I know the banker had little option at the start of the game but to offer decent amounts because of the state of the board but even so they were high. And it was a trend he continued after the collapse. We all know Stuart was going to be 'very sensible' because thats the sort of guy he is so there was no way he would have taken any large risk or gamble. And for somebody who showed absolutely no bravery or the slightest sign of being a gambler to be offered such high amounts stretched the credibility of the banker to breaking point and turned the game into a farce

With 3 decent reds on the board he made it far too easy a decision. If I was contemplating a deal £20k must be bordering on the astronomical. The banker could easily have easily justified an offer of £13k - £15k especially bearing in mind how 'influential' he seems to regard the 1p. Stuart would really have had a testing decision to make then. He would have still dealt for sure but the amount would have reflected his actual contribution to the game.

In the unlikely event that he no dealt say £13k then he would have 'earned' his £20k by being brave and opening his box.

Agree it was an easy deal for anyone other than the "go to the end regardless" category. Easy deals and easy no-deals are equally bad for the show, as they don't provide the contestant with a decision which is what it's all about.

The only situation I don't mind seeing an easy deal offer is on say £250k/blue finish where the contestant deserves a reward for getting to that stage even if they would probably take £40-50k.

I must admit too many of these situations have has offers that I believe were way too high to even consider no-dealing (think Rodney, Graeme, Claudine, even 75k Maria), but could be justified by the sums they'd turned down to reach that position. Everyone think Laura's offer was really mean, but I'd have had to seriously consdier it, I mean if I won 3k after turning down 45k I'd be devasted, no matter what's in the other box. David J's 70k would have been a really difficult one as well!

It's so much easier to turn down 2k on a 10k/low blue finish than 50k on a 250k/blue finish despite the generosities being the same!

Oh and Basicasic, I thought you would have been pleased about that 20k offer - if the banker had rubbed his nose in it after that collapse and forced him to the end and possibly won a blue (who says he wouldn't have swapped?), then the following players would have been too scared to no-deal a 30k+ offer on a great board without a get-out if it went a bit wrong and possibly miss out on the life-changing money. With a game like this, they'll be more inclined to take a few risks if the banker treats them fair and they still go how with a still attractive sum even they do take out some big numbers - I have to say I found it quite encouraging.

For what it's worth I do think the offer was slightly high, but only by a couple of grand or so - I thought Kay from June's offer of 18k with the same reds but better blues was about spot on, but she seemed vilified for dealing that!!

Ooooh.

Linda E dealt for exactly the same and had exactly the same in her box... thats freaky!!!

Enjoy the money Stuart.

Wow...what a game. Such a great start and then that round.

Well done though Stuart, well deserved the money! Great game!

I'd want atleast 70K on a 250K blue finish maybe 65 if it was 1p otherwise i'd go for it.

The idea that the 20K was way to high and damaging to the episode is ridiculous as well as naive.

If it had been lower then anyone with a very strong early board won't gamble. What's the point if it doesn't affect your later offers.

If you offer him 13K-15K then afterwards there's a danger everyone with a really strong board at the second or third offer bails out early. Plus if he wins the top amount after turning down such a low offer then it feels undeserved. The fact is 17,500 to 18K would have been perfect with hindsight. Without hindsight 20K was a perfectly sensible choice.

yes, i agree and I'm pretty much in agreement with james1978 as well. it was only a bit high and there's nothing wrong with offering the median on stable boards. The banker's job is to put in high offers sometimes to stop gamblers as well, the banker didn't know what his tipping point was anyway.. It worked out well in the end IMO, it worked out well for both sides selling 20K for 20K.

13/15k would have been a bit too low and a no deal, I agree with that.
The 20K was an interesting decision, there was a 60% chance of that or more in the box while it being a generous relative to the mean at the same time.

i thought it was great to see a conventional game again with pretty reasonable offers.

Totally agree. The £20k was a bit too high, but not ludicrously high for the board. In fact, I predicted the offer myself, and offering the median was a perfectly logical offer on that board, and I don't see that it is as wildly inflated as people have suggested on here.

A more pressing matter is the decision to score this game as a draw, which I don't think is correct. By scoring it a draw, we're ignoring a key offer in the game. Let's scale down the situation - say if someone dealt for £750, had £750 but could've had £10,000, they'd be no reasoning to say that was a draw, would there?

This is basically the same. Due to the nature of the game, with the moderate collapse, I think it's fair to score as a 65-35 win to the player in this case. Fair enough if the peak offer was £20,000, but this shouldn't be a draw really, otherwise anyone dealing a box value could theoretically get a draw.

The classification probably needs to state "If the player deals for equal or greater than their box value, the score is split between the banker/player depending on percentage of win to peak offer", if that makes any sense.

I agree with James there - £20k was so close to the mean it really had to be turned down, but it wouldn't take much less for it to be easily rejected. Kay's £18k would have been a Deal for me too, but not by much - having said that, I wouldn't still be in play at that point...

I digress. Interesting point regarding get-outs on stellar boards that have slipped into the average bracket. I know I'd have taken a few more risks (in terms of what offer I'd need to walk away) in the post-Laura inflated-offer period - though that would still have caused me to walk at 8-box or earlier in the majority of games, and in 14-box in more than one!