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Post by bbg95 on Jul 9, 2021 23:47:30 GMT -5
I have not had a chance to watch/listen to the podcast you embedded, so I will try to do that before discussing Fabio again.
I disagree that either of Bob's fake idols were used well strategically. The first one especially was sort of the fake idol version of a "big move," as it was something that looked cool but was actually pretty dumb. They didn't need the fake idol to send Randy home, and it put his jury vote in jeopardy for no good reason. Bob was lucky that Randy was more upset about Susie not giving him a cookie than he was about the fake idol. I mentioned earlier that I think this move gave Bob credibility with Sugar - maybe I should have put "credibility" in quotes, because it wasn't about trust, but giving Sugar a chance to embarrass Randy. But I think doing what Bob did influenced Sugar to clue him in about Kenny planning to boot Bob if Bob gave up the immunity necklace, and also to force a tie between Bob and Matty at Final Four. Would most players have done what Sugar did to help another player if that other player helped them to embarrass a rival/enemy? No, probably not, and there's no way Bob could have known that Sugar was going to do what she ultimately did. Still, there's no question that Sugar had power in the game at the time Randy was booted, and trying to appeal to players in power when one doesn't have power is a legitimate strategy. It would have been nice if Bob's appeal did not involve him helping to make Randy look like an idiot, but I'm not sure there was much else that Sugar really would have responded to. Also, I don't think you have the details of the cookie story quite right. Randy won the cookies at the auction and had to share them with the tribe. He offered Sugar a cookie; she declined, so he split that cookie between Matty and Corinne. Randy didn't take a cookie for himself; when he got to the last cookie, he offered it again to Sugar. She accepted, but then immediately gave it to Matty, which irritated Randy. Clearly it was petty and stupid. But what got Randy upset with Susie was when Susie said she felt sorry for him afterward, at the following tribal council. I think that Susie truly meant that sympathetically, that she wouldn't have wanted him to get upset over something so trivial. But Randy really didn't like that; it seems like he thought Susie was being patronizing. Randy might just be the kind of person who hates being laughed at or condescended to more than he hates being played - and Bob played him, but didn't look down on him.
As for the other one, I have written about how Bob (and everyone else) bungled that tribal before. But the important thing for Bob is that he actually was targeting Matty at that vote and used the fake idol to induce Kenny and Crystal to vote out Matty. This makes no sense for Bob, as Matty would beat him at Final Tribal Council 100% of the time. He lucked out that Kenny inexplicably split the votes incorrectly, even though he had reason to believe the idol was fake, which led to Corinne to getting voted out. As an aside, I think Kenny almost certainly cost himself a million dollars by making this move. I'm not sure I fully understand what you're trying to say here. You said Matty would beat Bob at Final Tribal Council 100% of the time; I agree that Matty was a big threat to win the game. So why should Bob not have targeted Matty? Are you saying that Bob needed to keep Matty around as a target so that Bob would have less of a target on himself? Or that Bob needed Matty to stay in the game so that there would be enough votes to eliminate Ken and Crystal? Or that Ken was going to get all the credit if Matty had been voted out, such that it would have improved Ken's position and not Bob's? On the other hand, I think the only person in Gabon who really liked Bob was Sugar, and all four of his votes were anti-Sugar/Susie rather than pro-Bob. Eh, I don't think Charlie was really trying to stick it to Sugar and Susie. He and Bob were in the same alliance and Bob did nothing to hurt Charlie while Charlie was in the game. Sure, Charlie basically stood by while Corinne and Randy were nasty to the non-Onions, but Charlie didn't seem to engage in much nastiness like that himself. At the final tribal council, he asked Sugar and Susie why they deserved to win when they had been ranked in low positions at the first tribe swap. I'll grant that that's not complimenting Sugar and Susie, but it was a fair question in the context of the game (obvious contrast to Corinne's vocal chords question) and Charlie gave both of them a legitimate opportunity to answer without shouting them down or trying to force them into saying something he wanted to hear. If you say Charlie wasn't strongly pro-Bob, I would agree - my guess is that if Bob made final three with another Onion Charlie likely doesn't vote for Bob unless the other Onion majorly betrayed him. But that does not mean that Charlie disliked Bob and just hated Sugar and Susie more.
