An offer of £26,000 on that finish would be 146% of the mean. If a Banker's Gamble did happen on that finish, I would have personally mailed you £26,000 myself.

Banker's Gamble would be idiotic. £26,000 is far too high for that to happen. £12-13k might have made it possible.

EXACTLY the sort of game we needed, there. Very well played, and certainly one of the most memorable players to boot.

Well I didn't say he should have accepted... as it wouldn't be worth it.

It probably would have happened if the £100,000 remained to the end.

Yep, I wasn't exactly being impartial in the commentary there, I bloody wanted this victory and what a player Ollie was too !

A kick start to this month in grand style, made even funnier with the piss dribble coming out of Chelsea97 (your comment, girl, would have been a little more relevant in a game where £26,000 wasn't offered with only 3 sums much bigger than it left) and Mark (Bankers' gamble with a potential gain of £9,000 stacked with a £25,500 loss. FOOL).

Well done once again Ollie

Also good job he didn't make history and went at the first and second offer as they were very much worth another round... then the third offer... just slightly worth another round. If the top three were still in play, then it would be different.

We need to compile all of your posts and produce a compilation book, marketed at the psychologist field. It would be a bestseller.

Seriously?

On October 1st, we get a 3rd offer dealt... that was more generous than most of the ones last month put together!

Missed the first two parts so will definitely have to watch this one back. Ollie's game had certainly been built up over the last few weeks and his back story sounds fascinating, so it was good to see what seemed quite a good head-to-head with a board that enabled Ollie's abilities to get him a good offer, which the proveout justified - eventually! By looking at the clock I had a feeling one of the big amounts might stay to the end (Noel subsquently dragging out the box reveal at the end), so was relieved when the 2 biggest went but not too surprised when the £35k stayed. Now, selling a £35k box for £26k is far from the biggest disaster we've seen on the show, so I wasn't that impressed with Noel's speech about the banker "having his revenge", thankfully the blue in the box put paid to that!

Great game from a great player who genuinely embraced the game and the people around him.

Oliver is a retained firefighter from TOPSHAM not Shropshire!

What a fantastic game.

Could hardly believe the generosity of the Banker and Ollie played a blinder, Given the vulnerability of the board the 3rd offer was pretty much a no brainer, and I'm glad it panned out for him, though even if the £35k had been in his box I don't think there would have been any regrets

Let's hope Noel remembers Ollie's game next time he tries the "3rd offer doesn't work" spiel. Mind you, there's no way the producers would cast 22 Ollie's on the wings as they'd had to pay out a lot more money.

I'm afraid the shark has already been jumped.That was the day that Olly Murs sat in the crazy chair for the second time. I suppose it was only a matter of time before celebrities were involved, but that was a sad day in my opinion.

The mantra of your "only here once" was changed to "your only here once, unless of course you go on to be a succesfull popular celebrity".

But beside that, as other people have noted, its easy to see which direction a show is taking.

If you get 10 minutes of introduction before a box is opened, its a safe bet there's an early deal on the cards. If its only 2-3 minutes we are going to near the end.

If halfway thru a game, in live play, the player suddenly mentions a box in the wings they had a "feeling" about (which they had not mentioned through the entire show) you know they are looking for an exit deal.

But if they're is one thing that bugs me, its when there is a big second offer and the player starts talking to both wings and the advice is usually "one more round". Why do this? We all know they're not going to take the offer.

Anyone who watched the early shows on Challenge recently would notice how much the show has evolved.
An extra 15 minutes, more seasonal themed shows, all the pilgrims wear black, the 1p kiss, supersticious boxes, curse of the newbie, bowing to both wings, more in depth analysis on the players personal circumstances.

This was once a really great show, with a few minor tweaks it could be as great again.

The 'curse of the newbie' did actually exist as far back as January 2006, but it was stopped once they started to consistently have low numbers. Bowing to the wings was also established by Marie in the same month, but it took a while for every player to do it.

Yes, the show could easily be 'as it was' by cutting it back to 45 minutes and removing the gimmicks, but it won't magically regain the spark it had in 2006, it never will, but losing the extra 15 minutes will make the difference.

You beat me to it. Topsham is a long way from Shropshire! Its just out side of Exeter on the Exe Estuary!

When you do the commentary you tend to miss certain details when focusing on submitting messages and proof-reading.

It seems that I rather colossally screwed up on this occasion.

Doesn't the mere fact the show is on TV irrevocably change it. The more games are played/broadcast the more it evolves, they could cut back on the themed shows and twists yes, but the show will stillcontinue to distance itself from what it originally was

There was absolutely nothing wrong with taking the deal, mostly because of how generous the offer was. The problem is that you think all third round deals are bad and do not consider the offer in relation to the board.

Looks like you have the wrong definition of OHO, he said he was here to make the most of the opportunity and he did exactly that. It does not mean going to the end blindly and ignoring the massive offers given by the banker.