what will it take for somebody to take an even moderate risk on this show ! That was the most pathetic deal I've seen since Phil.

After 2 spineless early bad deals so far this week I thought it might spur someone on to take a chance and go for it. Fat chance.

This deal trumps Kathleen and Kay's cop-outs as the week's most feeble and lame surrender by an absolute light year. I've seen more fight and backbone in a dead hamster and this is up there with the worst of them.

I really wanted the £250k to be in his box to rub his cowardly nose in it but alas even that meagre pleasure was denied us.

I defy anybody to argue with me that that was a good deal.

It was £12,450 more than what was in his box (and therefore £12,450 more than what you'd have won). I'd say that made it a pretty great deal.

Well, by that theory it would mean dealing for 2p at the first offer was a good deal if you turned out to have the penny in your box...

I don't want to go over the top like basicasic, but I do wish people would play their own game rather than being so influenced by what's gone before. Carol got it right, Steve's game is history and the players have to get on with things. Instead we're getting Lynn Week version 2.

Still, it was an interesting proveout to see if it really was going to be the Banker's biggest ever victory, surprised he didn't rub it in with the 5-box offer even though it was a "1p Trevor" board!

Which Phil do you mean? If it was Terminator Phil, then he took a 26k offer on a board where the mean was 27k, and pretty much all-or-peanuts! If it was Noel's best mate Phil, then he only missed out on an extra 9 grand, and sold a box worth pocket change, so many people would have ended up being the biggest loser for dealing too late (or not at all)!

But I do agree that it was rather over-cautious, I have to admit some of the Wakeyasic factor got to me and I was laughing at every box whch wasn't the quarter-mill, and even when he hit it, I though "You lucky so-and-so"!!

Contrast to a year ago today where I was just so relieved at Melanie's deal, as I knew I couldn't have coped with seeing her crash for £30k to winning a blue - but that's what watchng a player you love does to you!

Basicasic's in[s]anity makes me want to see a second-offer Deal.

Although having said that I would certainly have turned it down myself and I consider it a bad decision from the player, and a good one from the Banker.

Noel will certainly not display much neutrality for tomorrow and certainly not Friday, but will he be getting a receptive audience at the table where it counts? Personally I hope we get someone who plays their own game, and that this is a game of calculated risk-taking - which probably would mean take-the-box with the offers I'm expecting tomorrow...

It is risk for reward we all have our dreams and aspirations for todays player enough was enough and he dealt why do we question it? Let him enjoy £12,500 because that meant alot to him and I wish some of you would get some sense of perspective. Now to the Wakey group let me stick two fingers up at you and tell you £12,500 is real money and if he had taken out 250K in the first prove out he would never of lived his dream.... Lay off the dealers its not all about big money etc Deal Or No Deal is about experience and creating dreams. His dream was to go over to the place his dad died. He was granted that with £12,500 why risk it? Fair Play he stuck by his guns and I am glad best of luck....

It was his money, he had a clear purpose for the money that was there as a certainty and as such the possibility of a dream was of much less significance.

I'll concede that by most statistical measures it was not good judgement. But this is a game that cannot be entirely boiled down to statistical measures. My own ambitions would be higher, at least on a board with the 250k and multiple safety nets (albeit none particularly close to the big one). I would have sensed that I could probably (though not certainly) scrap at least something in the high four figures if the quarter-million went, and that's enough of a reassurance for me.

Still, it's a talking point isn't it? I wonder if tomorrow's will provide one?

Because this is thrust at us by Channel 4 as purported entertainment show and it is a once in a lifetime chance for a very select lucky few people chosen to play to win a huge life-changing sum of money. These extremely fortunate individuals then grasp the first half decent offer and blow (in most cases) wonderful boards.



I'm sure he will enjoy his money just as I'm sure he'll always kick himself for being a wimp and missing out on a whole pile more.



But he didn't did he. For the third game in a row there was plenty more in the game and which ever way you look at it he made a bad very cautious deal.



Of course its about winning big money. Why bother having huge £250k and £100k prizes! The whole premise of the show is based on going for the huge sums. They might as well have a top prize of £20,000 if thats all people are going to aim for.



He's got a well paid job and could have saved up that amount and given somebody else a chance to try for a big prize on the show.

I'm really caught in the middle of this one. Games like we've seen this week are really frustrating to watch, and in that way I can see the Wakeyists' point. In the last couple of months we've had two classic games in Graeme and Rodney, and one classic feel-good show with Eric, apart from that it's mostly been a succession of cautious deals and blue wins.

But if someone put a five-figure sum in front of you and offered the chance to take it or gamble it, I know what most people would do. It's not the player's responsibility to make good TV, it's up to Endemol to do that with good contestant selection and well-pitched offers. And the luck of the boxes of course, of which we've not had a good run for months.

I just wish there was a way to lessen the impact of a really painful game on the players in the wings. A couple of days' unscheduled filming break would perhaps be ideal, but there's the small problem of those with tickets!