And I think it goes both ways with Bob. If Sugar actually wanted to win the game, Bob gets voted out at final four no questions asked. And let's not forget that Bob was on the verge of becoming Erik 2.0 and getting voted out after giving the necklace to Kenny, but Sugar intervened to save him. I guess Bob deserves credit for his relationship with Sugar, but she was very capricious (her top ally was first Ace and then Kenny and then Matty and finally Bob). He was lucky she picked him as her favorite last. But she was really his benefactor in the game and the one who was actually driving the strategy late. Counterintuitively, Bob was also lucky that Susie won final immunity, because if she hadn't, he's stuck with an unwinnable matchup with Matty at FTC. If Sugar actually wanted to win the game, she would have had to do a lot differently than she did. As you noted, Matty was a big threat, so voting for Bob instead of Matty at the final four would not have helped, it actually would have made things worse for her. Of the players who made the merge, Sugar probably needed to be in a final 3 with Susie and Crystal to win - and she would have needed to have a lot fewer problems with the jury members to even have a shot in that matchup. I agree with most of what you wrote otherwise about Sugar. As for the final immunity challenge, I think it might be more accurate to say that Bob didn't need Susie to win final immunity so much as he needed Matty to not win it. If Bob had won immunity himself, you think that Matty and Sugar agree to vote Susie and Bob just goes along? Would Sugar try to create a tie vote in that circumstance just for extra drama anyway? Or do you think that Matty and Susie would agree to vote Sugar and Bob would just go along, after Sugar saved Bob from Ken? Alternately, if Sugar had won immunity (maybe not likely but not impossible - she wasn't that bad at challenges), are you sure the vote swings 3-1 against Susie? Susie didn't have to plead with anyone to save her in the actual game, but if she had had to do that and would have suggested putting Matty into a tiebreaker with her, you're sure Bob just ignores that opportunity to potentially get rid of Matty as the biggest threat?
My point with needing Matty to not win is that quite a few winners that did not win the final immunity themselves needed someone else to not win the final immunity in order for them to win - Richard needed Rudy to not win in S1 (Rudy would have won if he made final tribal), Vecepia needed Kathy to not win in S4 (Kathy would have won if she made final tribal), Sandra needed Jon to not win in S7 (he would have voted her out and kept Lil), Aras needed Terry to not win in S12 (Terry would have voted him out and kept Danielle), Natalie needed Brett to not win in S19 (Brett would have won if he made final tribal), Denise needed Malcolm to not win in S25 (Michael/Lisa were always voting with each other and Malcolm wasn't going to try to save Denise with a tiebreaker), etc.
I think Gabon is the worst cast ever just measured by who its best player was.
Do you think the winner is automatically the best player of their season? I'm not sure I've ever seen you say that one way or the other in this thread - I haven't posted in this thread very much up to this point, but I have read/skimmed through most of it. I'm not sure I would have much of an argument if you say the winner is the best player, or alternatively, if you have a few specific seasons where you might think the winner wasn't the best player. I'm mainly curious how much you tie Bob's performance to the badness of the cast.
Just to be clear, I have no problem if we end up agreeing to disagree - I didn't post this to tear you down or get into an endless argument. I appreciate what you posted about Fabio and as I said, I will try to listen to the podcast.
All right, there's a lot here. I'll check the tape this time to make sure I don't get any details of the things I mention specifically wrong--I watched Gabon in the last year, but I may have forgotten a few things or misremembered them. I'm not going to rewatch the entire season, but I'm open to going back to check something else that I may have forgotten about or just missed the first time. I'll tackle these points in order based on where you have me quoted. 1. I disagree that the fake idol did much to improve Bob's relationship with Sugar. In fact, he angrily admonished her immediately after the tribal council for embarrassing Randy. I think the reason why she did all those things for Bob was simply because she liked him and/or he reminded her of her recently deceased father. However, I will concede that your theory is at least somewhat plausible, and I can't say for certain that it is incorrect. As for the cookie story, I was mostly referring to Randy saying at the reunion that it was a "million-dollar cookie" when asked why he voted for Bob over Susie. Your account of the cookie story seems very detailed, so I will go ahead and concede that it is accurate. My point there wasn't necessarily about the cookie story itself. Rather, it was that Randy was upset at Bob over the fake idol, but he was apparently more upset at Susie over the cookie incident, and Bob was lucky for that. But yes, to Bob's credit, having a good relationship with Sugar certainly benefited him, though I'm not sure how intentional it was. Like Natalie White in Samoa intentionally stayed close with Russell because she correctly calculated that she could beat him at the end and that she needed him to get there. I never saw that kind of foresight on Bob's part, as Sugar was a very chaotic player. It would be difficult to rely on her, as her other allies learned. So overall, I think Bob should get credit for having a good relationship with Sugar, but I think his influence over her key decisions (e.g. deciding to turn on Kenny and Crystal, warning Bob not to give up the necklace, forcing the fire-making challenge at final four) was incidental and not intentional. 