- Every contestant named Woody played on a Thursday and stood around the middle of the west wing (And i think all of them had OPW's apart from 2015 Woody as I can't remember how his game went)

- There was a run of 5 games in early-June 2006 (only broken up by bearded James, who achieved the first ever 11-box OPW) where £50k, £100k and £250k were the three highest reds

- Until 2013, an OPW always happened on the first Friday of March

- A year to the day after Brenda's amazing game where had the top 5, £15k and 1 blue (£75k), Gloria had the EXACT opposite board with 7 blues and the £35k, and at that time was the only 7/1 split in favour of blues

- The first third offer deal was for £26,000 (Jenni who played after 1p Nick), which later became the banker's "secret weapon"

Just checked Woody's game thread (take it you mean 08/01/15 James) - it was an OPW if you count hypo-swaps, and don't count declining Box 23 and it containing DOUBLE, which leads to one of THOSE comments from someone from Ipswich.

Another very strange and arguably suss coincidence(s) is the history of gambles for the £250,000 at 2 box:

Let's not forget how the two contestants named Toni both:

- Stood in E2
- Played on a Monday
- Played considerably less than the average 22 shows on the wings
- Dealt at 8-box
- Won £26,000
- Were both remembered for forum-angering proveout drama
- Played at pretty much the exact same time of year (joined around mid-November and played in late November/early December - less than 2 weeks apart on the calendar)
- Had 3 of the power 5 at 8-box, with the £75k and £250k being the two highest amounts
- Kept the two said amounts until at least 5-box
- Undersold a power-5 box
- Missed out on a win of over £70,000
- Were emotionally weak and clearly regretted not playing on (Toni (2) was extremely vulnerable both financially and emotionally, and became inconsolable when the proveouts went the wrong way. While Toni (1) admitted that she'd "lost her nerve" and looked quite glum when her proveouts went badly)
- Had a friend/relative with them who gave them the "but you've got £26,000" speech when they squandered a huge amount

The first three players called Jack all...
- played on a Thursday.
- replaced a woman.
- were replaced by a man.

The fourth Jack, the one who went on to be on Big Brother, broke the first two of those.

Wasn't there a period of about 4 or 5 months where a man never played on a Thursday?

I assume you're referring to the May-October run in 2011 (£22k Stacey in May to Jade who played during the live shows in October) where the only man who played on a Thursday during that period was Macka. It was nearly all young women under 30 who played during that run as well - there was possibly only Debbie and Tammie in their 30s (IIRC Debbie was in her mid-30s when she played, and I forgot how old Tammie was when she played - she was one of the least memorable contestants from that era), and Irene and Glenda were the only ones over 40!

Come to think about it, the next old lady who played on a Thursday after Irene was Daphne in December - over 6 months later!!

Yeah that's the one James. 2011 was when my thing of watching religiously started to wane!

Yeah I don't remember Tammie at all but that's probably because Joycey who was VERY memorable (but for the wrong reasons) playing next day!

Here's another funny one regarding 2011. Until the start of that year there hadn't been any contestants called "Charlotte" (in speech marks because there had been Charlie and Charly in 2007 which were short for), but then I think there was at least 5, maybe 6, in quick succession, though the only one I properly remember is the first one who was some sort of model and always ruined other contestant's games with big numbers.

There was a similar but not quite as significant happening with male contestants called Fred around the same time - none before December 2010 (apart from Freddie in December the previous year), then a few suddenly came along after that!

Yep, that would be £15k Charlotte from Love Week who controversially dealt with the Shield twist still to use! At least, a certain contradicting emoji spammer made a big deal about it being so!

Then 2 of the other Charlottes later that year lost on blue/£15k gambles!

Out of the 5 contestants named Charlotte, 3 of them did terrible deals (2 got away with it to some extent, and even scored an 11-box OPW on the latter occasion!) and the other 2 lost out on £15k/blue gambles at 2-box! Interestingly, those two Charlottes who play to the end stood on the east wing, while the others stood on the west wing!

