Thanks to Davao's departure, it has been while a while since a proper discussion thread was started in this section, so I thought I'd start one now.

It's fairly obvious at this point that Melissa's game and her subsequent reaction to winning a blue was the main reason why nearly everyone who played this month has played it safe. After seeing her taking winning a blue so badly after a marginal 8 box No Deal, they thought that they'd hate so to be in her shoes and they'd much rather miss out on big money than win a blue.

There are several other famous examples of low wins encouraging entire wing runs of cautain:

10p Laura (October 2013) - After reluctantly declining a fairly generous £16,500 at the 2nd offer, the Banker did the unthinkable and stuck after a great 3rd round. Despite still being tempted by the offer, Laura decided to go on and subsequently had 2 ridiculously against the ods rounds that knocked out all the big money. She was basically forced by the Banker to go to the end from there (i.e. he only offered her £5,000 on a 4 blues/£1k/£15k/£20k/£250k eight box ), and she took it very badly. Over the next few weeks, the Banker used £16,500 as his new governor, and many people (i.e. £16.5k Dawood, £9k Luke, £2.5k Adam [HDC member], £6k Paula, £3k Zoe [HDC member], £10k Ian, £7k Georgie, £5k Colin [lowest selller of the £250k and HDC member] and £14k Grant) dealt early and often at less generous offers than their earlier ones primarily because they had Laura's game well in their minds. In fact, the aftermath of her game was so bad that it led to 2 forum members being banned as a result. coughme and Archiecough

£1,000 Lynn (May 2007) - After a run of aggressive play leading to mixed results while she was on the wings (i.e. the tail end of Wakey Winter ), she made a fairly risky No Deal of £15,000 on a 5 blues/£5k/£50k/£250k board. She then took out the Top 2 amounts in the next round and took the situation really badly, causing her to quickly Deal the (very respectable) £1,000 offer the Banker made next, and here's what she said thereafter according to the commentary:



That definitely worked, as after her game hardly any big risks were taken until £85k Rodney's game some 20 odd shows later. In fact, the Banker quickly noticed this run, and after a successful trial run in £7,500 Sarah's game, he abruptly stopped making the ultra-generous offers that he regularly made since £250k Laura's game.


Can anyone else think of another blue (or low winner in Lynn's case ) win that lead to an entire wing run of caution?

I think a good example would be 10p Steve from June 2007, which seemed to encourage caution on the wings, the next few games after it was Kathleen (You know, one of THOSE deals), Kay (Dealt at £18k on a 2-blues/£20k/£35k/£50k 5-box, missed out on a £20k/£35k 2-box) and Mark (Dealt at £12k the third offer on an OK-ish board, could've had £21k 2 rounds later)

I'd also say most blue wins during 2008 as well!

Melissa's game from a few weeks ago does seem to have left a fear-factor amongst the current group, especially with most games since then being forgettable yawnfests As of now we have at least Sam left from Melissa's game and i think a couple of others, so it'll be interesting if the Melissa fear-factor is still lingering after they've gone (Of course since they've cut the show back to 5 shows a week, and there being a week-long break earlier this month, it's taking considerably longer than it usually would for players to come and go )

I remember in September 2009, a guy called Jason won £10...the next day Shell dealt the 3rd offer of £10,000.

I think it was only 1 game, but still, the blue win did encourage caution.