2. I can understand why you weren't sure what I was saying. I wasn't saying any of the things that you asked about, and I apologize that I wasn't more clear about what my point was. Actually, looking back at it, I'm not even sure what I was saying there. That's not one of my better writing moments. I think I got a couple things that I wanted to say mixed up in my head. At any rate, I was attempting to respond to this sentence in your previous post: "Bob's second fake idol was another solid play because it induced Ken to make the mistake of voting for Matty unnecessarily." My point here is that the fake idol wasn't used well because its purpose didn't work. Bob had immunity that round, and his whole purpose for the fake idol was to keep Corinne safe, as she was his top ally at the time. So they approached Kenny and Crystal with the fake idol to convince them to vote out Matty. It's important to remember that Kenny had almost complete control over Crystal's vote. They decided to split the votes to flush the idol and vote Matty out at the same time. Kenny voted for Matty, but he instructed Crystal to vote for Corinne, and she did. When Corinne didn't play her "idol," she went home because Kenny split the votes incorrectly. Since Bob's plan was to keep Corinne safe with the fake idol, I think it was clearly a failure. There's certainly nothing wrong with targeting Matty, and that was a good move. The issue was that Corinne went home instead of Matty, so it's hard to give Bob credit for this. Now, this was inadvertently very good for Bob because Kenny's screwup both kept Matty in the game and caused Sugar to turn on Kenny and Crystal after she saw them berating Matty, which obviously wouldn't have happened if he was already gone (his initial overtures to get her to give him the idol were rebuffed). Kenny didn't realize this, so he told her the plan to get Bob to give up his necklace, and then Sugar warned Bob. If Kenny hadn't told Crystal to vote for Matty, then Matty goes home, and Kenny likely goes on to win. Instead, Crystal and Kenny went home next. But there's no way Bob could have predicted that this sequence of events would have happened the way that it did. I don't even think Tony or Cirie could have predicted them. And again, the fact that Bob was actually going to give up his necklace to Kenny and get blindsided before Sugar intervened does not speak well for his strategic game. 3. Regarding Charlie, after I posted that, I did think that perhaps he would be the exception to what I said, as he did give Bob a bit of a softball question. However, I think all of the Onions were upset with Susie because she flipped on them and ended their games. And they certainly didn't seem to care for Sugar. I think they all would have voted for Matty if he had been there alongside Bob. At the reunion, all four indicated that they would have voted for Matty over Susie and Sugar, which isn't the same, but I think they vote for Matty over Bob too. But I will concede that Charlie was at least neutral on Bob. 4. I think Matty was not perceived by the players to be as big a threat as Bob was because of Bob's immunity streak. Immediately after the challenge, a despondent Sugar said that "nobody" would win against Bob. Now, I think we know that this was wrong and that Matty was actually the bigger threat, but they didn't know that at the time. This is why Susie voted for Bob because she thought she needed him out of the game to win. I think Sugar would have felt the same way if she had been trying to win instead of trying to orchestrate a Final Tribal Council between her two favorite players, Bob and Matty. Susie winning immunity foiled Sugar's plan, so she opted to force the fire making challenge instead and leave it, in her words, "up to fate." Matty didn't have immunity, so if the other players realized that he was actually the biggest threat, they could have simply voted him out. To answer your question, yes, I do think that if anyone other than Susie had won final immunity, the other three would vote her out. Since Sugar was under the impression that Bob would have beaten anyone, including Matty, there was no reason to keep Susie in the game. Sugar had just given her idol to Matty at final six to make sure that he didn't go home, so she had a good relationship with him too. It's just that she liked Bob more. Now, I suppose Susie could have worked some magic to convince Bob and Sugar to vote out Matty instead, but I don't think Susie is persuasive enough to pull that off. Before the challenge, Susie herself said, "If I don't win, I really feel strongly that I will be the one going home." I think she was likely right about that. I do agree with your general point about winners that didn't win final immunity themselves needing someone else to also not win. But I think Bob needed Susie to win. 5. No, I don't think the winner is always the best player. For example, I think Cirie was definitely the best player in Micronesia. I think Hayden was probably the best player in Blood v. Water, and I think Jake was probably the best player in Thailand. Rob might have been the best player in the Amazon (I do think Jenna is underrated, though). I think Ozzy was probably the best player in South Pacific, and David was probably the best player in Millennials v. Gen X. Ben likely wasn't the best player on HHH, but I haven't watched that season yet, so I'm not sure who was. One rule I do have is that if someone lost at Final Tribal Council, they were not the best player on the season. But most of the time, the winner is the best player. As for Bob, I think it's a combination of both the weak cast and my assessment of his own performance that causes me to view his winning game as the worst. A weak cast doesn't automatically mean a weak game. I haven't finished One World yet, but when I do, I'm pretty certain that Kim will be among my top six winners, along with Tony (WaW), JT, Earl, Natalie A and Tom. So the fact that Bob nearly lost to Susie, who I think played an even worse game than he did, does make me think less of his game. But I don't think it's the primary factor in my assessment. It mostly comes down to his gameplay. I should probably add that I think that every winning game has some merit, and there are hundreds of worse games than Bob's. He just comes up short in my view compared to the other winners. It's like comparing championship teams against each other. Even the weakest ones were still pretty good compared to all teams. At any rate, I do appreciate the detailed and thoughtful response. You did bring up some good points and made me really think about my arguments to make sure I still agreed with them, which I always appreciate. If we agree to disagree, that is of course fine. If you have any questions or other comments on anything I said here (or in any of my previous comments about any of the seasons I've seen), that is of course welcome as well.
