Deal or No Deal - 10th-16th December

As has been the case with recent weeks, we haven’t had any terribly memorable games, but still plenty to talk about.

Monday 10th: Jason

Winnings: £12,250

Dealt at: 5-box

Highest offer: £16,000 (14-box)

Box value: £100

Nothing terribly memorable, but a decent enough result from a sensible deal. And, by the standards of recent games, that’s good enough to satisfy most.

Tuesday 11th: Ben

Winnings: £6,000

Dealt at: 2-box

Highest offer: £9,000 (14-box)

Box value: 50p

Ben had a bit of a struggle, with four blues and £15,000 at 5-box. After Ben turned down the obligatory low offer in the hundreds, the Banker made a guarantee for on offer of £6,000 if the £15,000 stayed to 2-box. It did, and Ben got his well-deserved bailout. A good result from a pretty unlucky game.

Wednesday 12th: Lucia

Winnings: £17,000

Dealt at: 5-box

Highest offer: £34,000 (2-box)

Box value: £100,000

Didn’t see much of this game, as I got home late. But when Lucia was faced with a 5-box of £100,000 and not much else, the Banker offered a very generous £17,000, which Lucia sensibly took. Chalk up another ‘game where a sensible deal is made to look bad by a big sum being on the table’.

Thursday 13th: Harrison

Winnings: £9,000

Dealt at: 8-box

Highest offer: £42,000 (2-box)

Box value: £35,000

Oh dear. Harrison was pleasant enough, and the money clearly meant a lot to him. No-one can begrudge him a slightly cautious deal given that. At first, it looked like he’d get away with it, when £75,000 went in the fifth round, but the worst possible final round saw £35,000 and £50,000 stay to the end. Pure bad luck, and nothing more.

Friday 14th: Russ

Winnings: £1

Opened the box

Highest offer: £6,500 (11-box)

Box value: £1

But, compared to this, Harrison’s bad luck was nothing. Russ had an intriguing system of picking boxes in alphabetical order of the player’s names. This system had previously been used by Del Mahmut in June 2010; he won £70,000. Poor Russ won nowhere near that, thanks to the worst possible fifth round, which wiped out all the remaining reds and left an all-blue 5-box.

Sunday 16th: Hannah

Winnings: £1,313

Dealt at: 5-box

Highest offer: £13,000 (14-box and 11-box)

Box value: £750

It’s a shame that, after the brave but not stupid gamble at 11-box that the game should fall apart so quickly and dramatically. But £1,313 was a very respectable offer given that only £3,000 and £5,000 were higher. After leaving £750 and £3,000, the Banker have her the chance to give back the money and gamble, which she didn’t do, even though, statistically, it was probably a risk worth taking.

So, again, a week of pretty average run-of-the-mill games. Hopefully, next week we will get some good shows to send us into the Christmas specials, which begin on Christmas Eve, on a high.