melissa and Carla, but I have a feeling its
Melissa and ... You! I'm thinking that the banker might enjoy how a stats man like yourself
would use the necklace box tactically.

I have no idea as I'm not into spoilers.

So I'm going with Carla and Dan.

I agree with you rico ... the game would be very interesting if Dan was involved with the necklace.

Textbook game.

Del played it perfectly, okay there was a little bit of luck involved - if he'd chosen his last two boxes differently there could have been a tense proveout, but at the end of the day he not only sold a 1p box for £30k but he got out at the peak of the game.

A perfect Spanking!!!!!

DEL'S GAME
absoluetly bliddy fabulous game
WELL DONE THAT MAN
THAT BANKER

Well, a faultless finish to today's game - you can't really argue with selling a box for 3 million times its value! The strength of the board helped with the use of the necklace to engineer a high offer - which in hindsight was just as well, as he would've hit the 10% chance in regular play!

Personally, I might've risked 1 more 'normal' box before picking the necklace, because as long as it isn't the £250k (80% chance), it's ok, and then I would go for the necklace, and the offer would have to be quite high, as I would only have 1 box to open before I received another offer. (Although I suspect this would still have led me to deal £30k at 3-box with blue/blue £250k - yep, that's the FD give or take about £916...).

It's an interesting dilemma - I suppose it boils to whether you're prepared to go to the end and play the odds on the 2-box scenarios at 5-box usually (almost like forgetting the necklace), and whether you're using it as a 'pressure point' to encourage the banker to make you deal before your desired exit point, rather than an 'end of game' move.

The difficulty in deciding also is that the 5-box offer is higher than usual in anticipation that you will use the necklace, which you might not (but is that 'foolish'...?!), but I would've used it at 4-box today, largely because the £250k was still in play, and the 5-box setup would've encouraged me to 2-box in normal play (just).

The strategy I'd use would be to openly declare that I'd use it only at the last possible point, 3-box, present myself as a Wakeyist which is clearly approved of at the moment especially, and then hope either the board holds up that far or the Banker responds to that declaration with unusually high offers, one of which I would then take...

Exactly the strategy it was just thinking about, actually!

dan, thanks for that. it didnt paint a true picture of how it was, and i took so long deliberating over that offer, and they made it look like i didnt give it that much thought i think. i agree with what u said about how u have been edited too - i think certainly most if not all on here would agree that u were a huge asset to the games you played on, and speaking for myself, i certainly couldnt have done it without u. all of your friends from deal also know that your statman reputation is the truth too and i defy anyone to say otherwise, i feel very fortunate to have been on at the same time as u and again cant thanku enough.

I also thought they might play Daniel during Love Week to see how he'd use the necklace. I guess we'll find out by the end of the week.

Del played a perfect game there, didn't he? The first time the necklace has properly paid off for the player this week. Under normal circumstances, he'd probably have got about £20k - £26k at 5-box and presumably dealt. Although he could've no dealt and won just a penny, so the necklace really did gain him extra money!

Well done Del.