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Post by Hawk Attack on Jul 10, 2021 8:55:42 GMT -5
I just couldn't believe that by the finale of Gabon I was fervently rooting for Susie.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 10, 2021 9:23:38 GMT -5
I just couldn't believe that by the finale of Gabon I was fervently rooting for Susie. I'm pretty sure I was rooting for Matty (I already knew Bob won, but still). The pickings were slim. There's a reason Gabon is a bottom 10 season for me.
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Post by Hawk Attack on Jul 10, 2021 9:36:57 GMT -5
I just couldn't believe that by the finale of Gabon I was fervently rooting for Susie. I'm pretty sure I was rooting for Matty (I already knew Bob won, but still). The pickings were slim. There's a reason Gabon is a bottom 10 season for me. I liked Susie from the moment she told Corinne she was voting her out (and Corinne’s subsequent reaction to it). Personally, I think Corinne crossed the line at FTC with Sugar, but most of the rest of Corinne on this season was pure entertainment villainy.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 10, 2021 10:29:13 GMT -5
I'm pretty sure I was rooting for Matty (I already knew Bob won, but still). The pickings were slim. There's a reason Gabon is a bottom 10 season for me. I liked Susie from the moment she told Corinne she was voting her out (and Corinne’s subsequent reaction to it). Personally, I think Corinne crossed the line at FTC with Sugar, but most of the rest of Corinne on this season was pure entertainment villainy. I was definitely not a fan of Corinne, but she did have some great jury reactions when Crystal was voted out. It's too bad she barely missed the jury in Caramoan, as she could have potentially gotten into Eliza/Courtney jury reaction territory. Add that to my list of grievances with Dawn that season. Edit: I can only imagine the bitter jury speech Corinne would have given after Dawn backstabbed her.
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Post by Hawk Attack on Jul 10, 2021 15:06:37 GMT -5
I liked Susie from the moment she told Corinne she was voting her out (and Corinne’s subsequent reaction to it). Personally, I think Corinne crossed the line at FTC with Sugar, but most of the rest of Corinne on this season was pure entertainment villainy. I was definitely not a fan of Corinne, but she did have some great jury reactions when Crystal was voted out. It's too bad she barely missed the jury in Caramoan, as she could have potentially gotten into Eliza/Courtney jury reaction territory. Add that to my list of grievances with Dawn that season. I think with every season of reality TV Corinne participated in she fell deeper into just pure camp territory, ending with The Amazing Race, where her bitter goodbye remarks read more as just playing to her TV character rather than serious human reaction.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 12, 2021 0:37:08 GMT -5
So I'm a few more episodes into One World, and these players are really frustrating. I think Kim actually screwed up by targeting Mike second after the merge because this indicated to the men in the Salani alliance that she wasn't with them. She was worried about him winning all the challenges, but that basically never happens with so many votes left. She easily could have voted out Leif or Tarzan under the guise of keeping the Salani alliance intact while also continuing to vote out the men. Then, when she pulls the trigger on Michael, it's too late for Troyzan or Jay to really do anything short of winning all the rest of the challenges. Alternatively, she could have just used all the women to vote out Michael and not told her plans to Troyzan and Jay. She really overcomplicated this vote for no good reason. Just because the men were dumb and couldn't figure it out doesn't mean it was a smart decision on her part.
As soon as she told Troyzan that Mike was targeting him, she risked him figuring out what she was up to and mobilizing some combination of the other guys and perhaps Christina to go after Kim and her core allies. Troyzan also had an idol that if used correctly could have evened up the numbers of men and women and put Kim in a much worse position. Kim also had an idol to protect herself, but it's just an unnecessary risk. Chelsea then asked Jay if he was okay with voting out Mike right in front of Alicia and Christina, who were not in the new Salani alliance. This caused Jay to be suspicious, which forced Kim to hurriedly tell the guys that the target was Alicia and probably ruined any chance of just voting out Tarzan or Leif without arousing the suspicions of the guys. Troyzan and Jay inexplicably didn't crosscheck their notes with each other or with Mike, but this is more of an indictment on them than anything else.
