It's always been a pattern that lots of people play to the end and win blues, but hardly anyone goes to the end and wins a substantial red. In fact we haven't seen it happen since Barry, over 2 months ago - in all that time, the largest amount won by a no-dealer is £1,000!

Now part of that is unavoidable, as contestants often have a "target-driven" approach where they would be unable to turn down offers of significant amounts (often in the £20k-£30k range for a lot of people) almost regardless of what's on the board. Whereas in a low money game people will just go on to the end regardless.

But I can't help thinking the 5-box stage is to blame as well. To no-deal at that stage, you have to remove 3 of the remaining 5 boxes before you get another offer. There's usually an absolute disaster scenario, where you end up with two blues/blue and £1,000 etc. That influences many players to deal at that stage, and I have to admit I'd often tend to go at 5-box myself when the money is significant, unless the offer is insulting.

It's true it produces some real dramatic last rounds when people do no-deal at 5-box with big money in play. And I've always liked the format for that reason. But it also produces unsatisfactory endings like the last two games, where people are unwilling to take the risk of the disaster finish, even if the offer isn't that great. Which raises the question, would it produce better games if (like in some other versions) we had another offer at 3-box, or at 4-box and 3-box?

Well, this is interesting......a possible flaw, since now, and its been proved by barry's/jackee's wins, all of a sudden you seem to be playing the game wrong by going to the end, as you're more likely to win a blue. True, kay had £35,000, kathleen had £100,000, but they didnt go to the end,Steve did and won 10p, also proving you theory P5

So it seems that at this moment in time, it is better to deal, although, as it always has been, no dealing 5th offers with big money, and also huge risks, in play produces not only more viewers but also the tense game that DoND is meant to be

Still, interesting though P5, will have to see what everyone else thinks of this strange blues-in-the-box thing going on

they say its not fixed and then Joanne has £50k 4 times in a row, followed by a blue and £35,000. And then this no-deal-if-you-want-to-go-home-with-£750-or-less string of games

lucky the players have dealt beforehand though

Probably 2 box rounds after 8box.

Hopefully we'll get a proper glimpse of this on Friday, as I'm rather hoping were on 5-3-3-3-3-1-1-1 again and we get a five-box No Deal... (and the half-million to make it to eleven-box, come to that...)

I'm sure the nature of round 6 makes a difference. I know it would influence my own decision. But the offers have generally been a lot lower than with five left on the 26-case versions where there's just one to open before an offer at that point. That does drive quite a few on... but players will generally be far more likely to go on in ugly games.

I'd guess additional offers might change the pattern of the game, but not towards more huge box wins - rather, it would produce more genuinely big-money Deals, as the urge to go 'just one more' would work to some extent but maybe three-box Deals would be common.

I think it would be interesting to have games with offers at 4 box and 3 box because bizzarely, it might even result in more big winners.

People are often reluctant to no deal at 5 box because there is a 60% chance of taking out the highest number in the sixth round, but being able to no deal offers at 4 box or 3 box means there is less risk attached to each round.

I would favour having a round that involved opening 2 boxes from 5-3, then the next round would be just one box opened to leave the banker's 6th offer with 2 boxes left as in the current format.

For sake of time they could have the second third and fourth rounds involve opening 4 boxes instead of three creating more of a focus and more time on the exciting and often dramatic final 5 boxes of a game. In this version the banker still makes 6 offers:

Round 1 22-17 1st Offer
Round 2 17-13 2nd Offer
Round 3 13-9 3rd Offer
Round 4- 9-5 4th Offer
Round 5- 5-3 5th Offer
Round 6 3-2 6th Offer

Oh 5-3-3-3-2-2-2 as suggested by Aaron would work. Still the risk accumulates, but never to a 60% chance of losing any one box... I think that's a good idea.

If it was one box rounds, it was more easy money. At least these are mid-way points.

