There have been so many great games over the years, but there are some that often get unfairly overlooked in favour of other, more notables games from the same period.

Examples include Marshall from October 2010, a sizable win which is overlooked due to the two HUGE wins later in the month, and Rich from last December, whose pretty tense game is overlooked due to Sarah's Power 5 win (the first for months) coming the next day.

Any more to offer?

How about Derrick's game?
One of the funniest players on the show. I loved his comment about accidentally doing a no.1 on a woman from a crane!
He also spanked the Banker with a generous £12,500 offer.

Definitely Hillary's £50,000 win thanks to Massimo's Boxgate scandal the next day. It's a shame too as it was the first Power 5 box win accomplished through very brave risks (as Saj's and Kristy's wins were ridiculously manufactured).

I thought £35k Claire's game (It was a few shows before Alice and H was on the wings at the time) was brilliant and overlooked, it was great because the banker underestimated her at first but the more courage Claire showed the better the offers got and I thought her win was quite hard-earned as she made some brave decisions towards the end, unlike Alice's which felt a bit too manufactured for my liking.

I think £75k Belinda's game also deserved more appreciation, just too bad it was drowned by the forum's 'knee-jerk reaction' to her underselling her box despite still winning a massive amount.

How about £45k Nick who gets forgotten about becuase he played the bay before Lance?

Also £75k Julie from January 2007 often gets forgotten about as she was from the same era as £250k Laura and Bunney.

£70k Paul & £72k Tony - Two very under-appreciated Power 5 wins due to the forum going berserk because they both had £250k in their boxes.

£60k Matt (March 2008) is another one under that category!!

There are a few games from that era which often get overlooked, because there were so many big wins. One that springs to my mind (which was actually a bit later, in March) is Patrick, who dealt at £50k but literally ended up in tears when he could've had a lot more (and had the £250k in his box).

Lots of early-2007 games that would have been treated very differently even six months later, yes. Frank's £36,126 on New Year's Day!

Totally agreed with Belinda and £45k Nick though, amazing games. The latter was notable for producing an all-red squashdown (the first ever!) in proveout, but still being an OPW!

I actually don't think Ottis (04/09/06 - yeah, I remember, it was right in the middle of my watching heyday ) is remembered as well as he should be. To have recovered from an utterly disastrous start such as he had, and claim (IIRC - which I might not, it was 7 years ago ) an OPW from his game.... was remarkable.

Yeah, it was "only" £7,000. But come on, halfway through I think the entire watching population expected him to go home with a blue. Another one in and around Lance era and slightly beyond, perhaps forgotten due to the low stakes, but a great, great game regardless.

Well, I certainly didn't under-appreciate Welsh Tony's game, as I was in the studio for it soaking up the atmosphere of that dramatic final round!

It's strange how underappreciated these games are given the life-changing (and this time, I really do mean life-changing) amount of money won. There was a recent game where £45,000 was won, but the overall attitude seemed to be that the contestant was foolish for dealing on a strong board and should've won a lot more. Then the next contestant won much less, but everyone approved of that win since it was a spanking.

Honestly, people lose sight of the value of money when they watch these games. If this were an arcade game in a bar or something where the goal was to set high score and forever have your name (or initials) emblazoned on the stats screen, then yes, 45,000 is pitiful compared to 250,000. But no one cares about such notoriety because they are playing for money. To bemoan a £45,000 win because the contestant could've had much more just reeks of greed and ignorance to me.

This is why I view any red win as awesome, regardless of the board or optimal outcome. Sure, some of those deals are statistically questionable and I probably wouldn't have made most of them, but the contestants have money that I not only don't have but also would love to have. Blue wins still suck (although three-figure wins are less sucky, at least) but either the contestant put in the effort that some of you actually continually request and it failed, or they had an absolutely unlucky game and couldn't have done anything about it.

To be fair, this forum is far nicer than the Facebook page or Digital Spy or, well, any other online forum.

End rant.

Edit: I suppose some games can be considered better than others and a £45,000 deal on blue/£100,000 can be considered better than a £45,000 deal on £35,000/£250,000. The point I'm just trying to get it is I just don't find games with red wins as "bad" because I just can't criticize a player who ends up with more money than I have ever had.

Another to add: Jamie from December 2010, who was in LIVE play at 2-box, with £75,000 and £250 remaining; he dealt the resultant offer of around £22,500, and had the blue in his box for an OPW! No idea why this game is overlooked; maybe because of the Christmas specials that began a week later.

Just thought of another, and this is going WAAAAAAAAAAYYYY back to the earliest days of the show when the box inserts were black and white, but no one has ever talked about Tina from December 2005

I know she 'only' won £5,000, but she deserves some degree of appreciation because she was the first player to no-deal to the end and win the highest amount, plus she did well to win £5,000 out of a struggling game as well...

I think people forgot about her because, her game was so long ago now, she was only there for about 10 shows or so and that her game was forgotten in the wake of Sara missing out on the dream finish (Maybe also because she replaced Trevor the Sage who was one of the biggest characters from the early days). Also makes it easy to forget that there was woman who stood in E2 before Pat M!

Andy Kelly's game.

Best show of all time.

What about where it all started, with Lynn on show 1? Her game was actually a really good one - a two-box deal for £14k with £10 and £35k remaining, and she had the £10 in her box.

Show 1 (and indeed the first few shows) is also notable for other reasons - the lack of Noel's familiar phrases, the weird coloured lighting at times (which presumably wasn't intentional), the mis-timed graphics and sound effects, the fact that Lynn poo-pooed one of the banker's offers and got away with it, and so on.

I think it's quite rare that a show develops so much on-screen nowadays, but it happened with DoND - Noel's phrases just developed over time, the banker's character developed over time, and the apparent technical issues with the sound, graphics and lighting were ironed out over time too.

£33k Mark's game from July 2009 was under-appreciated IMO, i thought he was a great player and had good offers throughout his game, then capped it off with an OPW. It was the last 'normal' show of Season 4 and set a positive mood for the other players going into the Summer specials