That was Daniel who played in February 2009. His board at 11 box was

£1, £5, £10, £50, £100, £250, £750, £1,000, £5,000, £15,000, £20,000, £35,000, £75,000, £100,000.

Ah yes, Daniel's game, a classic but somehow was not in Noel's "Best of..." programmes. lol The Banker was clearly wanting to make a fool out of him and but it back-fired spectacularly. BTW I am convinced that the Banker knows what is in all the boxes

Noel obviously hates 3rd offer deals. Despite what he says, dealing at the 3rd offer isn't necessarily a bad move statisitcally (mainly because not all of them aren't as cautious as the one today)

Well, a fascinating game in a lot of ways, and occasionally it's interesting to see how the scenario of a cautious 3rd offer deal plays out... often with a lot of screaming and chastising from Noel!

We can safely say it was an horrific decision statistically, and I'm not quite sure how a logically-minded player could possibly reason it with the entire power 5 sitting there and also £16k questionably not being the 'life-changing' sum everyone seems to think it is. It was even more baffling too after he had chosen the next box in error!

He seemed to glaze over Richard-style after the deal, not phased by Noel's heckling, and maybe thinking he had made the most brilliant decision ever. He said at the end 'that was the worry' when 50k was revealed, so there was a degree of regret, so clearly he would've liked the big money, so why didn't he chase it on a near-perfect board?

Well, maybe the answer lies with Noel. His absolute disdain expressed today for 11-box dealers (and even I detect some resentment towards the deals that have gone right) maybe actually encouraged Ronnie to think, "No, I'm not going to conform to what this presenter wants me to do, I'm going to be different. 16k is fine for a cruise anyway", in which case it became more about Ronnie trying to prove Noel wrong that "3rd offer deals don't stick".

Ok, so Noel was going to be almost certainly right on this occasion, but he laid it on a bit too much, and Ronnie was determined to not be pressured by the host into a decision which at the time he felt was wrong, so I have to at least applaud him for that.

Noel's going to be so 'I-told-you-so' tomorrow...

Yeah, the intro to tomorrow's show might be worth skipping...

While I'd never criticise a player for dealing if they felt the offer was right for them I cannot ignore the fact that in terms of gameplay that was a very bad decision. Okay if Ronnie had managed to take out the top three boxes in the next round then he would have had to have gone another round before he could even get back in a comparable position but the odds against that were so high as to be almost irrelevant. It was certainly worth at least one more round (and to be honest i also thought that 3rd offer should have been £20k but that's Ronnie's fault for being too open with the Banker)

A game that will be remembered mostly for Noel's near-meltdown, Helen's debut (where's she from again?) and the revelation that the Banker plays bingo

I think Helen said she was from Nottingham but originally County Down

I'm not going to mince words here, so the faint of heart may want to move on.

That was, without question, the worst gameplay I've seen on this show since I started watching it back in June. Worse even than Zoe. Such an immaculate board, wasted on a chicken.

It's not just the fact that he dealt at 11-box. That alone is an incredibly risky decision, prone to backfire more often than it ends up being a good decision, much less the perfect decision. It's the way he dealt. First off, if he really wasn't planning to play on past the third offer, don't telegraph that by saying "I'm really close" at the second offer. That midway offer could've been £20K easily, maybe even more, but by saying that the Banker knew he wouldn't have to add much to the offer to get him out of the game. Secondly, it's the way he dealt - instantaneously, like he wasn't even playing the game and someone just asked him if he wanted £16,000. I don't even think he was scared of leaving with a blue; he just wasn't interested in winning any more than he needed to go on the cruise.

It's at this point that I really need to ask: what is it going to take in order for someone to win the big amounts? The odds of keeping the Power 5 intact halfway into the game is 1 in 57, and even when we manage that, people are willing to bail out as if someone's waiting outside their house to collect on a gambling debt. Chances are we're not going to see a board that promising for weeks, if not months, and the guy who got it this time completely wasted it. I know I have a Wakeyist reputation on these boards, and I've been called "harsh" and "rude" when I call out players who play poorly, but the way Ronnie played was just indefensible.

I smell a trainwreck tomorrow.

I wasn't feeling 100% when I watched this (still aren't now..) so I can't give as detailed a view as some of the rest of you.

Very cautious, you could see a 3rd offer deal coming from the time spent thinking about the 2nd offer. Over-inflated 5th offer indeed.

He should have learned from Anita's game, where she had a similar third round board, had a couple of dodgy rounds and still managed to get £16k out of the game!