Time to get on with this.
Fans of Deal were in for a surprise, when the show returned from it's 2011 summer break two weeks earlier than originally planned. And everyone was a bit put off by this, as, in spite of some good games in the first few weeks of the new run, including a win of £53,000, no-one seemed settled. Even Gurpal van Sal becoming the first male to gamble for the £250,000 since Morris back in 2006 fell flat, partly because he failed and won just £5, but mainly because we were all unsure what was going on.
Eventually, it all made sense: they were going to do two weeks of LIVE shows. A good idea. But before we got to that, we had more important things to deal with. Mainly, THE FOURTH £250,000 WIN! Tegen Roberts won the jackpot to the utter shock of everyone as, unlike the three previous ones, no vague spoilers had snuck out beforehand!
Tegen's win seemed to spark something among the players, as we hit a good run afterwards. We saw a £50,000 win the day after Tegen's game, and a £100,000 win the following week. And then we had another £250,000 gamble! Joycey Gregg turned down £90,000(!) on a £5-£250,000 final two, and won the £5! Unlike Gurpal the previous month, who most felt genuinely sorry for his gamble not paying off, most were unimpressed by Joycey's decision. It still stands to this day as the most money turned down en route to a blue.
The LIVE shows were a truly amazing spectacle. They all ran fairly smoothly, no shows overran, none of the players made decisions that were that controversial, except maybe Kevin Evans, but everyone can forgive him, as they paid off and he won £75,000!
After the LIVE shows, things were restored to normality, with only two truly memorable games in the run up to Christmas. Firstly, Caroline Banana (yes, that was her name!) won £95,000, and former myor of Sligh David MacIsaac turned down £72,000, and crashed to just £2,000.
One notable change in the show happened in 2012: the players were told beforehand if it was their game, giving them time to prepare and maybe not make erratic decisions due to shock. It seemed to work: January 2012 was a great month for the show: five Power 5 wins, four of them in under a fortnight, and plenty of good money given away.
And then we had Rich Masson, who twice turned down above the average offers in an attempt to finally shut Noel up about no man having ever won the £250,000. It didn't work, and he only won £50,000. This stands as one of the biggest base breaker games of all time.
Not much else of note happened for a while: we had Mathew Smith win £30,000, Jess Shanks win £26,000, Damien West crash from £40,000 (IIRC) to £100, and Niko Nikodejavic win just £4,250, but give us a very entertaining game. His game losing to Miss Shanks' in the forum's Show of the Month poll for March 2012 is still one of the most controversial losses of all time.
Things picked up in April: we saw two impressive Power 5 wins from Gemma Ayto and Tony Pugh, and Becky Walters become the first player to win a blue, and still get the most out of her game! (She won £750, while her highest offer was circa £550!)
Another Tony, Tony Bradley, provided much humour on the wings with plenty of humourous anecdotes, but sadly only won 50p. But his game was still the high point of the month where the other highlights were a £30,000 win, a swap of 1p for £15,000 and a player giving some of their winnings to an earlier blue winner.
We also saw the first third offer deal with the £250,000 on the table, which was followed by four players in a row getting most out of their game. We also saw Ali Suwareh win £40,000, and Mariyam Shaheen crash from £60,000 to 1p.
We then had an unfortunate run: we saw the £250,000 getting undersold at least once for three weeks in a row, including for the lowest ever sum at the time (Katie Chipchase selling it for just £8,000). But that was nothing compared to poor Mark de Sousa, whose highest offer was just £199; it was that bad a game in terms of luck.
The next week, though, ANOTHER £250,000 WIN! Nong Skett became the fifth lady in her twenties to win the top prize, and by far the most courageous, having turned down £68,000 on the same £5-£250,000 finish as Gurpal and Joycey the previous year.
Following this, one of the players who witnessed her game, Scott Brown, was so determined to finally chalk up a male jackpot winner, he turned down a very generous third offer of £21,000, not to mention two generous offers beforehand. It didn't work; he also only won £50,000. Like Rich, his game is a massive base breaker among aficionados.
Not much else happened for a while: we saw some decent wins, but nothing of note until Ollie Baitup won £26,000 on the first day of October. And then, THE FIRST EVER SECOND OFFER DEAL! Josh Flannery dealt just £8,000 at his second offer. It didn't work out at all (£15,000 was in his box), and his feat has not been repeated since, though some have come close.
We also saw a crash from £60,000 to £1,000, a 'speed round' of 1p, 10p and 50p, and Lamin Sadi Khan breaking the record for the longest consecutive run of blues (10!). We then had a week where nothing went right: three undersellings of the £250,000, one for just £9,000, a 1p win, a complete trainwreck and a £1,000 win.
Better things were to come before the end of 2012; plenty of humour, and some good sums won, but not much of note until Sarah Mayco won £35,000, the first Power 5 win since Scott four months prior!
The show crawled into 2013 with a good run of games in January, including Steve Chatterton's recovery from a poor start to a £15,000 win. And Bronwyn Petroski's £45,000 win, the first Power 5 win of the year.
Not much else happened after that for a while, until mid March, when Kristian Daley won £15,000, which seemed to raise spirits and we had a good run of games for the rest of month, including Jainaba Janay winning £40,000 and Tommy Leonard winning £45,000.
The good run carried on into April, with almost every week seeing something memorable, mainly a £48,000. Which built up to the end of the month, when Roy Haythornthwaite came SO close to finally chalking up a male £250,000 win. He settled for £100,000. But it wouldn't be long until a male finally won the Jackpot. But that's another story.
Not much else happened after that for a while, until Tia Sharp became the latest person to break the 'lowest selling of the £250,000' record, selling it for just £6,000. And then, one of the biggest games in Deal history: Iris Herod dealt a very low third offer of £10,000 despite everyone advising against it. But it paid off, to everyone's fury!
The other players, however, lowered their expectations after all being proven wrong on that occasion, and the Banker picked up on this. The generosity of the offers took a nosedive after this point, with almost every player for the next month settling for a sum well below what the board was properly worth, and most getting away with it. And when a player decided to go against the run of play and go for big money, they mostly crashed and won a blue, thus enforcing the cautious attitude even further.
Even a long overdue big win, £118,000(!), won by Marlene Service, had no impact on the general player behaviour. The players were still taking offers well below the true value of the board, and giving the Banker no reason to keep lowballing. And, apart from Marlene, most of the players who went for it won blues and scared everyone even more, making them even more cautious.
How much longer would this go on for? Would we ever snap out of this unfortunate run? We'll get to that in the penultimate part of this retrospective next week.
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