After Mike got voted out, Troyzan finally realized that Kim was trying to get rid of the guys. He noticed that some of the women cheered when he lost the challenge, which caused him to be suspicious. And then Kim did a very poor job of convincing him that he was safe, which caused him to decide that he needed to play his idol and get Kim out of the game. Fortunately for her, Jay continued to be credulous (he reminded me of the original Pagong members who weren't convinced that Tagi had an alliance until like the third vote in a row), and he told Kim about Troyzan's idol and his plans to target her. There is absolutely no reason why Jay should have trusted Kim after Mike was targeted. And if Kim had just stuck to the plan to get rid of the Manono tribe for one or two more votes, Troyzan would have been none the wiser and wouldn't have targeted her as early as he did. This was kind of a mess on her part.
Granted, Kim still had an idol, so even if Troyzan had gotten enough people to vote for her, she could have still protected herself, and a guy likely would have gotten voted out anyway. Even if Troyzan decided to target another girl and got them out, the women would still have the numbers, albeit a smaller advantage than before. But I just can't think of a good reason to target Mike there. "He might win seven challenges in a row," is not persuasive.
Kim is obviously a good player, but watching her make some mistakes that she got away with reminds me of watching Adam's winning game. He very stupidly tried to work with Taylor at the merge, despite the fact that he had just blindsided Taylor's top ally and romantic interest in Figgy. He got away with this because Taylor didn't really have many allies left and also had enraged the tribe by stealing food. But it was still dumb. Well, he made a similar mistake in Winners at War when he tried to convince Rob to vote out Parvati. Rob then went over to the rest of Adam's alliance and told them what Adam was doing. In response, they left Adam out of the Ethan vote, and this effectively ended Adam's game on the spot. He didn't actually get voted out for a while longer, but the other players lost so much respect for him that he was viewed as unreliable for the rest of the game and probably couldn't win at Final Tribal Council.
In Kim's case, I think she also made similar mistakes in Winners at War that she did here, but since she was playing against better competition, it burned her the second time. As with Mike, I think she targeted Tony too early. I also don't think she picked the right people for her plan in either case. As I said earlier, if she really wanted to take out Mike at that point, she should have used only the women to do so or maybe recruited Tarzan and Leif who would likely be happy to take out one of the Salani members. Troyzan and Jay are the absolute last people she should have included in that plan. In WaW, she tried to recruit Ben for her plan to target Tony, and Ben told Tony that Kim was targeting him. Before Kim knew it, she was voted out of the game. What she should have done instead was target either Sarah or Ben, as she could have gotten Jeremy to get on board with voting one of them out, but he wouldn't vote for Tony.
To be fair, Survivor is a very hard game, and if you play enough times, you're bound to make a big mistake at some point. It's also hard for people who have never lost because everything worked out in their first game, so they may not be as self-critical of their mistakes as people who have lost the game are. I think this gives previous losers a significant advantage in returnee seasons over people who have only played one time and won. Tony is a great example of this. He played a wild and dangerous game in Cagayan, but it worked out. He then played basically the exact same way in Game Changers and got swiftly voted out. By his third time, he had clearly learned from those mistakes and examined the flaws in his game, which allowed him to dominate Winners at War. This makes Sandra's game in Heroes v. Villains even more incredible because she didn't have that experience of losing and won again anyway.
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Post by Hawk Attack on Jul 12, 2021 17:45:51 GMT -5
I don’t understand how CBS could cast a Tarzan, Troyzan, and Leif and at the same time have such a difficult time casting minority, LGBTQ+ players.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 13, 2021 1:40:13 GMT -5
Survivor is back on September 22. Jeff also talked somewhat cryptically about the game being "much more dangerous" due to all the new ideas that production came up with during the last year when they weren't shooting. My guess is that just means even more advantages and twists.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 14, 2021 18:58:31 GMT -5
The One World cast is laughably inept. Troyzan has effectively zero allies left, though he did avoid the guillotine for one round with his idol. Players like Danni and Chris D have shown how to win from this kind of bad position. It isn't easy, and there are no guarantees, but both maintained good relationships and didn't make waves. They then took advantage of the opportunities that were presented them. Troyzan apparently didn't see those seasons, as he's going out of his way to antagonize the rest of the tribe, which basically guarantees that he'll go home as soon as he doesn't win immunity.