Maybe people would use the 4-box and 3-box escape routes a lot so we still wouldn't get people winning the big box amounts. Of course many of the biggest wins have been through deals, but (putting my Wakeyasic hat on) there's nothing that can quite match seeing someone go all the way to the end and reveal one of the biggest life-changing amounts. (Removing said hat) I agree it needs to be rare, to keep it special, but not as rare as it is at the moment.

Just out of interest, these are the stats on what players have won by no-dealing to the end:

Blues: 77
Honorary blues (£1k-£5k): 22
Mid reds (£10k-£20k): 15 (none for 138 shows although Elton and Karen both swapped away the £10,000)
Power 5: 10 (none for 59 shows)

It would be nice to see that balance change a bit, though it's hard to see exactly how to achieve that without just giving really low offers on good boards!

Interesting. A five-figure win from the box every 20 shows and a Power 5 box win every 50? That's possibly too rare but I'm not sure. Going down from there wouldn't hurt, but I wouldn't want them too low - 20% shorter gaps (16/40) might be seen as optimal.

I think the biggest benefit of adopting additional late-game offers wouldn't be more big box wins - it would be greater unpredictability in the late-game phase. The Banker and player strategy might well be more interesting...

It doesn't seem that rare when you put it like that actually! Of course the fact we've seen nothing higher than £1,000 won from the box since mid-April makes it seem that way - I suppose at some stage we will get a run where it starts happening a lot, it just seems a long way off right now.

Also noticed that the number of power 5 box wins is the same as the number of in-play £250k final pairs - so both are expected about once every 50 shows, though two games have fallen into both categories of course.

Hallelujah! At last somebody on this forum that agrees with me! It wouldn't be that rare if people were braver. There are too many timid 'safe' contestants. There should be a bias towards gamblers during the selection process in my opinion.



What a dismal set of statistics. If that doesn't demonstrate that there is something awry with the current format nothing will.



It amazes me that people will often chase low reds on a poor board right to the end and finish up with a blue amount ....... but wont chase high reds on a golden board to win a mega-payout. You would expect it to be the other way around. The show can be guided to a certain extent by the banker's offers but we've seen so many people deal derisory offers with a fantastic boards in front of them. A promise of an offer at 4 or 3 box every now and then might make a difference.

I don't think many people will disagree with you in terms of wanting to see exciting and dramatic games. The thing people tend to disagree with is when players are criticised for playing it their way. Blame the selection process or the Banker, that's fair enough, but if someone can't afford to risk £10,000 then we should respect that decision. That's the issue, it's not that other people want to see early deals all the time!



The target approach is always going to dominate. Most of us could easily dismiss a couple of thousand on a bad board for the chance of getting £10k or so. Whereas many people couldn't turn down £40,000 if there was even the slightest chance of losing the lot. Most people would feel much worse rejecting £40k and winning 1p, than taking £40k and finding they could have a quarter of a million. OK, you'd be annoyed but you can do a lot with £40k, you can't do too much with a penny!

That's why I wonder if a higher top prize on a regular basis could ever work, without really low "forcing" offers while it was in play.

Couldn't have put it better myself. I've seen an episode of the American version. At 5 box (I think) they just opened one box at a time and got an offer after each box was opened. Yes, you're more likely to see bigger wins that way, but it wasn't as exciting, as there's less chance of the game crashing. I hope they never change it to that format.

They actually go one-at-a-time from when there's six cases left. The previous rounds go 6-5-4-3-2 (in total, 26 cases). This is the original format used in the Dutch version, and the most common worldwide. The UK is the only country with this particular approach, though the French went 6-3-3-3-3-2 until 2006, and the Dutch daily version (as opposed to that used as the endgame for Miljoenenjacht) goes 6-3-3-3-3 with 20 boxes (effectively ours, but with a different way of getting to 14-box). Interestingly in that version contestants are very cautious indeed, almost Beryl-esque levels on a regular basis - I'm not sure where they get their contestants from...