He played number 1, he's playing number 11, it's STEPHEN! He surely can't have as unstable a board as the last game ended up having, but will he keep the jackpot late like he did then?

One thing will not change - he'll pick a number from 1-4 for each aspect of The Configurator, and then he'll get a player power, Banker power, offer pattern, and money menu. Confirm what number that is

I'll go with 3, 3, 3 and a final 3, please.

Straight 3s give us...

Sets up like this:

• At the end of the game, after Box 25, you'll get to spin the wheel to gain a bonus. There's a 50% chance of a prize, and a 50% chance of a percentage increase to your cash total.
• Two reds have been reduced by 99%, and for this game those happen to be £10,000 and £100,000.
• The offer pattern is 6-5-4-3-2-1-1.
• The Box 25 options are +£5,000/+£3,000/+£1,000/-£2,000/-£4,000.

Board looks like this:

1p
10p
50p
£1
£5
£10
£25
£50
£100
£250
£500
£750
£1,000
£3,000
£5,000
£100
£15,000
£20,000
£35,000
£50,000
£75,000
£1,000
£150,000
£250,000

Box 3 is aptly on the table, and it's six to start. GAME ON!

6, 9, 12, 15, 21, and 24, if you would be so kind.

Box 6 - £3,000. An appropriate first box for you.

Box 9 - £50,000! An uncomfortable second box...

Box 12 - £25! More like it.

Box 15 - £35,000! Shaky...

Box 21 - £75,000! Yikes, a two-box game already!

Box 24 - £750 is nice at least.

The question at the start of the game was whether you could have a more stable board than last time. We may already have our answer, and it's "no."

1p
10p
50p
£1
£5
£10
£50
£100
£250
£500
£1,000
£5,000
£100
£15,000
£20,000
£1,000
£150,000
£250,000

BANKER'S OFFER

£4,444

With five to open... Deal or No Deal?

The £15k and £20k provides a not awful backup game on a BBC non lottery prize budget, so I'm going to No Deal that perfectly reasonable offer given the board.

18, 2, 5, 8 and 11 for the next round.

Circling back and then circling back again... but we don't want our prize potential to circle back to the 90s!

Box 18 - £1 will help!

Box 2 - £15,000 is one of those backups, but we don't know how much we'll miss it yet...

Box 5 - 10p is the kind of box to make us not miss it!

Box 8 - 1p! Three of the bottom four in this round, but we need to make sure it really is a good one by staying safe with this box...

Box 11 - £10! Which we absolutely do!

Bit more stable now, apparently.

50p
£5
£50
£100
£250
£500
£1,000
£5,000
£100
£20,000
£1,000
£150,000
£250,000

Clearly the offer is going up...

BANKER'S OFFER

£9,003

...and by more than 100% at that! It's a Dragon Ball Z offer with a twist... but dealing at the second offer? There's no way that can be right... or is there? Your call... Deal or No Deal?

A lovely offer on a much more healthy board, but I think there's more game in this board yet. No Deal.

14, 17, 20, and 23, please.

And here is that game, or at least we hope it is...

Box 14 - £5,000...

Box 17 - 50p! Perfect!

Box 20 - £1,000, the modified one! So Double 99 feels less significant now...

Box 23 - £50! This game looks so much better than it did out of the gate!

Yes, it's a two-box game (with a third wheel further back). But that's a lot easier to deal with at 9-box than it was at 18-box, especially when those two are the TOP two.

£5
£100
£250
£500
£1,000
£100
£20,000
£150,000
£250,000

With three to open, the Banker thinks this might be your exit time because he knows you won't have big-box tunnel vision and will be especially aware of the value of a solid result pre-wheel.

BANKER'S OFFER

£18,276.09

He's gone up exactly 103% from the last offer! Do you chase those top two for another three? We know the rewards will be massive, the risk is hardly small either, and the wheel could amplify both sides of that equation... Deal or No Deal?

More blue (well, one purple) than red left on the board, backup of just the £20k.

EV is that I take out exactly one of the three amounts I care about if I carry on. Best case of EV would be looking at

£100
£250
£500
£1k
£150k
£200k

Which is a board I'd be looking to leave on and this slightly sub £20k offer is exactly what would get me going, even with just two boxes to remove. And that's against what I feel is the best within the bounds of EV.

If we were at 2 box already, I'd be staying, but since we're not.

Deal

Prooveout 1, 4, 7.

DEAL! First third-offer deal of the series, but there's always a chance of those in this offer pattern, especially on boards like that!

And now, to see if you'd have taken out one of those three indeed.

Box 1 - £20,000! You would, but the lowest one...

Box 4 - £250,000! What about THAT?

Box 7 - £100...

The danger was always there, you just swerved it for precisely as long as you needed to.

£5
£100
£250
£500
£1,000
£150,000

BANKER'S OFFER WOULD'VE BEEN

£9,003

Two more. Find the £150k, you've won, and won brilliantly.

10, 13.

Box 10 - £150,000! SPANKING! With four boxes to spare!!

Box 13 - £5 would've produced the most comically anticlimax ever, everything between £100 and £1k...

BANKER'S OFFER WOULD'VE BEEN

£333

We know where you'd have gone and it hardly matters...

Box 16 - £100

BANKER'S OFFER WOULD'VE BEEN

£555

Box 19 - £250 to leave a £500/£1,000 finish...

BANKER'S OFFER WOULD'VE BEEN

£749

Box 3 had £500 and Box 22 £1,000. Now to try and build even further on that perfect Deal...

The CFD menu gives you...

+£5,000 (£23,276.09)
+£3,000 (£21,276.09)
+£1,000 (£19,276.09)
-£2,000 (£16,276.09)
-£4,000 (£14,276.09)

With the potential for any change to be magnified by the wheel... to buy Box 25 with £18,276.09, Deal or No Deal?

It's an EV+ option at an amount that the worst case scenario doesn't significantly reduce my winnings - I'll open box 25, and go with option 3.