Recap of tonight's show!

Game #1 for tonight is...

Contestant: Chris Gerena from my hometown of Boston, MA!

Chosen case: 14

Round 1: 6 Cases to open

21: $1,000
1: $300
12: $500
9: $200
20: $100
6: $400,000

Banker's offer: $20,000!

NO DEAL!

Round 2: 5 Cases to open

11: $50,000
19: $75
15: $400
23: $5,000
5: $1,000,000 Last case ruins it here...

Banker's offer: $34,000!

NO DEAL!

Round 3: 4 Cases to open

10: $10
4: $200,000
25: $750
3: $75,000

Banker's offer: $49,000!

NO DEAL!

Round 4: 3 Cases to open

24: $25,000
6: $100,000

He says that 13 is lucky in his family, so Case 13 it is and...

13: $750,000!!! The curse of the last case hits again!

Banker's offer: $37,000!

NO DEAL!

Round 5: 2 Cases to open

22: $1
26: $300,000 Safety net went with that case, leaving the half million very isolated, and that being one of only two amounts on the right side

The Final 6 Cases

- $0.01
- $5
- $25
- $50
- $10,000
- $500,000

Banker's offer: $26,000!

NO DEAL!

Round 6: 1 Case to open

After Case #18 gets picked, Chris gets his supporters and Howie to sit down (well, squat) before Marisa opens her case...

18: $500,000!!! There goes any chance of him winning anything huge, since $10,000 is left as the ONLY amount on the right side, an all or peanuts game!

One of the Banker's models comes down as a soccer referee giving him a red card for that!

Banker's offer: $1,000!

NO DEAL! and Chris tosses back the red card towards the Banker!

Round 7: 1 Case to open

8: $50

Banker's offer: $2,000!

NO DEAL!

Round 8: 1 Case to open

7: $0.01!!!!! The One Cent club is still officially empty!

Banker's offer: $3,000!

NO DEAL!

Round 9: 1 Case to open

2: $5

Banker's offer: $4,000!

The Final 2 Cases

- $25
- $10,000

His mother tells him to deal, the audience tells him not to, and Chris decides to...

NO DEAL! and risk it all!

However, Howie offers the swap of cases from #14 to Jenelle's #17.

Chris says, NO SWAP! and he says he is sticking with his original case, #14.

Jenelle apparently now looks very nervous and is praying...

Howie now opens the case, and Chris calls his supporters around him and the case is revealed to contain...

14: $10,000!!!

He still manages to salvage a respectable amount of money and he's very happy!

To prove it, a relieved Jenelle opens up her case:

17: $25

Game Summary:

Peak offer: $49,000
Case value: $10,000
Prize won: $10,000
Result: Outright Banker Win

Game #2 of the night...

Contestant: Will Edmond Jr. and wow, what an entrance he makes! He also has a big cheering crowd for him, apparently taking up two sections of the audience!

Chosen case: 6

Round 1: 6 Cases to open

14: $75,000
17: $5,000
10: $25
11: $500,000
21: $10
25: $75

Banker's offer: $31,000!

NO DEAL!

Round 2: 5 Cases to open

16: $200
5: $500
13: $200,000
15: $300
20: $0.01 A very nice way to end a round!

Banker's offer: $62,000!

NO DEAL!

And the show ends here with a song from one of the audience members and Howie pointing out the four largest amounts still in play... until next time...

And this ends the recap!

Although the gutsy comeback for $10K was nice (despite having offers as high as $49K earlier in the game), it is still yet another OBW thanks to greed.

When is anybody EVER going to deal at the fourth offer? Again, that would have been a TPW (And, essentially a perfect deal except that it was less than the third offer). Instead, we get yet another game where a contestant ND's the fourth offer only to see only lower offers the rest of the game (and, have a lower amount in his case). I agree with ND'ing the third offer of $49K with $750K, $500K, and $300K still in play, and that was just bad luck (ala the $82K second offer in one of last week's game). But, despite $37K being somewhat stingy for the board, IMO, I would have dealt there with only the $500K, $300K, $10K, and ALL of the bottom five amounts of the game on the board. In this case, dealing at the 4th offer would have been a very nice TPW with the $300K going in that round and the next offer going down in the proveout, the $500K going in the next proveout round (Already sealing the TPW with just $10K being the next highest amount), and having only $10K in the case. But, oh well.

Still enjoyed the game, though. And, the comeback was nice (At least hinted that an in-case was possible and might have happened had the $10K instead been the $75k.).

Nice job on the recap, Goldeneye!

Wow, Chris' game was really rough. I was really hoping and praying he'd win the $10,000 after all the rotten luck he had to endure.

Proof you don't always need mega money to have a good, suspenseful game!
-Joe R.

I personally don't think he really had a shot at leaving the game. The $37k offer had to be rejected, it was less than 40% of the mean and it wasn't a one-case game. If there were two three-case rounds to the end, UK-style, then maybe it would have been worth taking. With offers after every case bar the next one? Hell no.

I agree that more people need to take the fourth offer, though. But Howie's increasingly threatening his neutral hosting position (with his 'the only way to win $x is to go all the way' speech on seemingly every show now) and I can see far too much of Noel in him now. (Fortunately, the US shows are more heavily regulated, so he ought to be constrained in that.)