Nowadays, it seems that the reds from 1k to 15k are practically treated as blues, and the banker amplifies this by suggesting that getting low reds early on is better. Does anyone else find this logic severely flawed? Surely you'd want to keep low/mid reds in play as well as the power 5, since that way if the big numbers start getting hit, then you still have some lower reds to allow you to go away with a decent amount.

Sure, amounts like £5,000 won't change your life, but it's still a lot of money for most people. I mean, if you found out that you'd won £5,000, you'd be delighted, wouldn't you? If you take out too many low reds early on, then the board is that much more vulnerable and you're heading straight for a blue win if the big numbers go.

In fact, I'd say that keeping high blues is worthwhile as well. 1p-£100 all have little to no utility value, but the top three blue amounts (£250, £500 and £750) aren't huge sums of money, but they're still not terrible. £500 would get you a weekend somewhere nice or a shopping spree, whereas something like £1 would scarcely get you a bag of sweets. Yet all of the blues are lumped together as being of similar value.

And it can have an effect on the offer as well in the later stages of the game, especially in the final two. For example, if you had a 1p vs £35,000 final two, the FD is ~£8760, whereas with £750 vs £35,000, the FD is ~£11,499. That's almost 3k's difference, which I'd say is pretty significant, and there's also the psychological effect of money values < £1. If you had 1p, 10p or 50p in your final two, you'd be more likely to take a less generous offer because 'cyanophobia' kicks in even more when the blue in question is, for all intents and purposes, worthless.


tl;dr IMO, high blues and low/mid reds shouldn't be taken lightly; they can have a significant effect on the game.

Well, in my eyes the theory that losing the low reds early on is somehow a good thing was well and truly blown out of the water after Alex's game on New Years Day 2009. He took out the five lowest reds in the opening round and ended up winning a blue. (Admittedly he made a sensible No Deal at five-box and was rather unlucky to then take out all three of the remaining reds.) The problem was that his board just didn't have any back-up once those larger amounts started disappearing.

Personally, I see the low reds and highest blues as nice consolation amounts if you decide to have a punt at the larger amounts which doesn't come off. And the idea that £500 or £750 is as useless as 10p or 50p is a bit ridiculous, really.

Like all good myths, this one has a vein of truth behind its nonsense.

In this case, it is the element of momentum in influencing the offers. The best way to get a good offer for any given board is to have had a brilliant round just before it - taking out low reds first and blues later is better than the other way round, assuming you still have blues near the end of the game (as nearly everyone will).

I can sort of see where you're coming from there, but it still doesn't make much sense. Since Deal or No Deal is a game of random chance, no one knows what amounts will be discovered next; we can only use odds to decide which sequence of amounts are most likely to be found. Thus, if you take out a lot of low reds to start with, you have no guarantee that you'll take out blues after, and if all the big reds go, you're going away with a low amount of money. However, if you get blues first and then take out the big reds, while the chance of a huge win has gone, you still have a chance to salvage a decent sum of money out of it.

Theoretically, the order that you pick the boxes shouldn't make the offer any different, but in practice it often does, so you have a point. Though it seems strange that amounts such as 5k and 10k are considered disposable. Those are still huge sums of money, and until the past decade or so winning that on a daytime game show was seen as fantastic.

In fact, that brings up another point. Most of the time, 10k is considered fairly disposable, as stated above. Yet a little while ago, there was some guy (can't remember his name) who turned down 22k with a board of 4 blues/10k/35k/50k/250k, then he ended up taking the big amounts, and won £10,000. While still an OK result which he seemed to be happy with, Noel treated it as a massive victory even though he could have had £12,000 more, and continued on about it into the next show or two. Yet that same value is considered as OK to lose on the show.

Seems a bit suspicous, no?

I'm not sure it's "suspicious"! Noel just puts whatever spin he wants on things to suit the mood of the studio at the time. If there's been a run of bad games, then he's likely to talk up a low red win even if the player could've had more. Likewise, if a player's having a strong game then he'll talk about low reds being disposable.

Danny (who played at Christmas a few years back) said that anything of £20k and under was disposable. He did have a £500k board (as it was a Christmas special) but I still thought it was a risky thing to say. It was quite ironic that he then dealt at £20k (and albeit got an extra £10k due to a mystery gift that was part of the deal).

I wonder if the banker's comments about removing low reds are more than just about pure gameplay? He must realise that not having low reds makes the board vulnerable later in the game. Of course, there's then a high chance it could end up as a one-box game, which would give him a large range of offers he could make, and could give the player a tough decision (which adds to the tension).

And of course, with low reds off the board, it's more exciting for him (and the programme) as there's a higher chance it's either going to be a dramatic crash to a blue win, or a large win. Of course removing low reds from the board doesn't stop people dealing for a low red figure though!

I suppose you have a point there. I just remembered who it was (Sid), and the day before Michelle had won a penny (through swapping, in fact), so needless to say the mood would have been a bit sombre at the time, though usually that sparks the following contestant to deal rather than no deal...



That was back in late 2006 wasn't it? Back in late 2006/early 2007, times were a lot different. For a start there wasn't a recession on. In addition to that, offers both early and late in the game were stupidly generous (opening offers could be over 10k even with 250k gone!), so in that sense having low reds didn't matter so much, because you could still get really generous offers even on a one-box game. I remember one person got 20k on 100k/10k/three blues (this was active play BTW. Jayne was her name IIRC). Plus Noel was at his most Wakey stage back then, with classic lines such as 'NO! 100k isn't good enough!' and 'NO NO NO YOU'VE BLOWN IT YOU STUPID IDIOT!'.

Nowadays, offers in general are at a more sensible level that give the contestant something to think about (though you get the occasional extremely generous/mean offers of course), people are more cautious with money and Noel is more neutral (still slightly more geared to no dealing, but to a much lesser extent). So it was more understandable to say that sort of thing back then.

i actually think it's quite good taking out lower reds early on in the game, because there's a bigger chance of hitting blues later on, and by then you'll still have the large amounts left...

I think it just reflects the element of human nature that always wants more. In a gameshow where the highest amount you could win was £20,000 then £15,000 would seem like an excellent result. But in a game where there is the tantalising chance of winning 250k, it starts to look less desirable. It's all relative.