Statistically it's hard to crticise the no deals. While taking 25k at 8 box would have been perfectly reasonable it was only half the mean.

Ann's approach was one I liked and if she made considered decisions to risk all in the search for a really large amount then who's to say she was wrong?

Some interesting points.

I also generally like to see people try to read the board and make informed decision rather than going for the lottery approach, but I have no problem with it when someone is fully prepared for the consequences. From knowing Ann (and I'd like to know if you agree Clare, you knew her longer), I can safely say that she knew she were taking a few risks, but she would have been prepared for the worst. I hate to see people turn down big (fair) offers, get nothing back from it and then be devastated. If Anns 50-50 shot would have gone bad, she would have been strong enough to take it on the chin.

Not everyone who takes the big gambles is actually prepared for the worst (mentioning no names), but Ann was, so in my eyes it justifies her decisions.

Yes Dan, I do agree. I think Anns' determination speaks for itself. Even though her determination might seem a bit risky and even reckless, and it might not be everybody's way to play the game, I can honestly say that she really believed she had that amount in her box, she really believed it. I think up to that stage we'd witnessed Tony lose after turning down a massive amount, and we'd seen Steve have a disappointing game for a great guy, but Ann had been there for Alex's game and in her head she felt they needed avenging. That was some of her motivation for her style and didnt it pay off?

It highlights to me, that sometimes risks do pay off; we all know that they sometimes dont,(if not mostly depending on how much u believe in luck) but she was playing to the end; she had that much faith in herself - none of us knows what amount we have in the boxes as you all know, but Ann believed that she was destined to win that day but she certainly was prepared for the worst and her husband backed her all the way. After her game, i dont believe that she would have been crying in the hotel if she had lost as she had already made that decision in the crazy chair.

I agree that 25k was a lot of money to turn down, and there arent many players like Ann who would take the risk and have it pay off. I was scared to see the 35k go down the swanny as I'd previously ruined Steve's game - whereas that worried me into thinking it would happen again, in Ann's eyes it made her all the more determined to go for it!

Without spoiling any of your own games then, you know the moment your name was called out and it was there for everyone to see on the board, what was going through your heads? How did you WANT to play your own game prior to it actually getting under way and the game infolding the way it eventually did?

I ask coz there's some really interesting opinions already shared...Dan seems to remotely remind me of the way KP would approach his own game for example...he wouldn't be a gambler, nor a cautious player, he'd simply make the decisions based on the board and the offers in terms of the average.

James1978 and misteral have taken the words right out of my mouth. I understand maths and statistics and agree with KP about being 'prudent' in real life, but it is a game show and there's nothing wrong with being reasonably adventurous.

She did respect the offers early on and was just prepared to go for it near the end. I thought all the offers were almost perfect.

KP will be fine soon enough - the whole Wakey Winter time of the year is almost up, after all... He gets like this every winter, though every year it's getting worse!

That was incredible. I didn't think there would be another contender to Mary for game of the month, but this certainly could be it.

I didn't see Ann as being reckless at all. Compare her to Tony who I though got a little bit greedy.

It was very tense, I didn't see a 35k win coming and it made it all the better. There seemed so much enthusiasm during that game, which was brilliant.
More like this please!!

[And to top it all off, we have another Tom on the wings! Hurrah!]

Until the day I had my game. My way of playing the game was always going to be sensible, but not to be taken advantage of. My box has a value, I will walk out at any stage it is met. I have no sentiment for any values, the bankers words mean nothing and the stage of the game is irrelevant. If the risk is greater than the reward, I bow out. Whether that be for £200 or whether I turn down £30k because it doesn't meet my valuation. This number was not all math though. I take my circumstances into consideration. If the money gets above £35k and the offer looks a little weak, I will play it a little more safe as we get higher up the scale.

This is how I thought until the day of my game. I will leave it up to you to summise whether I stuck to this or whether I deviated from my master plan.

Thats the quick version, below is some rubbish I started typing that didn't actually answer your original question, ha ha ha.




I will be careful not to spoil anything, Si I'll tell you what I was thinking from the day before I went to Bristol to the last point you saw, i.e Anns game.

Before I went down to Bristol, it was about 18 months since I last watched the show in full. I had just graduated at the time and the stats/probability/offers side of the game really fascinated me (even though the "I've got a feeling about this box...." annoyed me). I applied because I hadn't got a job yet so i thought, "what the hell, why not!, it's was money". I've never applied for anything else and had no burning desire to be on TV.

6 months later, I started to get phone calls from DOND and they sugested a week that I couldn't make because I was going on holiday to speak to wedding planners in Vegas. They were cool and said they would try and find another time. They found another timeslot and it didn't come into fruition for some reason (although a little annoyed, I bit my lip), the same happened again and on the 4th time, it finally happened.

As soon as I got to the green room, I was greeted with Kerry, who had just won her £35k, understandably bubbly in the circumstances, she was really nice and welcoming to me and Mel (contestants are brought to the studio in groups of 6, Me, Mel, Del, Sally, Amrik and Ash). We saw Eddies game in the green room and then went out to the pub. We introduced ourselves and then got on the booze. From this point, everything went in a direction I didn't expect.....

I'd always assumed that all the contestants seemed a bit OTT in the way that they cared so much about all of these strangers that they had just met, but it was clear after one night that the producers are really good at getting a nice mix of people. As cheesy as it is, of all the 60-70 people I met, about 65 of them were absolutely amazing people. Everyone is very welcoming and the mood is fantastic. Being part of a pub that has 40-50 hopeful. optimistic people was really special. This was particularly weird for me as I'd just seen this whole experience as a way to come in, have a bit of fun and make some money. I thought I would end up laughing at all the affection and gushing that everyone seemed to do on the show, but even a massive cynic like me could understand it within a day.

