What is going on? Why are contestants not bothered about removing reds, pleading the case that a mass of blues gives them a bigger target for later?

Silly sausages. The ideal would be to take them out in value order, starting at the lowest and working upwards - the arbitrariness of the colours has nothing whatever to do with it - and the distribution of amounts is such that the blues are mostly not worth having.

I definitely think that the middle reds such as 15k and 20k are shrugged off far to easily when they go in the early stages. They are very powerful boxes in the later stages!

Good point! That does irritate me when contestants assume losing the lower to mid reds doesn't matter. I'd much rather have a final board with the mid-reds in than without.

I reckon a final board of £15,000 and £35,000 would muster a similar offer to £100 v £75,000, say.

Well...they can be useful, but it's not as if the players choose to get rid of them; once they're gone, they're gone, and I don't really see the harm in looking on the bright side afterwards.

Bother's Bar highlighted the value of the "rock" a long time ago. While the Power 5 amounts are your main "weapons" to frighten the Banker, the £10k, £15k and £20k are your defence in effect, something to fall back on if it all goes wrong.

The three lowest reds are honorary blues in most situations, and while they talk of the "Banker's power 5" I don't think they really have much more influence over the game than the higher blues. Whereas there's obviously a massive difference in how the various reds affect the game!

Taking out lots of blues early does not guarantee success, remember Matt taking out 8 straight blues at the start of his game then going away with £5,000 only. The key is how many of the Power 5 and £10,000 to £20,000 you can retain for as long as possible. imo £1,000 to £5,000 are good to dispose of at the start of the game as well as any of the blues. £10,000 has often come to the rescue of players at the end of a game, such as today's.

To be frank, there ar ea number of different ways to play the game.

If you play the game in the sense that you are looking to try and win as much money as possible, clearly taking out the numbers starting from the bottom and working towards the top.

However, if you want to be forced onto to take a big amount of money at the end, look at Kirsty; she took out two of the power five in the first round (and then ended up with the biggest three as the last three). Compare this with Brenda, who had a godly board, but was forced to deal because of the massive offer.

Naturally, keeping £15k is better than keeping 50p, but I would hate a godly board, because of the temptation to have to carry on.

Godly board? Whassat, then?

I'd be chuffed to nuts if I had the power five all intact at the five box stage! Banker sat in the control room frantically working out just how much I'd take to walk, and me asking for another mug of strong coffee and a change of jeans...

If I have £250,000; I want to go to the end. Perhaps not so much at the 5-box stage, but more at the 11-box and 8-box, the money would probably be too high for you to carry on. If I had Brenda's board and the £250k in my box, for example, it would be really annoying because I would feel I have to deal, and miss out on the big one.

Ah, I see.



Hmmm... this is a matter of attitude. If you take the attitude that anything less than the max payout on offers is a loss, then yes, you're going to deal when you feel the time is tight.

If you take the attitude that it's effectively a free lunch, and, at the end of the game you're going to be at least 1p into pocket, then the offers don't matter, and you can soldier on to the end.

Of course, if you've got all of the power 5 at five box, the latter attitude is much easier to handle - and from that respect, taking all the blues out before 8 box is prolly the way to go.

In other words, if your lowest winnable amount is 10k at eight box, you're sitting fairly pretty no matter what. 10k for a couple of weeks of debauchery and three shows a day isn't a bad pay cheque!

Indeed. If Brenda had have continued and been offered £84k, turned it down and ended up taking the £50k in her box, she'd have still been one of the show's biggest winners. It was a 'no lose' situation for her whatever she'd have done. You wouldn't get that from a board with a load of blues left on it.

That said, I do think that a lot of people will have attitudes similar to Gavin's, so it's more likely that a £250k winner will come from a 'Gaz' type board rather than a 'Brenda' board.

Provided there's at least one decent back-up box (such as Gaz's £10k) to go for it with. If Gaz had left Simon rather than Tom, with the 1p rather than the £10k, I doubt he'd have gone for it, unless the offer had been particularly insulting! Even David didn't feel that £10k was sufficient back up to no-deal £70k with a 50:50 chance of the quarter-mill.

I think on a 1p-Trevor style board, a lot of people will risk it with one big value in the last five, but would find it much harder to no-deal the final offer if they avoid the big one. Does anyone believe Trevor would have turned down the last offer if he'd picked Jim instead of Marilyn?

Yeah, I've noticed recently that contestants say things like "plenty of blues to hit", but what you want is plenty of reds, whether they be low or high value to give you the safety nets you need to progress into high offers, and big money wins! The other annoying thing is when you hear it said, "well the big reds have to be hit sometime", well yes that's true, but not necessarily in the first three rounds!

It was quite telling in Sarah's game that the Banker team were flinging prabilities around, to some degree having a go at Scott, but perhaps giving something away about how they pitch offers.

Seemed to me when the Banker was bandying the 62% chance of taking the biggest boxes out at five box that this was possibly the way they work - I know I keep looking at the odds in terms of staking the offer against the potential of having the largest value box, and if He is offering 35:2 odds against a largest value of £35k at five box (ie, you've got 50p, £1, £10, £1000 and £35k and an offer of £2k) , well, bugger it, I'm No Dealing!

However, if He offers £8k, I'm dealing, I think.

However, if the board goes all red, with a bottom value of, say, £1000 and a selection of values between it and the 35k - say £1k, £5k, £15k and £20k, there's a much better offer coming. So much for having Blues to hit!

The 62.5% chance that the banker mentioned was incorrect if it refers to the odds of picking out the highest number from the 5 box to the 2 box stage. I think Sarah's offer was £7,000 with £10,000 and £35,000 still on the table, and three blues. There was a 60% chance of taking out the £35,000 within the next 3 boxes. Was the banker refering to the 8 box stage where you have a 62.5% chance of avoiding the highest number of the 8 boxes remaining from the 8 box to 5 box stage? It didn't look like it to me.

I think the 62.5% was just said so that Scott would correct the Banker, setting up his "Nobody questions my maths" rubbish.

Or you can get contestants like Jim R, when every time a red is revealed - "Yes, it does matter, and I am upset!!!" What a legend.

LEGEND. "Well, some people say it doesn't matter...but that REALLY MATTERED and I'm ANGRY! I don't want anyone to do it again!"

*goes to watch Jim's game for the millionth time*

"I'm not a greedy person, I just wanted the £250,000!"

Hahah, Jim really was the total opposite of the "leave some blues" people:

"I'm going to go for Nancy, Number 3, please."
"You won't shout at me Jim, will you?"
*silence from Jim*
*Nancy reveals £5,000*
"Oh, for...Nancy, I thought you had better in your box than that."