Germaine won £75,000

Today's contestant was Germaine: played very cool, kept talk to a minimum and worked hard on maintaining a dead pan face. The banker talked to him to try to get under his skin, but it didn't work, Germaine gave him no thought. By the mid point he had just turned down £16k; he had 5 blues against 6 reds including all of the power 5 except the £100k, and then he got rid of the £10, 1p and £75k.

Now one might consider that having almost 2 reds for every blue is a strong position, but it really means that in the next round there is approximately a 2:1 chance of selecting a red each time. If this happens the value of the board can be weakened, especially if the reds are at the high end of the power five. That has to be one of the reasons why the banker offered £11k, and Germaine turned that down too. Again the banker tried to talk to him, ruffle his feathers, put him off his game, but Germaine smiled and ignored him completely.

The next round seemed to come from nowhere, leaving Germaine with 4 reds and a blue and a banker's offer of £28k. He thought about it, played with Noel and then turned it down. Tension really building now, he called the £3000, £50,000 and finally the £35,000, leaving £1 and £250k. The audience invariably had their hands over their mouths, surely Germaine couldn't gamble? This time he took the £75k that was offered, and guess what...he had the £250k in his box.

This induced a feeling of anti-climax, the banker could not afford for Germaine to win the £250k and so gave him an offer that, against £1, he just couldn't turn down - it was impossible that Germaine would say 'no deal', and of course he didn't. I think I am right in saying this is the highest amount won so far in the UK game?

I think a trick is missed here. If Germaine could have been persuaded to go on he would have had a 50-50 chance of winning the £250k or £1, which would have made for much more exciting TV. So I think the banker's offer should have been for a lot less.

Again I have to say that I cannot imagine anyone but Noel hosting this show, he is quite brilliant at it. Interesting to note that on Saturdays he is taking this show up to challenge 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire' hosted by Chris Tarrant - this is not the first time they have opposed each other in this way; 25 years ago the pair of them were fighting for top spot with Tiswas and Swapshop (can't remember who won that one).