This is a game of choice. All outcomes are dealt by your hand. There is no room for error, no mistakes to be made, no extraneous activity set up to prey on your downfall. All that is asked of you is to select a case.

Are you confident in your decisions? Do you trust yourself enough to follow through to the end? How long do you believe you can stay confident in your selection? That is not what matters now. At the moment, you have six cases to eliminate from the pool.

One falls. Another. Then another. Four. Five. Six. Some lucky drops. Some higher than you would have liked. Out of obligation, you are now given the choice to finish the game immediately, taking a definitive offer totaled from your remaining potentialities. Usually no higher than ~70,000 dollars. The choice is yours. Deal, or No Deal?

Well, that's ridiculous. Look at the board! You still have several hundred thousands awaiting you! You would be a fool to accept that puny an amount with such high odds of success! No deal, banker.

Continue forward. Please remove five more cases from the stage. One... two... oh, dear. A major hit to your possible winnings. This will not go over well in your next offer. Nevertheless, all you can do is continue forward. Three, four, five.

The banker has returned with a new offer. You have gained an additional ten, maybe fifteen thousand to your deal. All you have to do is accept. But that is not what you are here for. You are behind the podium because of the big one million that still eludes you. It could be sitting right next to you, for all you know. This is another deal you cannot make.

As the game progresses, you start to feel it. Your confidence is waning. Your options are diminishing, and so, too, are your prizes. Your decisions have led you to exhilarating highs, and heart wrenching lows. You have lost your chance at the fabled one million dollar prize, but that does not mean you are out just yet. You can keep going. $750,000 is still a fair amount. If not that, then 500,000. Do not let this one instance tear you away from victory.

The banker has returned. You have done well, and are rewarded with the promise of a definitive 200,000 dollars, at the least. Deal, or No Deal?

Not good enough.

You have made it this far. You can go higher. There is still that non-zero chance of half a million. Do not accept the deal. Do not settle for mediocrity. Is that how you want to live? To spend your restless nights tossing and turning over what could have been? No deal.

Ahead of you lies four more cases. Choose one.

Your best bet crumbles.

The banker is not pleased.

The deal is dropped, and it is now clear to you that perhaps you should have left when you were given a satisfactory result. But that is not what you are here for.

One more case.

Down goes your saving grace. There is nothing left for you.

The banker has given you one final chance. Will you count your losses, accepting the perfect in-between of your last two cases? Or do you still think you can beat the odds?

At what point would you still consider it worth it? The only thing keeping you going anymore is your ego, which has tumbled time and time again as you decline each and every out. If you leave now, you will not only leave unhappy, but unfulfilled. Despite it all, there is still that looming sense of achievement that comes from taking your shot, and making it out stronger than you could have.

Do not accept the deal.

Your odds are now 50/50. There is no middle ground anymore. There is no settlement to be made. You refused what was given to you, because you held out hope. Hope that got you nowhere. You have one final decision. Will you swap your case for what is left on stage, or will you stay true to your first choice, the case that has stayed by your side since the beginning?

Your confidence is what pulled you through to begin with. You promised to see it through to the end. You will not let anything tell you otherwise. Win or lose, you have always stayed true to yourself. You have what you want. You know what is best for you. With no one to blame but yourself, you have lost everything, but you know there is still more waiting for you.

---

I chose to keep my case. Given the possibility of one hundred dollars or five, I decided not to swap.

I walked out with five dollars. I won five dollars. Nothing brought about this result against my wishes. Everything that happened in this game was under my hand. I have trouble even calling myself a winner, given that there was no opponent to beat, no loser to be seen. I can't blame the game, or another person, or any other outside force. I chose this outcome, and I did everything in my power to keep it that way. Myself. Such is the thrill, and the horrors, of Deal or No Deal.