The Chase viewers were stunned as Chetan accepted a £17,000 loss, but his risky strategy ultimately paid off

A contestant on The Chase left viewers stunned after accepting a £17,000 negative offer from Jenny Ryan, despite having the chance to play for a much larger sum.

Chetan, a 25-year-old salesman from Langley, faced a difficult decision when he reached the podium on the ITV quiz show on Wednesday, 20 November 2024.

He could stay with the £2,000 he had earned, take the higher offer of £73,000, or accept the extraordinary lower offer of minus £17,000.

Chetan chose the latter.

The decision immediately divided viewers. Some were furious that he had voluntarily reduced the team’s potential winnings by such a large amount. Others argued that keeping all four contestants in the game gave the team a better chance of beating Jenny Ryan, known as The Vixen, in the Final Chase.

As it turned out, Chetan’s gamble on teamwork proved significant.

Jason and Kim build a huge prize fund

Host Bradley Walsh welcomed Chetan, Nicky, Kim and Jason to the episode, with the four contestants taking on The Vixen.

Jason was first to face the Chaser. After earning £6,000 in his Cash Builder, he opted for the lower offer of £2,000 rather than risking a higher amount.

Kim then delivered the biggest performance of the opening rounds.

She put £8,000 into the team’s prize fund and was given the choice of staying with that amount or going for a much bigger offer. She decided to take the £70,000 higher offer.

The decision paid off, with Kim successfully making it back to the team.

That left the group with £72,000 in the bank and put the pressure on Nicky and Chetan to complete the team.

Nicky takes the first negative offer

Nicky was next.

She had managed to score £7,000 in her Cash Builder, but decided that getting back to the team was more important than protecting her individual contribution to the prize fund.

She accepted a £5,000 negative offer.

That reduced the team’s total, but it also meant Nicky successfully made it through to the Final Chase.

Then came Chetan’s turn.

With three players already through, he was faced with an unusually stark set of choices. The higher offer would have pushed his contribution to £73,000, while the lower offer would take £17,000 away from the team’s total.

Chetan knew exactly how unpopular his decision might be.

“It’s probably not going to be the most popular choice, but I do think there is strength in numbers…so I’m going to go for -£17,000,” he told Bradley Walsh.

And that is exactly what he did.

Viewers were furious with Chetan’s decision

The choice immediately sparked a reaction online.

Some viewers struggled to understand why Chetan would accept such a substantial negative offer when the team had already built a sizeable prize fund.

One viewer wrote that they would not be able to walk the streets without feeling ashamed after taking the £17,000 offer.

Another jokingly described the decision as a “criminal offence”, while a third said they would change their name and flee the country if they had made the same choice.

The reaction was understandable given the numbers on the board. Chetan’s decision meant the team surrendered a further £17,000 from its potential winnings.

But the strategy behind the decision was straightforward: Chetan wanted all four players to reach the Final Chase.

And he was not alone in believing that was the right approach.

Even The Vixen backed Chetan’s decision

Rather than criticising Chetan, Jenny Ryan told him that she believed he had made the correct choice.

Ryan pointed out that if Chetan returned successfully, there would still be £50,000 in the bank for the team, an amount she described as more than many teams would be playing for.

She also suggested that the price of the negative offer was justified by having a “fearsome full house” of four players available for the Final Chase.

That argument became even more relevant once the final round began.

With Jason, Kim, Nicky and Chetan all safely back, the team had four people available to answer questions and build their score against The Vixen.

Chetan gets his reward in the Final Chase

The decision that had frustrated so many viewers ultimately did not prevent the team from winning.

Chetan made an important contribution during the Final Chase as the four contestants battled Jenny Ryan.

The team eventually finished on 21 steps, beating The Vixen’s score of 18.

Their total prize was therefore £50,000.

That meant Chetan, Nicky, Kim and Jason each went home with £12,500.

The episode therefore offered an interesting contrast between the size of the prize fund and the value of keeping players in the game. Chetan had sacrificed £17,000 on the board, but he also helped ensure that the team went into the Final Chase with all four contestants.

His choice was controversial with viewers, but the eventual result gave the decision a rather different look.

A record-setting offer, but not the first £17,000 negative accepted

Chetan’s appearance was widely reported as a show-record moment because he accepted a minus £17,000 offer. However, historical records of The Chase show that a £17,000 negative offer had already been accepted on an earlier episode involving Jenny Ryan on 9 December 2021.

So while Chetan’s decision was certainly an unusually dramatic moment on the programme, it was not the first time a contestant had accepted a £17,000 negative offer.

What made this particular episode memorable was what happened afterwards.

The team went from having £72,000 secured through Jason and Kim, through Nicky’s £5,000 reduction and Chetan’s £17,000 gamble, to entering the Final Chase with £50,000.

They then held off The Vixen 21-18 and walked away with £12,500 each.

For Chetan, the decision that initially had viewers asking how he could possibly accept such a low offer ended with a very different outcome: he had backed the idea that four players were better than three, and the team ultimately proved him right on the day.