I do agree with what you've stated. The point I was trying to make about rico7's post was that anyone can *afford* to lose any amount of money they've never had whether it be 1p or £250k. It's not a matter of being able to *afford* to lose £20k because they've never had it in the first place.

There is some other facet of human nature that cuts in at a particular tipping point for a person which suddenly causes them to become cautious about risking what they've already accumulated for potentially much higher amounts, even on golden boards.

I can't make up my mind if its greed because it could be argued that its greed that drives people on to gamble for higher amounts. Or fear of looking or feeling a failure if a large amount is lost on a gamble for a huge amount. Or just a reflection of the materialistic culture we live in today.

Personally I'm prepared to end up with a blue amount just for the excitement of going for it. £20k today would make a huge diference to my life but I wouldn't weep over losing it for a chance to go for £250k. Tomorrow would just be another day like today and I'm happy today.



It must be a constant struggle for the producers to achieve a balance with good and bad runs of luck with the boxes and seemingly impossible to predict contestants.

Yes, that's quite true. But they see a lot more of the contestants than we do on screen - so should be able to judge them better, although some will always make seemingly "out of character" decisions when they get in the chair (e.g. Adam and Philip, in opposite ways!)

At the moment virtually all we're seeing is blue/almost blue box wins, and generally cautious deals in strong games. Surely it's time to pitch the offers low when the big money remains in play, realising how low most people's tipping point is, and conversely to just offer the mean or thereabouts when a player is left with scraps, so not all players with crap games have to go on to the bitter end?

That I agree with.



With the amount of 'crash and burn' games recently I can't see any point in the banker harshly punishing people who've had a go but been unlucky. Its a put off for the others and breeds caution which leads to boring games. Whats wrong with offering the mean (or even above the mean - there's no rule that says it can't be done is there?) in those cases as a reward for having had a go. It might make some players more amenable to taking a risk.

I agree - I would like to see more "respecting courage" offers like Shirley's at the end if the player has turned down a big offer to go for the power 5 amounts, only to see it go wrong - but in too many games he had forced them to go on if they've gone for it and it hasn't worked out, they've not had any sort of get-out before the end (i.e. Pippa, Adam, Frazer). That in turn has made the players more worried about playing in if they have a bad round and leave a one box game. If they would give better get-out offers, then more people would go for it, though I'm not sure today was one of those times - if Jon had taken out the £250k, even if he'd kept the £35k there, he'd have only been offered £4-5k max at 5-box!

In Pippa's game, I'd have no-dealt the £16,500 as I thought there'd at least be a decent get out on a £75k-high last 5, but I'd never have imagined it going down to £4,500!

I know a lot of players would go to the end regardless once the substantial amounts had gone. But it can't hurt to at least offer a get-out opportunity on occasions in such games. Some of the offers on poor boards aren't worth the price of the Banker's phone call, and while I know it's just down to a particularly bad run of luck, I have to say I'm sick of seeing blue wins and all-blue final pairs in play after the last few weeks! Apart from the fact that some of the most painful ones tend to overshadow the next few games as well.

I don't think Jon can be too disappointed with that result. £20k is a nice sum of money, and the board had some massive gaps when he dealt. Then, once the £35k had gone, he would surely have taken the next offer, and the offer after that - there was no way he would have gone to the end!

I think I too would have gone at the second £20k offer, or (on a brave day), maybe the next one. Compare this with Kay and Kathleen's games, when the boards were so good, and I definitely would have gone to the end. It's a shame the £250k had to come on the day when the board was much more unstable.

i don't see what the point of making low 5 box offers after a brave decision is good as it just forces people to the end and makes the remaining players more cautious. The players should be tested not forced to the end because I don't see what the point of that is. And i would have turned down Pippa's offer too if i could have expected 7/8K at 5 box.

If Jon, Renee etc. had been offered 5/6k at 5 box it would have been more interesting as they would have had more of a decision to make.

I do agree with basicasic that a lot of players are too cautious even with good boards and that they should take more calculated risks because there are good backup reds sometimes but that he was a bit harsh on Jon yesterday as 20K was a good offer for an unstable board.

He dealt at the time he felt right for him, but it was a shame it turned out he could've had a lot more.

Well done Jon though - it was a good show - enjoy the money!

And be aware that the £250,000 has never been in box number 5 before when on the pound table [b]until[/b] it was Jon's game. I had a funny feeling that the £250,000 was in his box.

That's irrelevant. There's always a first time for everything, and this happened to be the first time for box 5 bringing the 250k, and in terms of the 250k, only boxes 2 and 4 have had it more.