Meanwhile, the women's alliance is freaking out over a guy winning one immunity (that was aided by an advantage that he bought in the auction) at final nine. Even Kim said that was a "disaster." It is not. He's not Terry or Ozzy. Also, I'm starting to see why Chelsea got zero votes. She was incredibly condescending to Troyzan when she told him that he should just take his loss "like a man." That's not an effective way to get votes.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 15, 2021 1:00:54 GMT -5
The funny thing is that Troyzan actually did have the right idea to target Kim, and he also correctly identified the people who needed to make that move, which were Leif, Tarzan, Christina and Alicia. If he was less combative in the day or two before this vote, perhaps he could have pulled it off. Kim didn't even play her idol, so he could have gotten her out of the game right there. But I suppose if your plan is dependent on those four, it's going to be hard to make it work. And sure enough, only Troyzan and Leif voted for Kim. I was amused that Kim seemed surprised that Troyzan had targeted her and tried to blow up her spot at tribal. She said she didn't expect to be a target so early. Yeah, Kim. That's why you don't target your own alliance at the second vote after the merge.
This tribal was particularly painful to watch, as Troyzan and Chelsea and Sabrina just kept bickering back and forth. At one point, Jeff actually facepalmed, which I think summed up how everyone was feeling. Chelsea was particularly inept in her response to Troyzan, who laid out how if he got all those people to flip, they would have five votes, which would outnumber the four on Chelsea's side. But Chelsea kept insisting that as soon as Troyzan lost, he would be voted out. She didn't seem to grasp that five is greater than four, which was the situation in the hypothetical Troyzan was proposing. These players are not good.
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Post by bbg95 on Jul 18, 2021 18:30:30 GMT -5
So I'm continuing to not see the much-ballyhooed "flawless strategic game" out of Kim. In addition to her Lex-in-Africa-esque decision to target her own alliance (and also tell them about it) almost immediately after the merge, she told Kat that she would take her on a reward and then chose Chelsea instead. That's right out of the Chase Rice playbook from Nicaragua. Predictably, Kat was very upset about this, and it really makes no sense, as Chelsea was very unlikely to turn on Kim. If Kim hadn't won immunity, it's possible she could have been in trouble there (well, at least if the other players weren't so weak).
At any rate, Kim decided to split the votes between Troyzan and Christina for some reason, even though Tarzan was a completely viable alternative target. And then Sabrina inexplicably told Christina that she wasn't going home, but they were putting a couple of votes on her in case Troyzan has an idol. So in other words, she told Christina that she is going home if Troyzan has an idol. Why would she tell her that? And again, why are there votes on Christina in the first place? Does anyone have any idea how to play Survivor on this season? They thought Christina wouldn't mind, but she subsequently approached Troyzan and told him that she was willing to target Chelsea (i.e. Kim's top ally). I'm really starting to think that if Kim had to play against even average quality players instead of this all-time weak cast, there's a pretty good chance that she would have gotten voted out well before the end of the game.
Actually, thinking about this vote, Christina had the right idea, but Troyzan was too shortsighted to see it. He selfishly thought if he could convince Kat and Tarzan to vote for Christina, then he lives to see another day. And that's true, but that doesn't really change the power dynamic in the game. Also, it doesn't really do anything for Kat and Tarzan if Christina is gone. The trio of Kim, Chelsea and Sabrina are still calling the shots. But if Christina, Troyzan, Tarzan and Kat team up, they can send Chelsea home on a 4-3-1 vote and possibly take control of the game. Kim would still have an idol and could still win challenges, but she would be in a significantly compromised position with Chelsea gone. At that point, it's likely just her and Sabrina, as Alicia likely defects. This is similar to the final seven vote in Vanuatu in which Chris, Eliza, Twila and Scout took control by voting out Leann, who was Ami's top lieutenant (Ami had immunity).
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Post by Hawk Attack on Jul 18, 2021 20:36:23 GMT -5
I think part of the allure of Kim’s game is really just how smoothly everything fell into place for her. Even if she took missteps it never really seemed to matter. When she wasn’t playing puppetmaster, and the puppets were stringless, they were still digging their own graves while she looked down at them from above.
The WaW production team clearly takes your side though. They really tried to edit her down quite a few pegs. They went after her early in the season with the quip from Sophie about how dumb it was for Kim to trust her and really made it clear throughout the game just how out of the loop she was.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2021 22:24:29 GMT -5
Australian survivor started last night/today (we love timezones)
if you need a link, I can get you one.