By my first show, I wasn't really nervous. It was actually really calm. I had already had a few nights out with these people by now (I went on 5th out of 6) and my first game was Carls. This was nice because he was one of the people who I'd got to know quite well. Everyone is really good at putting newbies at ease. First few games were a case of just getting through them without saying anything stupid. Then there was Trevs game. I really liked Trev and this was the first game that I could fully enjoy (someone I knew well and I'd had a few days under my belt). By now, the games meant quite a lot and I went into another stage where the games started to mean a lot to me and I were more happy to show it and speak up.

Every game from this point until Anns game had the same feel about it. We used to say that as soon as you have done 15-16 games, you are "in the zone". By now I'd done 7 I think. I wasn't anywhere near the zone, so all my thoughts were firmly on the contestant in the seat.

Now, beyond Anns game (again, no spoilers) All the people left in the game were ALL (without any exception) people that I really cared a lot for. so from Anns show to my 15th (not really a spoiler, everyone gets 15.....or do they?) it was more of the same. Giving impartial advice, caring a great deal about the player and having the confidence to speak up a little more. All of these games were great, because you are not on the radar and you know your name is not going to come up so for 100% of the game, you are tuned in.

I'll not give away how many shows I did, but I near the end, I needed to have my show. I was really pumped up for it. I felt I'd given my input and was really ready for my turn. The couple of shows before mine were a little disappointing because I'd pumped myself up for it and when it wasn't me, I was a little gutted to be honest. When it finally was me, I was over the moon. I couldn't wait. I'd expected that this would be my show (I won't say why though.....).

Wow, that is a long post.....

That's a long post, Dan

Well said!

I would just like to reiterate what Dan said, that is exactly what it was like. And Dan, I would like to throw it back at you too.

As players left (no spoilers), it used to make me quite sad as there were a few I was especiially gutted to see leave (not mentioning any names but Dan will know) and Dan really really helped me get through all that with a lot of hilarious quips and his general personality! There was also a lot of alcohol involved (lol) which helped!!

I like hearing Dan talk about his experience, cos he is a guy that on the surface is not as emotional as me (lol) but theres more to him than maths...a great friend

Exactly - THIS is why the show will never be axed; you will always have determined players, but the way the game unfolds, the longer you stay there so you watch more games around you, both good and bad, the more self conscious you naturally end up becoming.

So true!

A very good point. My argument, generally, is not actually with the decisions themselves - although I may entirely disagree with them, and question their basis, you have answered that question here - but with the implication in terms of the show as aired to us. A few dozen people watched Ann take the lottery approach pay off big in November 2008; a few million people watched the endorsement thereof in January 2009.



Almost exactly my view also. This includes first and second offers - and my value for the box has been met at that stage before, albeit very rarely (mostly in the post-Laura fallout). The most notable example was another statman, Aaron, who was offered £30,000 at the second offer having taken out seven blues and £10,000. I'd have seen that as 75% of the mean and decided the reward no longer outweighed the risk, especially with the unpredictability of four more offers to come. He saw that, but saw the stage of the game, the £250,000 on the board, and decided he had to play on. He never got the chance to win that much again, although he did Deal £25,000 at eight-box. At least one other player has lost significantly more than £5,000 through a second-offer No Deal that was clearly shown to defy that player's true preferences.

Certainly, the decision shouldn't be all maths. Money is what you make of it, and it isn't (or shouldn't be) 'some sort of flippant, take-it-or-leave-it commodity' - quoting verbatim from Noel way back in November 2005. He promised that was not how he would treat money on the show; he reneged on that promise within months and continues to at least sporadically do so. (Wording deliberate to account for the fact he doesn't consistently do so now.)

The following discussion is quite mathematical, and it's probable that only MisterAl, Simon, Dan and myself will be particularly interested. Feel free to skip it if you wish - or to read it if you wish!

Economists such as myself refer to the concept of 'utility', the actual value one derives from (in this context) various sums of money; usually, the marginal utility of a fixed sum of money declines gradually (so that the difference between £15,000 and £10,000 is greater than between £6,000 and £1,000, for instance). Mathematically, we can say that the typical contestant has a utility function that has a negative second derivative.

Straight away, you might notice that makes the lottery instantly irrational gambling, for it always carries a negative expected value - but lottery players see £1, even many times over, as nothing, and cling to the 1 in 13,983,816 chance of becoming very rich indeed. Immediately it is clear that perceptions of utility functions are very often skewed, which has caused economists to consider alternative explanations. 'Prospect theory' has prevailed in that respect - essentially, it states that gambles are made relative to a reference point, with a resultant utility function looking a bit like this.



Note that after the (perfectly justifiable!) £25,000 No Deal, Ann was now gambling in the domain of losses - her reference point could have been set at £25,000. Furthermore, the psychological impact of having a box value above her peak offer may well have made a difference. I'm not saying Ann wasn't a 'Wakeyist' - her choice of words hinted she very much was - but I am saying that it wouldn't have taken one to go to the end, irrational as it would have been for most who do not adhere to 'Wakeyism'.

The final link in my signature links to another, brief description of prospect theory; it is on a site that explains 'how we change what others think, feel, believe and do', and as such is highly relevant to the context of DoND. Again, recall that I hold a grudge against the host in that respect, one which may or may not be fair.

i liked ann (great name too ) she had the guts to go on and im glad she was rewarded.
well done ann, enjoy the money