And the winner is....

You know what they say about beginners' luck, right? Well, I can't remember either, but what's important is that first-time players Dad "Big Daddy" Pool and Elizabeth "Gonna-Make-A" Fortune both won big this week, splitting the top prize with bids of €2.4 million and €2.3 million (aaaaaaactual retail price: €2.35 million). I didn't have a picture of Elizabeth handy, but I found the picture to the right of a little kid named Elizabeth on the internet and decided to put that up instead. She kinda looks like Elizabeth might have when she was younger, but I can't tell for sure because her mom was all weird about scanning in her baby album for some reason when I called her this weekend. I went all out for the grand prize this week: a trunk of gold bars valued at over $15,000,000. Of course, the trunk was on board the Santa Lucia when it sank in the middle of the Atlantic back in 1743, but that shouldn't stop Dad and Elizabeth from thanking me profusely.

There were a lot of people who didn't take the top honors this week, but to prove that it always pays to play, here's a list of their "prizes".

2nd place: Michael "My Hair Is" Harris, with a really close bid of €2.25 million, who wins a free dinner for himself and his lovely bride at the restaurant of his choice (as long as his choice is the Mellow Mushroom in Midtown) the weekend before Thanksgiving with yours truly.

3rd place: Kathryn "Don't Call Me Alicia Anymore" Kallison-Schwesinger, with a bid of €2.15, who wins free airfare to France courtesy of LVMH, the company that flies you places when you work for them but not if you just happen to know somebody who works for them (trust me on this one).

4th place (tie): Derek "Gimme Tenure" Vanderpool, with a bid of €2 million, who wins a brief respite from the crushing reality that he has at least another three and a half years to go before someone will call him "Doctor". Oops, time's up.

4th place (tie): Rita "Meter Maid" Charon, also with a bid of €2 million, who wins a farm fresh helping of Serville veal (butcher services not included).

5th place: Florian "You Cuts Me I" Kutzbach, with a bid of €1.75 million, who wins a time-share in beautiful Canary Wharf with the glamorous Mrs. Rita Charon.

6th place: Mohammed "Slice of" Hamra-Krouha, with a bid of €1.7 million, who wins free air-conditioning services in sunny Dubai just about everywhere he might go in town.

7th place: "Eh?" Claire Skrinda, with a bid of €1.5 million, who wins a double pint of beer before her next trans-Atlantic flight.

8th place: Panagiota "Why Can't I Win?" Alexandropoulos, with a bid of €1 million, who wins a three-week stay in fun-filled Philadelphia courtesy of Nik and Young.

9th place: Raph "Belly Slide" Charon, with a totally wild guess of €850,000, who wins my everlasting respect for intentionally letting someone else win by making a spectacularly low bid.

Click on the link if you want to check out the full listing for the chateau. Mmmm, chateau.