Well I think that decision was fair enough, he only really missed out on £5,500 more because there's absolutely no chance he would have carried on at the next round with a 60% chance of leaving with effectively nothing.

He knew what he wanted to do with the money, and a less generous Banker could have forced him on I think. If he'd played on the negative feeling of recent games and made Laura-type offers we could have seen a big win today.

Still, at least the £250k drought is over, let's hope we get a repeat of the December/January run now!

(Anyway, roll on the summer break, as every game nowadays produces either a blue win or a Wakeyasic argument... )

The £250k comes to the table at last! I was hoping that Jon didn't have it, though, as I knew it'd start an argument on here.

I thought the offers were quite generous today, I would have been very tempted by the third offer.

was a shame the board was empty with the 250k in play, could see why he dealt.

shame for him and the game but was a poor 250k board

The funny thing is that although Noel was still going on about Jon dealing at £20k and then having the £250k on Wednesday's show, he didn't actually say that it would be the first time in over 80 shows it was there. So all the £250k + anythings that have happened since late March, for all I knew it could have been there. That's a good Noel.

The bit about the 'rubbish audience' was also mentioned to us by one of the Endemol guys, as a way of getting us to cheer and chant even more to get behind the player. I thought they just said it to everyone, but in this case it seems there was actually reasoning behind it!

I can see why he dealt, though, it's big money and it sounds like he could do a lot with it. I still hope we get some better luck soon!

It was shame that Jon threw away the chance to win £250,000 but I still think he did the right thing in dealing at £20,000 because it was a very risky board. Well done Jon and enjoy £20,000

Is that the first time a contestant has opened 1p first and ended the game with the biggest 250k last?

I suspected you might know something, given that you didn't enter my competition... so I wondered if it would be there today or tomorrow!

I disagree that it was a blatant lie - the banker was clearly giving Jon good offeres earlier in the game, and I think he would have to have nudged it up a few grand to get him out ot the chair. Plus David W from October had a very similar last 8 (250k/35k/rubbish), aggressively no-dealt £17,500, then hit the £35k in the next 3, and the offer went up to £25k!

And I don't think Noel was THAT bad - at least I didn't want to get inside the TV and stangle him like in some March/April proveouts!

And £20k WAS a good offer on that board - it was £5,001 more than Laura was offered, and she had 50k back-up instead of 35k. I do think Jon was the type who would have gone on given low offers, but be sensible enough to deal good ones, and who on earth would have gambled to the end if the proveouts offers were genuine? About 5% of the contesants who've been on, that's who!

I'd struggle to name one past contestant who I think would definitely turn down £75,500 on a £250k/£5 final pair. Nobody's ever gambled in a situation like that. Perhaps Morris, but without the £20k fallback would he have had the nerve to do it? Who knows!

I'm thinking the likes of Khanny, John G, Fin etc. I think 1% may have been a more accurate figure!

Mostly from January 2007

Good point, it might have needed 25k to be sure (and a sensible Banker ought to err on the side of caution in that configuration if he's interested in saving money...) - 75k would have been conceivable for anyone who could turn down 25k, although there aren't that many and most of them seem to post on this forum...

Again, all possibles, but none of them turned down over £75k and none of them with an instant 50-50 chance of going away with small change! I think this is a much more difficult gamble to take than any we might see at an earlier stage of the game.

If you can afford to lose £20,000 then it was the wrong decision to
deal, but I think it was the right decision despite the proveout.
Well done Jon.

I think Lisa (from March 06) who sometimes posts on here said that 1p Trevor was likely to have gambled if he'd avoided the £250,000 at the final pair - though what his offer would have been is debatable, as he got really low offers throughout, but there had only just been the first 5-figure hypo offer with it in the last pair in Anna's game, so most would still have been anticipating more than that - perhaps £99k as a play on the £9,900?

But Trevor would have had a 1p/£250,000 final two and therefore a lower offer was expected immediately. I suspect that it might have been the £60,000 that Debbie's hypothetical offer was. And I think Trevor would've dealt or no dealt and swapped given thatthe £250,000 was on the table just days earlier.

I wonder how different things would've been then.

I cant blame Jon for dealing when he did, 20 k was tempteing money for that boared he had.

Nice guy hope he got to do the things he wanted to do

They aren't losing £20,000. They've never had it in the first place. That's why players should be more adventurous. They aren't actually gambling a penny of their own money.

The game is almost like a dream come true. The chance to gamble for huge sums of money and not risk a penny of your own cash. Yet people still wont take any risks.

I honestly think sheer greed takes over, at different levels for different people, and they just wont give up what they've already got even by taking even small risks in some cases.

I'm sure this isn't what the show's originators mean't to happen when they were devising the game.

Jon was such a nice guy i'm glad he dealt at £20,000...kinda knew he had the £250,000 from the start! Well done Jon

I think most people are agreed that it becomes your money the moment you are offered it. Think about it, if someone was to offer you £20,000 outside a casino and offer you the chance to either come inside and gamble it or walk straight home, the vast majority would take the money and run without a second thought!

The only thing that makes DOND different is that it is there to provide entertainment. But it's not the players' responsibility to make it entertaining - only the producers can do that. They could make every offer 1p and make everyone go to the end. They could make every offer so generous that everyone dealt straight away. Both would be crap of course, it's all about the balance, which is a very difficult thing for them to get right. With the depressing pattern of games we're seeing at the moment though, we clearly need lower offers on good boards and higher offers on poor ones.