This would have put you under unbelievable strain says Noel.

Banker's offer:

BANKER'S GAMBLE

Bharti says she is ready for the question, but the Banker calls back and says that Bharti can SWAP if she wants to bring box 6 to the table. Bharti says that 6 is her lucky number.

Bharti says

NO DEAL

The last half of this game made the mathematician in me projectile vomit.

Bharti says that she wouldn't have swapped as she said she would play with whatever box she was given, BUT Noel performs the SWAP!!!! He wants to see if Bharti's lucky number would have come good for her!

Noel swaps Bharti's box 15 for Howie's box 6.

Noel opens box 6 and reveals £75,000

Howie with box 15 contains the 50p

Another player in a row who should have been more brave. Always believe in your lucky number.....

But ah well, a good win.

OK Noel, did she say at all she definitely would have swapped if she'd gambled? I never heard it, you did it for her for the guilt-trip. She sold a 50p box for £21,000, and you made it sound terrible. Twonk.

This just adds fuel to the fire for all the "Noel knows what's in the boxes" cynics!!

It certainly does James!

I've never seen Noel try so hard to make it a great ending, knowing full well where the 75k was

Indeed - there's no other explanation whatsoever! I'm all one for entertainment but why carry out a hypo swap if she said she wouldn't have swapped...hmmmmmm...

Even the offer she dealt one was a bit low, to try and push her on

Although it was a poor Deal for the board, it wasn't nearly as unforgivable as the spin placed at the ending. Well done for reminding me why I don't actually physically watch this show anymore, why don't you.

There's a smilie on here which kind of sums up my feelings for Noel after the end of that show but I have one from another forum which is bigger and more apt. It's bad enough having the hypo-swap but to do it when the player specifically says that she wouldn't have swapped is unforgivable.



Expected £26k at 5-box but it was a board that shouted out that either the £100k/blue or £75k/blue endings were going to leave the BG.

Haven't been motivated much to post on the forums, as I can't say I'm enjoying the shows at the moment. Better than before the summer break, but still not great.

What was with that ending, though?! I don't mind Bharti's deal with the 10p and 50p there, though it was (perhaps excessively) cautious, considering even 10p and £35,000 would have had an offer of £7-10,000. But that hypo-swap, when Bharti didn't even want it?!

Really, it would have been frankly unthinkable to have messed up that ending a few years ago. Noel would have said the 2-box offer would have been the same, £21,000, and the box would have been opened to reveal 50p. Apparently, an ending isn't any good if it doesn't have at least one twist to interfere with proceedings.

And you get the overused Banker's Gamble, which encourages players to deal so they may have a chance of re-entering play (which most decline anyway), reducing the incentive for players to take risks.

I still watch the show, in the sense that I mostly browse the web and listen for the most part, tuning in for the parts where the game is involving, and not the charade in-between. Just hope that it gets better in the next few months, not confident though.

I have two words for this game: Intolerable Cruelty

Agree with all of that, sadly you only have to look at the decreasing lengths of the threads since the summer break to realise that a lot of people are thinking the same, there are a lot of irritations with the show at the moment, today particularly with that frankly mindless hypothetical swap that Bharti didn't even want, seemingly just made to elicit the guilt trip.

Ok, I don't believe he knows what's in the boxes, but it just feels strange and cruel when a game is presented to the contestants and audience as if it's a COMPLETE disaster when if fact it was a perfectly good selling of a 50p box for £21,000 - I mean, are we just supposed to just forget the box she was selling all along, it's a complete corruption of the initial premise behind the game (selling the box on the table).

Personally, I think they should ban swaps altogether now, it started off as a novelty, but at least then there wouldn't be all this irrelevant conversation about whether to swap a box you've already sold after a deal you probably would've taken after a deal you did take. See how confusing you're making it, Noel...

Excellent smiley. I didnt see this game, as the recorder didn't get it all, and I really couldnt be 'arrised anymore. But Noel, along with the Banker really have been winding me up a lot recently.

The hypo swap is always pretty pointless in my opinion anyway

Personally I was expecting Old Faithfull at five box, and while £21k might have been a little under par, with two of the lowest blues still in play, then (short of an all red final) Bharti would have needed to keep the £100k in play to secure a better offer and I'm not sure that's a risk i would have wanted to take

Was thoroughly appalled by the hypo swap being forced on her by Noel*and i'm not surprised people are taking it as an enforced guilt trip - though i suspect if the blue had been revealed people would be saying he did it to prevent a guilt trip

*Or more specifically by the director i would imagine

Well in the past the show has learned things from this site...here's hoping they take the feedback from this thread too!

I don't think they should ban them altogether but only use them in one of three situations.

1) If the £250,000 is still there in the final two. As the swap is guaranteed if the big one is still there.
2) If a contestant cannot stop banging about a number they wanted on the wings and leaves it until the final two.
3) If a contestant swaps at the first phone call but leaves it until the final two.

If what happened yesterday happened four years ago then I would probably make a fuss about it but the show has been going for nearly five years, I cannot see the point moaning as the rule book has been ripped up three times over.

I missed this game but cant beleive Noel swapped the box even when she didnt want to. he should have played on with the honesty that she had. EVEN if she did hint that she would have swapped at the end, in live play its such a big thing to swap, that its resonable to think that she may not have and since she had dealt anyway, why even bother? And he did a further guilt trip today at the intro. Not good, Noel. Treat the players with respect and stop messing around with their games!

Well, after 1,500 games, I think Noel can be given a bit of leeway for his faux pas, considering a lot of presenters would have lost their minds by now doing the same show for five years! He does very well considering all that he faces on the show.

I agree with the above in general, that swaps shouldn't be a factor in proveouts, though I wouldn't exclude them entirely. Instead, have the swap around the start of the player's game, rather than the end.

At the first offer, the banker calls and offers the player the choice of receiving an offer, or the swap. This is the only time the player will have the opportunity to swap their box, and the only time the banker can offer it.

This might sound surprising that there should be a limit on what the banker/producers can do, but this would make one of the irrelevancies of the game, become relevant. How would the banker respond to the player accepting the swap, only able to make 5 offers? Is he facing a player obsessed with a particular number, or a gambler, making them harder for the banker to read?

And if there's any twists, they should be announced at the same time as well. Players should be focused on the offers, not whether they may be proceeding one box at a time arbitrarily, or have a 2/10 chance of receiving the banker's gamble and facing a swap decision.

This is what the show's producers should embrace: player derived chaos, not producer/Noel manufactured ones! The game doesn't have to be easier, or pushed in a specific direction, to make it an entertaining one. The most memorable ones often take place when the players are in control, doing their own thing.

The production team should accept that the game revolves around the player, with only the banker's offers challenging proceedings. If players aren't being themselves for any reason, then that should be a major concern for the show's producers. Making the players uncomfortable by overwhelming them with the experience, should be the #1 priority that the producers should solve, as it translates to an uncomfortable viewing experience for everyone else watching the show.

Went a bit off the beaten path, but as you can see, there is a lot I would change. And yeah, hope the producers are reading as well.