This asks questions over players' preferences versus the 'right decision'. I think we can mostly agree that the £20k No Deal was the right decision but also not the player's preference... or at least not the one she'd have held before the deux ex machina of the previous taping day.

What makes it even more delicious is that nobody here would have dealt at £20,000 so in a public manner of speaking, she definitely did the right thing by not taking it...too bad she didn't open the right boxes in the next round, as her own box did contain more - so she was right to go on, just bad luck for finding the two other amounts larger!

Well the "right decision" from an analytical point of view might not be the right decision for an individual player. Pure targetism might be irrational (to take it to extremes, nobody would no-deal £19,999 on 1p/£20k or deal £20,001 on £15k/£250k) but a lot of contestants have an amount they are very reluctant to risk if it is on offer, and that's how we define the target-driven player.

What's right for the majority isn't necessarily right for the contestant in the chair, so it might be the "right decision" for that person even if 99% of viewers would do the opposite...

Well that was an important reality check game, being the last recorded show (I think) on "£250k day" and following consecutive appearances of the biggie on the table. £20k at 8-box was an offer that would have made most of us go on, with a 50% chance of at least that in the box, but there were indications that this was perhaps not Sarah's true preference, reinforced somewhat by the revealing of her £20K target at the end.

The banker played a good game. Maybe he read her as a £20k targetist, and it was perfectly pitched for the board. Under normal circumstances, she might well have taken it, but with the £250k euphoria still present in the studio, it was tempting to think the luck would hold. But the only sure thing about luck is that it will change.

I predicted £10k for the final offer, and I expect the majority would take that on the basis that a drop to half the peak offer is not nearly as monumentally regrettable as a complete crash to £500 would be, and I'd more regret leaving with £500 from £20k than dealing for £10k and discovering I had £35k - just.

Decent game. Intriguing finish.

Interesting game. Sarah either dealt too late or too soon depending on how you look at it, and while £10k is not to be sniffed at, compared to the amounts she could have had - and with the buzz from Alice's game still fresh in everyone's minds - it did feel a bit of an anticlimax.

Sarah herself seemed quite bubbly and engaging, full of humour and personality so an entertaining game on that score

Put into the utility context, a point of inflection on their utility curves, one that tends to get magnified in the simplified utility analysis players will bring to the Crazy Chair (almost all of them without having ever heard the terminology, of course!).



Quite. And it never ceases to amaze me how much of a variety there is in attitudes - though I suspect the majority of really informed decision-makers end up in a smaller spectrum probably roughly bounded by your risk preferences at one end and mine at the other. I've been called a big gambler by my mum in a DoND context for saying I'd turn down Jenny's eight-box offer on Boxing Day 2006... which, for the 99% of you who don't remember that (and I had to look it up myself) is this:



And at the same time James1978 has a friend who makes Wakey look like my mum.

I just told the said person about Doreen's game and I asked him what he'd deal on her last 5 and he said £90,000!! When I told him that the average was £50,000 and pennies and the banker hardly ever offers above the mean, he said "Yes, but you can gain more than you can lose"!!!!