Another interesting observation is how all contestants named "Gemma" (even the one spelt "Jemma") or "Lauren" stood in the east wing, and all contestants named "Helen" bar one stood in the east wing. The only exceptions to the Gemma thing were contestants whose names were shortened to Jem/Gem and Gemma Collins when she was one of the one-off box openers in the "8 out of 10 cats" special, the only Helen's who stood in the west wing were Dutchess Helen from December 05 (the first Helen), H from January 2010 (Whose real name was Helen, as there was another Helen who played while she was there) and Helen B who only ended up in the west wing after taking a week off sick and returning in a new position, and the only "Lauren" who stood in the west wing was Lauren from September 2011, who debuted in W11, but then went off sick and was replaced by Gordon, and then returned in E3, replacing Kirsty when she came back (Something similar happened with contestants named "Elaine" as the only Elaine's who stood in the west wing were Elaine who was on the wings in Suzanne's game, and Elaine B from December 05 replaced Adrienne from the original 22 for one show after she had a fall and had to sit out one game, then sat out the next game after Adrienne came back and "re-debuted" in E11 as a permanent player!)

Here's another one for the two Toni's that played:

- Both had a contestant play the next day who also did significantly less than the average number of shows (Stuart and Elaine) and missed out on a big finish (Elaine dealt at £10k with a pretty much £250k-reliant one-box game at 8-box and had the biggie on the table, while Stuart missed out on an offer of £104,000, but still won £37,500 and had the lower red (£15k) in his box)

- Both were followed by two games with a "six-figure number and something else" finish and a blue/£1k finish in that order (Stuart, Maggie and Olly Murs after 2007 Toni, and Elaine, Caroline and Wayne after 2011 Toni - On both occasions, the player dealt at 2-box in the second game and had the big money in their box (though Caroline would've swapped away the £250k for £5k), and the third game also had the £1,000 on the table, as Wayne won it but Olly swapped it away)!!

My head just exploded trying to compute all that

Oh and there was actually 6 Charlottes but the last one (who got the 11 box OPW) was on about a year after the rest.

Another weird one I just thought - I only recently realised the last couple of years of the show were pre-recorded to be transmitted at any given time rather than a specific date, and I was recently looking at why Danny's game from August 2013 was never transmitted - well I thought if that had happened not long after, they would have just skipped it without mentioning anything and only the appearance of 2 newbies would have given it away (without the need to show a previous game from the archives).

That really only became a thing in 2015 thanks to Channel 4 giving up hope on Deal.

Ironically the last major continuity-based milestone addressed on the show was the total all-time winnings passing the £40 Million mark, which occured on the first show after Chnanel 4 started screwing around with Deal by moving it to 3 PM.

People always talk about the "£50 week" in March 2011 where the £50 came to the table 5 games running, and the run was broken by Fran who brought the £250k to the table, but what about that run of 15 games in 2005 (Adrienne-Andy K) where the only red on the table was the £250k in Mally's game

That's because (1) those blues were mostly being sold like hotcakes at the time due to the generous late game offers, (2) the show didn't have a cult following yet and (3) as you said, Mally breaking up the run by bringing 250k to the table makes it far less noteworthy.

Here's another one I just remembered after thinking about the anniversaries over the last few days - newbies who debuted on that middle Saturday/Sunday show in May always seemed to do a run of 22 shows and play on the first or second Wednesday of June (depending on the calendars)

2006 - Drew debuted on Saturday, May 13th and played on Wednesday, June 7th

2007 - Joe debuted on Sunday, May 13th and played on Wednesday, June 6th

2008 - Diane debuted on Saturday, May 10th and played on Wednesday, June 4th

2009 - Ben debuted on Sunday, May 17th and played on Wednesday, June 10th

2011 - Ian debuted on Sunday, May 15th and played on Wednesday, June 8th

2013 - Guy debuted on Sunday, May 12th and played on Wednesday, June 5th

2010, 2012 and 2014 were the only exceptions, and 2015 and 2016 don't count due to the show's diluted run during it's "life support" years