Their theme is Brains vs Brawn this season
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Post by carsonvega on Jul 18, 2021 22:25:42 GMT -5
I think you're giving Bob too much credit and not giving Fabio enough credit. I don't think Bob controlled a single vote the entire game, whereas I think Fabio at least had a lot of say over Holly getting voted out (granted, he had immunity, so that helps). Certainly, neither was a strategic mastermind. Fabio voted correctly on six of 10 votes, while Bob voted correctly on five of nine (he was on the wrong side of four consecutive votes from the Marcus through the Corrine boots). As for Fabio's game, I think he was much better liked than Bob, as I think all five of Fabio's votes were pro-Fabio rather than anti-someone else (some of them really disliked Chase and/or Sash, but all of them also liked Fabio and didn't just view him as the lesser of multiple evils). Would Fabio have won if NaOnka and Purple Kelly hadn't quit? It's hard to say, but I think he still could have won immunities to get to the end. It depends on how early he was targeted. But overall, I don't think a single person on the jury disliked Fabio except NaOnka, and of course, she came around eventually and even voted for him. I think Fabio also faced tougher competition than Bob, as I think Gabon is the worst cast ever just measured by who its best player was. At least One World had one very good player, even if it has the lowest quality in terms of its median. Nicaragua had several players who I think were better than anyone in Gabon. And Fabio was infinitely better than Bob at Final Tribal Council. He actually faced a strong challenge from Chase who almost out of nowhere had one of the best FTC performances ever for a losing finalist. Fabio also turned in a strong performance to ensure that he still won. Over on RHAP, they made a great video about why Fabio won Nicaragua, which I have embedded below. Overall, I have Bob DFL in my winner rankings, and I don't think it's really that close between him and my second-worst, Amber. Fabio is probably somewhere around 30th. Ok, I've had a chance to listen to the podcast now and here's what I think about Fabio. I had actually heard of David Bloomberg's rules and appendices prior to listening to the podcast (albeit quite a few years ago), so the framework was somewhat familiar to me.
One of the main things they said in the podcast is in general agreement with my thoughts about Fabio: that he would not have won without the double quit (at least David said that; Jessica Lewis was less adamant about that but did note that NaOnka and Purple Kelly were Sash's allies and their quits definitely helped Fabio. Jessica also noted that it was questionable for the two of them to even be allowed to participate in the final vote and if they hadn't voted Fabio may well have lost, pending changes to the jury discussions/dynamics). What I would have expected to hear in the podcast to make me think Fabio was more deserving was some indication that he actually had more involvement in alliances (not necessarily even control over who his alliance wanted to vote out, just some kind of alignment with groups who weren't going to vote him out for a series of tribal councils). But it really does seem like Fabio didn't have an alliance at all for almost all of the game. More about this below.
To address your points about Fabio: I don't think counting correct votes versus incorrect votes is a great measure of Fabio's strategic strength relative to Bob or other winners. Let's start with the good for Fabio: according to the podcast, Fabio claims he knew Marty was getting voted out on the night that happened, and used the opportunity to vote against Jane to gain favor with Marty on the jury. Ok, that wasn't a bad vote for Fabio. But based on how much Marty hated Chase (called him dumb) and Sash (called him a weasel), it seems unlikely that Marty's vote was changed by Fabio's vote for Jane - especially since Fabio had previously voted for Marty while helping Sash and Brenda get rid of Jill.
Now the bad for Fabio: by my count, out of 40 winning games, in 8 the winner did not vote correctly (for the person who was ultimately voted out) at their first vote, and Fabio is one of the 8. Without going into detail on each one now, most of the others could be explained by a vote split to guard against an idol, or (especially in a couple of early cases) the winner-to-be voting against another relatively unpopular player who was voted out a few episodes later. The most analogous situation to Fabio's would be Adam in Millennials vs Gen X voting for Figgy instead of Mari - but voting for Brenda instead of Shannon was worse for Fabio, because unlike Mari, Shannon's behavior was extremely divisive (the Wikipedia summary says aggressive and homophobic, which I think is probably fair), and long-term, Fabio being in an alliance with Shannon could well have cost him with the other players (particularly the older tribe, after the swap/merge), due to guilt by association. It's not difficult to envision a scenario in which Shannon and Fabio make the merge but then Shannon wins the first immunity and then the other players decide Fabio has to go to weaken Shannon. In addition, with the young-vs-old tribe split, Shannon wasn't needed for strength, as shown by the young tribe winning the next challenge without using the Medallion of Power advantage. Finally, getting Brenda out so early would in all probability have made Fabio's life more difficult post-merge, because the other players thought (probably correctly) that Brenda was a threat to win and went out of their way to get her out before she got too close to the end, which effectively gave Fabio a pass for a round when he didn't have immunity. Sure, a counterargument to Brenda's getting targeted at final ten is that Fabio wasn't targeted at that time because he wasn't threatening other players by appearing to have control or at least influence over others' votes. But it's not like Brenda was the only player at that time to have influence over other votes - Holly was clearly influencing Chase and Sash was clearly influencing NaOnka (given that NaOnka revealed the plan to get rid of Brenda to Sash despite Sash's vote not being needed), and yet neither Holly nor Sash worked hard to target each other at this vote. So Fabio certainly could have had more influence without being as big of a target at final ten as Brenda was.
