Daniel,

Yes he must have a bit put by.

Also he must be on some sort of benefits (or very rich anyway as he must live that lifestyle on something) so maybe £20,000 was over the threshold??

I do remember that 1 winner (cant think of their name now but sure someone else will) who go their benefits stoped after a big win.

Alexander,

Yes that was my point, how would 20K help but Colin brought it up.

Why?

I can't quite believe that managed to turn into a 1p game. It was one of those remarkably stable-looking boards, as is often the case when there is a solid block of high reds without the £250k. But he had the disastrous fifth round and the Banker gave him no escape route at all after that with two final joke offers (and was the swap even offered or was it cut out?)

I'd have seriously considered the third offer there and it's not very often I'd say that. Getting £20k at that stage without the quarter million in play the upside potential is quite limited, think I might have been tempted to go another round and then perhaps taken it. Could easily have followed him into the 1p club as well though.

Colin was a lovely man and I clicked with him instantly when I met him. He's a very intelligent bloke with a great sense of humour and often had interesting stories to tell. The number of blues he took out during the first half of his game was incredible, especially when you consider he could never have taken out the 1p as he had it in his box. The board was very stable at both 11-box and 8-box though, and whilst £20,000 (twice) were good offers, it's understandable that he played on.

Like I said to him at 8-box though, the upside potential was limited as he was never going to get into the really high offers at 5-box such as £40k / £50k due to the lack of the £250k. I didn't think the 5-box offer would be more than about £40k even if he'd had the perfect round, and I didn't think it was worth risking having a crash just to double the offer (at best).

After the 8-box offer though, he was forced on to the end with some pretty horrible offers, and he took the 1p win like a gentleman. No tears or anything like that, and he continued to remain positive even after his game. It was a pleasure to know him, but it was such a shame that he didn't get more from the game. I think the shot of me looking pretty distraught after the 1p box was opened summed up my feelings about it. To be honest, I think I was affected by it more than Colin was!

I think it was Doug - an old bloke who played about 2 years ago. He scooped £75k and I seem to remember reading that his benefits had been slashed because of his DOND win.

All 3 1p winners this season have been with box 8; Pete swapped for box 8 with the 1p, Marianne chose box 8 as her box, and Colin brought box 8 to the table. Of course, it also created our second quarter millionaire too.

Today was a sad game, hope tomorrow is a good one

This must've been deflating after last week (or the previous filming day). Reading on here, seems like one of those games that started well then crashed big time. Hope the players can pick themselves up after this.

Yes, he was really stupid for turning down £20k wasn't he? Not with £100k, £75k, £50k all still there, not to mention 3 other reds and only 2 blues.....you can't account for luck like that, but if ever there was a game to extoll the virtues of £20k targetism, that was it!

He had the 2nd worst possible rounds from both 8-box and 5-box!

It was either £20k or all the way today sadly, I think the banker was in revenge mode after last week and the offers are always worse when the momentum is against the player.

Poor old Colin, he didn't deserve that, but I always have a bad feeling where nearly all the tiny amounts get taken out early and one very isolated small blue remains and it stubbornly refuses to the found you think there's only one reason why he didn't take it out....but at least he took his misfortune very well, it would have been quite easy to have gone off like Matty or Halloween Tony in that situation!

Box 8 doesn't half seem to be an everything or nothing box? It's produced loads of 1p winners, but all of the power 5 except £100k too now after Alice!

That was just simply disgusting to watch...two amazingly generous £20,000 offers but in both cases there was a severely justified reason to go on...considering he had one of the two blues left, it just reminded me of Sheran's board from 2007...how she had the 1p too yet had an amazingly biased board in favour of the reds halfway through...

And to cap it all, a 1p win...and yet (materialistically of course) the show probably needed it, just like we needed the first crash of the year to bring everyone back down to earth after the amazing Christmastime games...

Back to winning ways as of tomorrow, hopefully!

Also, it was clear as crystal to tell exactly how gutted David was for him...pretty much summed up what my mum was thinking: she reckoned along with Matty it was one of the most painful, yet self-inflicting trainwrecks we've had!

Unlucky Colin,but for future player's when you receive the same offer twice(11 box and below) through my experience as a player and a viewer there is a message "don't turn it down" I've seen it too many times were their game goes downhill fast.

A painful game, but a very important one, one that kills off any fears of January 2007 Revisited and contestants making wildly out-of-character decisions.

Not a lot that can be said about the gameplay really - the two decisions were at twenty grand of course, it was a difficult board to read, and it was no surprise he played on (certainly not at 11-box).

Yes K.P just what I was trying to say you are the "Wordsworth of this site"

All the Best.Stephen

Not a lot i can say about that really, Colin really did look like he was going to be lucky and the turning down of £20k was justifiable both times (though the second time there was also a good counter argument for dealing). Sometimes boards just crash, it's painful to see but that's the luck of the game

How many members is that now? Must be getting on for 20

Not sure what to say after that, just devastating bad luck. It was easy to get sucked into the stability of the board, but it's equally important to point out the minimal upside potential, at least immediately.

If you're playing right to the end, going on with these red-heavy boards is an enticing prospect, but I agree with David that it's hard to reap great dividends from one round - perhaps he was 'only' looking at mid-£30k's for a good round after 8-box, the question is really whether you're prepared to go on 2 more rounds, and chance that you will keep a combination of 50k/75k, 75k/100k or 15k with a high red for a significant improvement. He nearly rescued the situation by leaving 1p and £75k, although he probably would've got a swap there!

Anyway, great guy, just unlucky game!

Yep. Good advice from David today, although the presence of so many back-ups meant that turning down the £20k at 8-box was a perfectly reasonable decision. In fact, if the Banker would have played fair at 5-box with an offer around £7k-£8k then the back-ups would have done their job and allowed Colin to get out with a nice amount before it all crashed to nothing.

I suppose this is a reminder that the Banker doesn't always play fair...

It'll always be one or the other really: if the Banker is intimidated, he usually shows it by making wonderfully generous offers...if he is feeling extremely confident, he usually shows it by offering nasty "no-brainer" offers...

...and we saw both examples today

Nearly, 19 now, and spooky (or not) that it should happen on 16/03 (16+3 being 19), and also that there happen to be 19 characters in THE SIXTEENTH OF MARCH, although TWO THOUSAND AND NINE had 18 before Colin came along. Ok, I'll be quiet now.

I actually felt really irritated at the 2-box offer which was just £350. Colin had provided an amusing show and I thought the least the banker could do was offer a good get-out at 2-box. Fair enough, the banker had played his games with the poor 5-box offer but it'd have been nice to have given Colin a good final offer, like he did in George's game (which coincidentally also had the 1p in the final two).

Having said that, even if it had been the mean of £1,500, I think Colin would've still turned it down to have a stab at the £3,000. I suppose the banker was just living up to his evil persona and was punishing Colin for turning down the reasonably generous £20k offers earlier. I suppose George's generous 5-box and 2-box offers were because he had plain bad luck, whereas Colin did have the chance of taking a "lifeline" as the banker put it.

You know what, I've just realized something - Our H has seen both sides of the game during his tenure on the show. He's witnessed both a £250,000 win and a 1p(athetic) win. I assume that very few contestants have seen both of these things happen during their stay on the show. Interesting little tidbit, I suppose.