I'm going to be Mr Unexpected here and say that I expected the deal. At round three I looked at the board and thought "This game is going to crash" and thought it was absolutely right when he dealt. Of course I turned out to be completely wrong, but for a £50 box a £12,500 deal is pretty good!

All we need now is an OPW, it's been way way too long without one!

An awful lot of them aren't wonderful. This could be defined as 'very good' at a stretch, but it was also one with a pretty clear route to disaster (seven blues for crying out loud). And it's one of the stronger boards I've seen an early Deal on.

As for the 'entertainment' point, you have decided that 45 minutes of unrelenting gambling counts as 'entertainment' in itself. Whereas most of us find entertainment in playing along with the game, wondering what we would do, wondering what the player would do... if you find people risking it all entertaining, there's lots of casino shows on television these days.



Now you're going into the ludicrous - but entirely Noelesque - domain of judging the game on the proveout.



On the contrary, the big prizes are there as potential, to tempt the players into going on while at the same time the offers tempt the players into stopping. It comes down to which is the bigger temptation for the individual, and that will vary by individual.



I can't argue with that. It explains why he took that Deal when most others, myself included, would not.



There's a few things to say about that, I suspect, but I'll say only this; he had a dream which he wanted to fulfil, DoND is pushed at least in part as a show about fulfilling dreams (including by Noel himself), he applied for the show and Endemol decided that this dream and his character warranted him being given this opportunity. Which he took in his own safe way. I sense bitterness that his place was not given to a Wakeyist - and Endemol probably wish a Wakeyist had been given that place, it would have saved them over twelve grand after all...

And who's to say he didn't? Who's to say he wouldn't have dealt at £12.5k on a risky board regardless of Steve's game? That's pretty crass that just because it's not a deal you would have made, you jump to the assumption that he was "not playing his own game".

Noel can *beep* off as well. If everyone was scared of crashing like Steve, I'd have thought Kathleen's game would have evened things out and showed that no dealing can work. I wouldn't have dealt when Mark did but he had his reasons and I'm not going to add to the ever growing number of dissenting voices.

He was very clearly influenced by it, you could tell by the way he was talking when the offer was made. He wouldn't have referred to it otherwise. And Carol clearly tried to persuade him otherwise with what she said, so there was obviously belief in the wings that he was being affected by a previous game. And they know him much better than us viewers!

Ypu need to get out a bit and ask real people in the real world. Everybody enjoys the games where people gamble. Fact. They are the most entertaining and exciting. Everybody moans about games like todays. The few folk on this forum are not representative of the general public. People aren't interested in statistics or playing along wuth the game. They want excitement and gambling.



You can only judge based on what happened which is what I did. Ifs and ands count for nothing. The £250k didnt get discovered immediately and whether you like it or not he could have got a lot more out of the game.

People like gamblers. End of story. They make for exciting games whatever the outcome. Nobody is interested in your endless statistcal twaddle even if they could understand it. And everybody I have spoken to (outside of this forum) said (and I'll put this politely) he bottled out.

I said earlier I thought todays deal was extremly yellow but you gotta be careful on here because you get banned or flamed for criticising someone for dealing early especially when it clearly had much more money in it.

I worry how poor most of these contestants are the number of em who say ive never seen 6 grand in my life I mean WTF have these people been doing all their lives? Dole wallys surely not.

That's what frustrated me today, along with the "I do things by halves, me" and the big numbers ahead of it.

Which is probably why the mainstream view on here is completely at odds with what I find out in the 'real world'. The no-dealers quickly get hounded off or banned leaving a core of mainly dealers.



Some undoubtedly will be relatively poor but todays guy was a royal mail manager. His win probably represents 25/30% of his annual salary. Hardly a life changing sum of money. Why not have a go if the £250k is still there?

As I've said before, it's not about "dealers" and "no-dealers". It's about people who can respect a contestant's decision, and those who cannot and insist that everyone plays the game the way they would.

It's about those who resort to personal abuse of contestants and those who don't, even if they don't agree with their decision (as I, among others, made it clear I didn't today without resorting to Wakeyasic language). And those who are abusive towards contestants deserve to be banned - whether that's for dealing, no-dealing, their appearance, their personality or anything else. This is a community for fans and contestants and we want it to stay that way. If you don't like it, I'd suggest you go off and start your own "nasty" DOND forum and see how many contestants sign up!

I'll make no bones about it I didn't respect todays decision. But I thought this was a forum where differing points of view could be expressed. I know very few people, if any, would play the game my way, but I'm happy enough if they've had a go and then dealt.





Whilst those that are abusive towards forum members go un-noticed .....



That's fair enough. And yet another no-dealer gets hounded off the site. There is no question of starting up a 'nasty' forum but if I did why would I be bothered whether any contestants signed up or not. Once they've played their game I couldn't care less if I ever saw them again.

I was very surprised at Mark's deal today, but £12,500 was obviously a lot of money to him, and the board wasn't all that good.