I'd agree as long as I could be sure the £15k/blue finishes would produce £6k, not just £4k. (That would take the 2-box EV past £4,500 - even at these stakes I'd want close to a 10% risk premium.)

I don't like to revel in Schadenfreude like some on this board, but it does amuse me sometimes that these big bullish charecters like John who come out boasting of winning the jackpot so often end up winning a blue while the quiet unassuming girls like Tegan and Suzanne get the confetti. Surely there's a lesson there? Something about playing the board you are given perhaps?

Probably would have taken the £4k myself, seemed lke a pretty good lifeline to me.

All the way to the end for me.

I had very mixed feelings about this game. I'm the noob on the forums and if you've seen my introduction you'll realise I've seen very few games compared to almost everyone else here.

Having said that, in the games I've watched so far (admittedly armed with the trusty Stat-o-Matic beside me), I've always felt fairly confident about what I would have done. I may have agreed or disagreed with the contestant, but I've generally felt confident about that decision. I have a feeling I'd have ended up with the 10p today. I think what put me off was how much the game swung with each round: not only the amounts revealed, but the banker's offers.

The banker's offers swung wildly as a percentage of S-o-M's fair deal. I was expecting that as John had seemed pretty bullish in his time in the wings, the banker would have had to offer reasonably high amounts (gradually approaching fair deal to avoid him dealing too early). Maybe if the boxes had gone for John he would have done that. Instead, the swings in the rounds seemed to allow the banker to come in and exaggerate them, and allowed the banker to take control of the game.

I liked John during his time on the wings and I got kind of caught up in the game with him today and I hadn't realised quite how good the offer at 5 box really was until I clicked the numbers. With the games I've watched up to now, I've hoped I might have managed the pressure reasonably well, but I think that if I'd have been in the chair today I really would have had no idea what I'd have done at 5 box (I'm pretty certain I'd have no-dealed the earlier rounds).

This may be partly down to inexperience reading the boards as I've not seen that many games, but I think emotion may have got the better of me if I'd have played today. With an offer of 80% of the mean, nearly 200% of a fair deal and (I think) a 40% chance of losing both reds, it should have been a no brainer.

I feel somewhat sorry for John - he may go away with regrets about how he played, but it was a tricky game and the first one that inspired me to really think about afterwards and join the forums to post about it.

30% of taking out both reds. (40% you have one in front of you at that point.)

You're left with two boxes from five. The probability that you've got a blue is 60%. If you have a blue in front of you, then it's a 50% chance another blue is left to the end. Hence the all-blue finish is a 30% chance (60% * 50%).

You're right that the offer was awfully generous, yet at the same time it was easy to decline at the relatively low stakes and with the spanking still on from going to the end. People usually get carried away on this sort of board, even if they're not as vocally aggressive as John was on the wings.

(For what it's worth, I invented the "fair deal" metric, back in 2005. Think it was first used in Anita's game which aired on Challenge again on Tuesday. )

You could add Laura and Alice in the same sort of category as the two more recent ones actually!

And add Joycey and 1p Matty to the bullish characters as well.