Oh dear...I would be happy with that scenario

Noel opens box 2 and reveals £1

James with box 7 contains the £100,000

Harry also wins a weeks holiday for 2 in Malta

And my lucky number had it all along!

Well, this one I would call a TPW

Typically they'd only be given out if he dealt on a value around the 2-box offer.

Desert Island Deal Take 2 - I think this is my favourite themed week of the series, as regards the boxes, and costumes (and also the twists in the game too). It's much better than the last two (Easter/Banker's Birthday) specials that we've had anyway!

A very similar opening round to yesterday to start off with up until the 5th box! I wonder if anyone will actually win the holiday this week; obviously they were doubting that anyone would win it, but to avoid the game becoming unfair and changing the criteria for the first round, they appear to be slotting in the reward of a holiday wherever possible really...

Once again today we had fair enough offers, right up until 5-box! I thought that we'd avoided the concept of "one box at a time" . And once again, as expected, the "one box at a time" offer brings with it a lot of "faffing around" .

I'm unsure of whether the twist made him miss out on £35,000 or not. He looked like he may have gone on seeing as the £5,000 was still in play at that point.

Oh well at least he didn't miss out on the £100,000 in his box, which I was very much expecting to be the case!

Good game, well done Harry

Hmm, interesting twist to these specials. It's become apparant that the bottles can play whatever twist the banker likes, rather than just doubling and halving the offer that I thought would be the only twist. Should offer some variety for the next few games, which is always good to see.

As for Harry, he was just desperately unlucky. I don't blame him for dealing, as it was a one box game. Still a good result at the end of the day, so it still left me feeling happy. I'm quite enjoying this theme I must say.

A poker player eh? Hoping this means he's good at maths etc. Noel/banker tho will prob just refer to him as a gambler and goad him into going all the way.

And £250k goes again in round one. £NO_DEAL offered and onto round two. Bad start. But gets better after the break. Vaguely dealable offer but board is decent enough to continue. Which he does.

£50k going is leaving those top two exposed now. I'd prob be bailing with a good offer here. £8.5k is good on an £18.5k mean. One in three chance of a holiday that's prob worth £1-£2k so let's call the total offer ~£9k. That's about half the mean. I think i'd be taking that here.

He doesn't take it and is right when he says this round will define the game. And it does. £75k going drops the mean to £16k and it's now more unstable. An offer of £NO_DEAL forces us on.

Classic finish now of £100k/lowred/blues at 5-box.

I'd have been tempted to no deal the one box at a time gimmick if possible in the hope I could have the gimmick used to increase the offer. As it is though we're going one box at a time. £8.5k is decent on an ultra unstable board with a ~£20k mean. I'd also be walking here. He probably won't though seeing as he has his one box at a time gimmick.

£5,000 gone and an offer of £10k is a no brainer for me now. Easy deal. And he takes it. £20k at 3-box seems fair, if not a tad inflated. Obvious gamble setup here but doubt they'll be bringing that gimmick in. £35k proveout offer is again higher than I suspect it would be in live play.

And he gets a holiday to Malta I'm part Maltese

True, although Alice's £250,000/1p BG was on an offer about £50,000 lower than the 2-box offer. Regardless, thinking back today's game had far too many gimicks to add that on the end.

I enjoyed that game, a very interesting battle of wills between Harry and the Banker,

I was half-expecting the Banker's gamble at the end but as SCDancing says it probably would have been a twist too far.

Still fascinating though, especially the final third. Harry wasn't just an astute reader of the board, he also understood how the Banker's mind works and that made him a formibable opponent. Of course in the end the board wasn't strong enough for him to really give the Banker a run for his money, but he still made a decent profit on his box.

So back to the old Santa or Scrooge twist today then. Can't blame him for dealing the £10k - it might have been worth going one box more (no dealing £20k would have been very poor tactics given that I'd have expected £26k for the £100k/blue finish and not the £35k that was stated).

£1 on the table AGAIN! - that's the 82nd time it's been brought to the table by my reckoning, and no red has appeared more than even 70 times!

Anyway, an interesting battle there, couple of decent offers of £8,500 early on (pretty much bang on the EV prediction), and he was quite sensible to take the £10k in the end I think, although it seemed a bit mean of the banker to dock £5k (from the 15k) for removing the £5k - £13k would've probably been about the equivalent board's value really, but still he sold a blue, so not all bad!

Always trickier to judge the leaving point as well with one-to-open, it is an advantage to the player of course, but it can be a lot trickier to work out the best decision.