I think in this case the correct word is 'BIT' since he only dealt at 2 box lol.

Dave was all about pushing people on, but that offer on that board wasn't as brilliant as everyone suggested with the 15k fall back. He was already guaranteed to end with a hefty amount either way. To be honest, I thought he would play with more caution than his comments to other players suggested, but was surprised when he went past five box and even more surprised when it appeared to pay off and he didnt take advantage of it. I think he must have secretly been a targetist.

I wouldn't have been surprised if he turned out to be a targetist too - his description on the official site said he didn't earn much as a singer and wanted to pay off his mortgage. That may go some way to explain his actions - his target was higher than the £14k he turned down at 5-box and the £15k that could have been in his box, and he thought £35k was significantly more useful than £15k and he'd have taken gambling and winning 'just' £15k worse than what actually happened. An odd utility curve, perhaps...?

Credit to Dave for taking one significant risk to get where he did, shame it wasn't two. And am I right in thinking that's the first power 5 win we've seen in a September game for a while?

This is a great example of how less mathematical players struggle to really get an idea of their utility function. I can't honestly blame them, it just means that sometimes they can end up playing to over-simplified game plans (like "play for £20,000") as their way of feeling in control and minimising regret.

I think that if you asked people to go through hundreds of hypothetical DoND decisions to produce an estimated utility function for each of them, the vast majority would come up as suggesting a No Deal on that two-box finish, but not too many would play on at 5-box. Well, even if he got it the "wrong way round", he won more this way than if he'd gone at five-box!

Thats a good point. Yeah he may have got it the wrong way round but most people would have gone before the two box offer. And we would all be less critical of the deal if he had the 15k in his box. In that case he would have played a blinder.

I wonder C4 didn't want to pay the Performing Rights thingy for Dave to sing today - cost cutting and all that.

Did Dave actually sing in the studio? I assume he did and that they just cut it out, but Noel mentioned the banker 'cutting the sound cable' at the start of today's show.

I also wonder whether the confetti in today's show was a genuine technical issue or just 'the banker' messing about - I assume the latter.

Yes he did and was pretty good IIRC.