Britney Lewzader, a former Miss Tater Day - check Wikipedia, do an Internet search or ask the nearest Kentuckian to find out what that's all about - returns to complete her game. Let's see how it turned out.

Round 3 - 4 to open
Briefcases 9 ($1,000,000), 17 ($1), 15 ($5), and 21 ($.01) eliminated. Banker offers $288,000; NO DEAL.

Round 4 - 3 to open
Briefcases 20 ($1,000,000), 18 ($100), and 12 ($50) eliminated. Banker offers $365,000 and a $3,000 supply of Q-tips (total value: $368,000); NO DEAL.

Round 5 - 2 to open
Briefcases 5 ($750) and 6 ($1,000,000) eliminated. Banker offers $393,000; NO DEAL.

Round 6 - 1 to open
Briefcase 23 ($1,000,000) eliminated. Banker offers $306,000; NO DEAL.

Round 7 - 1 to open
Briefcase 14 ($1,000) eliminated. Banker offers $477,000; NO DEAL.

Round 8 - 1 to open
Briefcase 8 ($10,000) eliminated. Banker offers $625,000 ; NO DEAL .

Round 9 - 1 to open
Briefcase 7 ($1,000,000) eliminated. Banker offers $471,000; DEAL.

Final Winnings: $471,000, which puts Britney Lewzader at #4 on the top 10 DoND money winners list. She surpassed the former #4, Thorpe Schoenle, by a mere $7,000.

Proveouts
Contestant’s briefcase opened; briefcase contains $400.
Unopened briefcase: 22 ($1,000,000).
Result: TPW by a huge margin.

The Million-Dollar Mission appears to be over, but then the Banker phones Howie. He says that he's not afraid of anything, and as a result, the Million-Dollar Mission will continue on the next episode with 10 million-dollar cases.

Next time: The Million-Dollar Mission continues, with TEN - yes, you heard me right, TEN - million-dollar cases up for grabs. If someone doesn't win the million dollars with those kinds of odds, then the show is doomed.

Mark's Commentary: You know how sometimes we watch DoND and we hope to see a game where someone will win a ton of money, making for a powerhouse win? This was defintely one of those kinds of games. We haven't had a massive win like this since Anteia Greer won $402,000 last season. Oddly enough, she also sold a $400 case. I was very surprised when Britney refused the $625,000 offer, which was definitely an AMO. For myself and many others, that would have been an instant deal. But hey, $471,000 is nothing to sneeze at. This also marks the first TPW in a long time, and that's also good. Britney played a great game, and she came out on top in the end. Nicely done.

Hopefully we'll get a millionaire on the next show, where 10 MDCs will be available. I'm a religious man - I really am - so I'd better start praying. We all should.

As always, all recap info is courtesy of Jordan's DoND Recaps Page @ http://heelsrule1988.tripod.com/dealornodeal/index.htm .

I think most people would've ND the $625K, considering that they figure to have $400K or so in their pocket, why not take the one-in-three chance? But, I think her helps actually wanted her to take the $625K, and that would have been an awesome OPW since she actually had the $400 in her case. It looked like she strongly considered no-dealing the $471K on $1M/$400, which DOES shock me.

BTW: The mean on $1M/$1M/$400 is $666,800, so the $625K was below the mean. I actually expected the final offer to be less than $471K.

PS: I remember Anita Green's game. Her $402K offer on $750K, $400K, and $400 was a definite deal, and she did almost no-deal it! I think about 99.99% of people would have dealt THAT one. The banker instinctantly earned that victory had she had $750K in her case.

I still don't think we'll see a $1M win unless they REALLY push the thing far, but I could see more $400K-$500K wins on deals with $1M/Low Finals (Maybe not always the exact $471K figure). As if the contestants are at least that lucky, which they should be with nine, ten, or more MDCs, we should see more $400K+ deals on finals with MDCs.

Let's put it this way: I'd certainly be more apt to ND $600K-$650K at 3-case with $1M/$1M/Low than, say, $140K-$200K on two MDCs and six low amounts at 8-case. Remember, there is no 3.5% disaster chance on 2-case games at 3-case. It's just that it's usually a 1-case game or crashed board by 3-case, usually making such points moot as 2-case games at 3-case are pretty rare (but nice when they do occur).

Of course, the trick thing is that you don't ever exactly know what that the 2-case offers are when you hit certain amounts at 2-case games at 3-case, so you don't quite know what you're risking and what you could gain. That might be part of the charm of DOND that is absent on most shows (Ex. WWTBAM, Power Of Ten, etc.) where you do know what you're risking and what you can gain.


And, hey, at least she went fot it. A lot of people probably would've dealt the $309K at 5-case when it was down to two MDCs and the offer didn't go down with a MDC going as much as you think it could have. I think that was the real toughest decision of the game, more than the $625K. (Then again, maybe not since knocking out a MDC would still produce an offer of $150K-$200K, and no chance to knock out both.) Perhaps the $365K and Q-Tips at 8-case was the toughest decision of the game: Knocking out two out of three MDCs here is possible and would be disasterous to the following offers, but I think most people would still ND anytime with three top amounts still remaining.

Yup, following this along with Joe Raygor last night (worth screwing my new sleep pattern for) I was thinking I would have wanted to go to eight-case but wouldn't have been sure; the next round followed the script (one MDC out of two) and the offer crept up, I'd have played on thinking an MDC would still have produced a huge get-out offer, and that's precisely what happened.

I'd have had more inclination to go on at four-case but it was very generous. At three? Makes no sense to go for it, makes no sense not to. I'd have taken it thinking that either I was going to lose an unknown amount on the $400/$1m finish or was going to hit the $400, win the million and end up in a media firestorm (which would probably be more unpleasant for me than losing a chunk of a $622,000 payday). Needless to say I'd have gone at $471,000. Expecting high generosity in a high-volatility final two makes it a hell of a lot easier to take chances in a final three like that; I'd probably have turned down Michelle Falco's $502,000, but when we got the same situation scaled down (£1, £75k, £100k, one box to open) the £41,000 offer would have been a likely Deal for me.

Finally, finally, Thorpe Schoenle's record win in a game with a $1m jackpot was broken. Frankly, it's rather startling it lasted this long. (While everyone remembers Michelle Falco's $750k/$1m finish, it was in a $6m game.)

Another thing to note: The "Lucky Case Game" has been removed!

No more money wasting LTL's in this country!

This was an intense game!!! However, I don't think we can categorize as a "regular" episode beating Schoenle, because there were 9 million dollar cases.

Well, true. Schoenle holds the 'regular game' record still, this now takes the record for a $1m game (every other game that beat it, there was a multi-million dollar case).

My main point was, for all the games in the two missions, it's taken this long to beat Schoenle!

That being said, can anyone forsee a millionaire in DoND USA's future? We have a 10-MDC game coming up soon, you know...