cfd thought exactly the same as me.

I guess that one of two things happened:

1) James adjusted his expectations to absolutely zero, and thus sees a blue win as nothing to worry about, something he was half resigned to at 11-box.
2) The producers talked him into it. If 2), I hope he wins a quid.

And he does. And now I read up and I see it was actually 3) He was a £20,000 targetist and blindly chased it. He might've been a coward on a great board, but on this one he was a Wakeyist!

Box 12 with Shell contains the £20,000

Argh... and to think if it was his game yesterday. There would have been 250,000 of them £1's in his box. Ah well.

Mark, he'd probably have 'squandered' it by the sounds of it, but still had twenty grand and probably not many regrets!

Both this game and the one he'd have had if he played yesterday expose the limitations of a targetist strategy. It works both ways you know.

That was unlucky. One of those games where there was never big money, but he took his best shot at it.

He was clearly ok with winning £1, which justified his no deal. Shame it didn't work out for him, especially after all that build up opening the box.

That end of the music I noticed... Wasn't even watching, but unlucky for him, that was a big gamble I wouldn't have taken...

Great reverse psychology editing there. I thought it would be a 20K win there because of the time left and then a £1 win at the last minute because of the way it was built up.

Oh dear, it looks like the player selection machine has malfunctioned recently

For 2 games now, they've picked the player who had the biggie the game before, I sure hope this doesn't continue otherwise it's gonna look very suspicious...

Poor James, I thought he was gonna win £20,000

If he'd won £20,000 we might have seen the other players 'inspired' in a very worrying way, so while I don't have any problem with his decisions, I think the other players should be quite relieved at that ending as they will be more able to play their own games...

...what's the record for the most number of box wins in a regular week?

Absolute Banana Sandwich. That's the only term that can used to describe this game.

Well, that's life my friend.

I was gutted for James today, what a blooming shame, hes a really nice lad, luck just wasnt on his side.

Agreed, but at the same time because of James winning £1, it's also gonna trigger some cautious deals, but I sure hope I'm totally wrong by tomorrow's game

It is weird to see people playing the very show after they've had the £250,000...but at least he almost pulled off an epic turnaround - two all-blue rounds would have seen a well-deserved £7,000 final offer which had I not have dealt already I would surely have taken that!

Still, Graham's end result must have fired him up to make one final push for the £20,000 and sadly it wasn't on the table so he was never going to win it - bad luck!

Maybe the only justification to turn down as generous an offer of £3,500 imo was to go all the way which James did, his bravery just wasn't rewarded though.

Yet again £1 comes to the table-64 times now, comfortably ahead of any other box amount.

I couldn't really criticise Graham's game yesterday but for me, James took at least 1 and probably 2 gambles that I wouldn't have done. 35% of the higher box on a red/peanuts final 2 is a very respectable offer.

He may have thought that the generosity of the 5 box offer meant that if he kept the £20k in play, he wouldn't get a joke offer at 2 box.

Another £1 on the table - if 22 is supposedly the death box, is £1 the death amount if it's in the final 2?

Poor James. That was very unlucky. It was interesting to see how his attitude changed towards the end though,he seemed to really despair early on- and it must be frustrating when you hit red after red like that. But seemed perfectly resigned to risking everything on an all or nothing finale.

Personally i would have probably taken the £7k just because i wouldn't have wanted to go home with a quid but i can understand why he felt the need to gamble. £7k is anice little bonus but it's not enough for a mortgage. Wonder if he would have been more prudent if his girlfriend had been with him.

And well done to Scarlett for her little peptalk at 11 box, quite rare for players (especially younger female ones) to be so outspoken so soon after their debut. Mind you I didn't think she was a wall flower

Strange game there, I'm sure James lowered his expectations after that horrific start and practically resigned himself to a blue win. Cruel twist of fate that it should turn around only for him to have the blue after all!

However, £7k was a decent offer, and had he not had such a catastrophic start, he might have taken it in normal circumstances. A lesson, if ever there was one, to not give up on a game and treat every offer on its individual merit. Or play blindly to the end, if you like.

Now, here's an interesting stat - we've now had about 7 sub-£10 opening offers, and on 5 of those occasions (including Wayne's £999), the player has gone on to win a blue! Although today's was the first Outright Player Loss from a sub-£10 offer - John G (yes, him again) came close by winning £10 after an £8 opener. So, beware the next ultra-insulting opening offer!

I missed the start of today's show... what exactly was the reasoning behind the poor opening offer? He didn't have a particularly catastrophic first round.

Really liked James, (not just becuase he had a great name ), but I liked his sense of humour, I had to keep popping out during it but it was looking catastrophic at one point, but I really thought he was going to emulate Jay from last September, and also Rachel from last spring in winning £20,000 when it was basically the only decent red left from about the second break. Gutted that it wasn't, even though he got good offers for a poor board, which i always like to see. I hadn't realised he got offered so close to the mean at 5-box but even offers like that can be gambled without too much regret, but I bet he thought he'd get offered about £9,000 at 2-box based on similar generosity. Shame.