I admire Tony for having the nerve to go for the £250,000, but this wasn't really the right board to do it on. But that's just the luck of the draw.

People should respect the fact that he made the decision to gamble. It went wrong, but could easily have paid off. He does not deserve to be berated just because his gamble paid off. Others, such as Jess from March this year, took similar gambles, which they paid off.

(No ranting intended)

Well...from what I’ve heard, he stuttered through the “No Deal” at £12,500.

He doesn’t appear to have been “greedy” in the slightest, with that in mind.

Had it been “deal” we’d all be saying what a brilliant game it was for Tony and how right he was to take the money.

Such is the nature of our game, always balanced on that razor-thin line between total success and abject failure.
Swapping £100 for 50p must have just compounded Tony’s misery. I think criticism of him here is very harsh; I’ve seen others make more stupid decisions. Rationally...this one ranks among them, but I would commend Tony for staying true to himself there...when not many others would.

Harsh, but deserved. The player makes every decision in the game, and anything that happens, good or not, is, in theory, their fault. You see a person who "stayed true to himself;" I see a reckless gambler who was given two lifelines and ultimately declined them both. His downfall was his own doing, and he should only have himself to blame.

I don't expect everyone to agree with me - and no one usually does, anyway - but all I see here is a self-inflicted trainwreck. Brutal honesty's a witch sometimes, isn't it?

I wonder if magnetic tape would be a good subsitite for reefa paper ? Because that's the only good use this broadcast tape had - sending it up in smoke and puffing it away, never to be seen again.

If this game was a celebrity, it'd be Bruce Jones off Corrie. Depressing and bitter.

I'm not going to go into my usual reaction becuase I said I wouldn't again and want to keep to my word - but I will ask MM - if Tony had dealt the £12,500 but turned out to have had the £250,000 in his box, what would you have said? Would that have been any better than what did happen?

(BTW I do actually agree that that was a massive gamble to take on a seriously risky board - rather than a trainwreck where there weren't really any chances to have dealt)!

I agree that there's a lot of blue wins which can feel like an hour of your life you'll never get back, but I'm glad I saw this episode (from 11-box when I got in anyway). For a while it did seem genuinely tense and unpredicatable - even the clock didn't give much away.

In the end, Tony perhaps became the victim of either his own hyperbole or just chasing a bigger offer, but he seemed willing to take a risk and accepted his fate when it went wrong. However, my first thought after the show ended was "So much for the notion the banker respects bravery." Noel's going to have his work cut out if he's going to try encouraging the 'OHO' attitude during the next few games...

I do see your point Mark...I mean, I see someone who stayed true to himself and also took a decision that was high in risk...a decision that didn't pay off for him.

Yes...it was a silly gamble to take, on that board. That said, if you go on the show with the intention of winning £250,000, if you don't play the game to its conclusion you won't win £250,000.

In turn, that said, when you're faced with a situation similar to that Tony was, perhaps your priorities need re-arranging. But if you're going for the £250,000...if you're really going for it...I don't think you're that likely to stop at anything, other than a very generous offer.

As I and James said...what would the outcome on here have been if he'd had the £250,000 in his box? None of us can avoid our own hypocrisy (myself included); we'd all have been saying much different things indeed.

Well... controversially perhaps, I don't think it was *that* big a gamble as such - he had a 62.5% chance of keeping the £250k, but he would be relying on significant generosity, and it's certainly not a decision I'd be comfortable in making - but he didn't seem to be *too* upset at the outcome, at least not initially anyway. I still say it just about fits in the "personal choice" category.

Of course, this one-dimensional plan served only to hinder him (as non-flexible strategies often do... ), and the banker quite clearly saw through this. You couldn't really have scripted that scenario any better in terms of drama.

This is by no means the worst no-deal ever though, so stop over-reacting!

Yeah, there have been worse No Deals *cough*Joycey*cough*

If you are getting £12,500 on a £250k/peanuts 8-box, you have to imagine you will be getting at least £20k and possibly approaching the Governor for keeping it in play (a case for at least asking what the offer would be in that situation today).

I'd have dealt myself at 8-box but there was a case for gambling today - sadly it didn't work out for him but there have been far worse no deals in the show's history.

What did irk me were the comments from the wings at 8-box that Tony could be the first male QM - mainly because to do so would have meant having to at best gamble £70k+ on a £250k/orange finish.

I think Tony's lesson serves as an object lesson in adapting your game play to the board. It's no use going in with a blinkered approach, whether it's to chase the confetti or to deal the moment you get an offer of £20k. A one box game at box, an offer two and a half times the fall back, to me that was crying out to be taken

Of course i concede that it could have worked out for Tony and there was a - very slim - chance he could have walked away with the £250k but I'd still classify that no deal as reckless rather than unlucky. Unlucky would have been to have taken the £250k and £100k out in the preceeding round.

Still he seemed to be content with the way he played the game so can't begrudge him that

Thinking about it, this game actually feels like what Nong's might have done had it crashed at the same point - certainly there was the same story of locking in on the QM whilst getting emotional about the offers...

Yeah, but at least Nong had £50,000 back up.