Qualifier & Grid

This round is played three times, with each playing split into two halves, a qualifier and the grid, to choose a contestant for the Final. The scores are set to zero at the beginning of each Qualifier.

In the Qualifier, the host asks five multiple-choice questions; each with three answer options. Contestants secretly lock in their guesses and earn one point for each correct answer. Wrong answers leave the score unaffected, but an impossible answer, or a failure to answer within the time limit, eliminates the contestant from the game. If exactly one player remains uneliminated after a question, the qualifier is immediately halted and that player qualified for the Grid. However, if all remaining contestants are eliminated on a single question, the entire pool is brought back into play. After the fifth question, the high scorer advances to the grid; any ties for high score are broken in favour of the contestant who took the shortest total time to lock in their answers.

For the Grid, the high scorer chooses one of four categories and is shown nine answers: one correct, three wrong and five impossible. After hearing the first half of a question, they choose five answers they believe to be impossible; each successful choice adds £100 to the daily prize pot and is removed from the board. The host then reads the second half of the question with all chosen non-impossible answers returned to play and the contestant must choose the correct answer in order to advance to the Final. Choosing a wrong answer gives the runner-up/last player who was eliminated from the first half a chance to find the right answer and advance; however, if this contestant chooses a wrong or impossible answer, the high scorer moves ahead. If any impossible answers remain on the board and the high scorer chooses one, they are eliminated and the runner-up gets a turn; if they fail to choose the correct answer, the host begins working down through the next-highest scorers until one of them does so.

Categories are removed from the list of four as they are chosen leaving three options in the second playing and two in the third. The maximum daily prize pot is £1,500; this is accumulated by eliminating all five impossible answers in every playing of the grid. Contestants who advance to the Final sit out all subsequent playings of the Qualifier and Grid.

If a Qualifier begins with only one contestant left in the pool, they must still give a correct answer in order to advance to the Grid.

Final

The three remaining contestants compete directly against one another answering a series of open-ended questions on the buzzer. Each is given 10 lives to start the round; a correct answer takes one life from both opponents while a wrong answer takes one from the contestant who buzzed-in. Some of the questions are themselves impossible (e.g. "In which decade of the 20th century was Pablo Picasso born?" – he was born in 1881, during the 19th century). Correctly identifying an impossible question costs both opponents two lives; however, if a contestant either tries to answer an impossible question or falsely identifies a question as impossible or does not answer immediately after buzzing-in, they lose two lives. Contestants who lose all their lives are eliminated from the game; the last one remaining advances to the £10,000 Question.

£10,000 Question

The last remaining contestant is asked one question in a randomly chosen category and shown nine answers; three each of correct, wrong and impossible. The contestant has 10 seconds to choose three answers and wins the £10,000 jackpot if all three are correct. They win the daily prize pot if any of their choices are wrong but none are impossible and nothing at all if they choose an impossible answer.

If a blind or visually impaired contestant reaches this round, the host reads one answer at a time and the contestant says "yes" or "no" to indicate whether they believe it to be correct.

During Series 1, contestants who missed the question were asked a second one under the same rules. This format was dropped at the start of Series 2 giving only one chance to win any money.

The format was further altered in Series 4 in that the departing contestant was no longer replaced leaving that seat empty for subsequent episodes. The batch of contestants would also stay for a week instead of two like in previous series.

The jackpot is presented onstage as a giant exclamation mark containing 10,000 £1 coins. When a contestant wins it, a hatch in the bottom opens and the coins drain into a hopper underneath.

Regular

Celebrity