Fabio's other particularly bad incorrect vote was at Final Seven, when Dan and Benry voted for Fabio apparently believing that Sash and Chase would do the same, while the real vote went against Benry (Chase, Holly, Jane, and Sash), and Fabio was completely out of the loop, voting for Holly because Dan, Benry, Chase, and Sash told him that they were going to be voting for Holly. There have been several situations throughout Survivor where someone unexpected went home because one or two people in an alliance or voting bloc changed their votes at the last minute (Cirie getting Aras and Danielle together to vote Courtney out in Panama/Exile Island, Cirie and Parvati but not Amanda and James getting Ozzy out in Micronesia, Natalie Anderson switching her vote to get Alec out instead of Keith in SJDS, etc.) So Fabio would have been better off if he had figured out Benry was the real target and voted for Benry instead, to help guard against someone (like Sash) in the group voting for Benry deciding to vote for Fabio instead.
Contrast Fabio's Final Seven vote with Bob's Final Seven vote - Bob knew that either the fake idol would work/Crystal and Ken would vote to get Matty out, or it wouldn't work and Corinne would go home. Obviously Bob was at much less risk because he had the immunity necklace, but Bob still knew way more in the midst of his failed plan to save Corinne than Fabio knew at the same stage of the game.
In terms of correct votes (for the person going home), not all of those are created equal either. For instance, it would have been great for Fabio if Dan had stuck around after the vote at Final Five rather than any of Chase/Sash/Holly, because (as far as I've ever seen) Dan did not like any of Chase/Sash/Holly, and therefore might have been willing to vote with Fabio to at minimum force a firemaking tiebreaker in the event that Fabio did not win the final immunity challenge. Further, Dan was less of a threat than any other player left at Final Five (even Holly) to win immunity, given his poor mobility. I'll grant that it was unlikely that Fabio and Dan could have changed the mind of either Holly or Sash to vote Chase out (Dan's target), but if getting Chase out in that spot had ever worked, Fabio's position would have improved by a lot. He would have gone from needing to win immunity himself to just needing Holly to not win it.
I agree with you regarding Fabio near the end of the game - I will give Fabio credit for being generally pretty likeable and doing a good job at the Final Four (which was discussed in the podcast - not so much about him being strong getting Holly out, because it seems like Chase and Sash were going to do that anyway - but more that he was already setting up good arguments about Chase and Sash to be brought up again at Final Tribal Council at that point).
So, comparing Fabio and Bob, I would definitely give Fabio the edge in getting along with people, jury arguments, will to win, endurance, and overall physical strength. I would give Bob the edge in puzzles, general knowledge, and ability to answer challenge questions. Definitely advantage Fabio in all that. The problem is that in Survivor, none of those things are as important as getting into a solid alliance. Fabio played as a floater, never really fitting into anyone else's long term plan and getting by when the other players decided that Fabio was less threatening, or less of a priority for elimination. Fabio floated very well - but in almost every Survivor season floating doesn't come nearly close enough to winning the game. Bob got himself into an alliance - he certainly wasn't calling the shots in that alliance, but he had long-term security to the merge (and beyond, if the surprise second swap at Final Ten had not occurred). Put another way, if Bob played a lot of times, I would not expect him to win very often, but I would expect him to make it at least several votes past the merge almost every time. If Fabio played a lot of times, I would expect him to be voted out pre-merge some of the time for picking wrong players to vote with like Shannon, if he survived pre-merge I would expect him to get frequently voted out at or right after the merge as a physically strong player with no alliance to protect him, and if he survived all that I would expect him to get voted out near the end pretty often as well, because he just couldn't win enough immunity challenges in a row. [If Purple Kelly and NaOnka had stayed in, he would in all probability have had to win 5 in a row - something only Colby (S2/Australia), Terry (S12/Panama), and arguably Ozzy (S23/South Pacific if you count Redemption Island duels) have accomplished.] On a combined percentage basis, I think Fabio would win a lower percentage of his games played than Bob. I get that the percentages I'm giving are far from certain and you think Bob's the worst - ok. But now that you've said you'd put Fabio about 30th, I wonder which other 6-7 winners you think were worse than Fabio. I guess Chris Underwood (Edge of Extinction) actually did get voted out so he could be lower, but I can't think of a single other winner who had so little connection with any kind of alliance as Fabio.
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