This discussion has been really interesting but I'm wondering if the defenders and haters are really not that far apart. We have never really defined the terms we have been debating for a few days now.

Good bad
Above average
Better than average equity

Are the supporters simply arguing Sandra is in the 51st percentile of all people to ever play? If so, I'm sure everyone agrees. For me a "good player" is in the top 15th percentile and "great" is top 5 percentile.

Sandra is obviously in the top 50th percentile but that is hardly praise.

I would put her in about the top 40th percentile.

Ever, ever.

She's a little higher for me - top 25th. That would also be my range for good player. Agree that she isn't great.

What about of Hantz?

There have been some non butt-hurt juries. Just by the mere fact that in Samoa, he managed to grab two votes means that there has to be a conceivable chance of there being enough people to give him their vote.

What if if was Russell vs. Clay in season 5? or Russell vs. Lil in season 7?

Saying it's inconceivable is an overexaggerated opinion that over time has somehow become the norm as if it's fact. It's become easy to make that blanket statement, but it's not true,

Perhaps very slightly overstated, but russell loses almost every jury vote, butthurt or not.

I don't remember lil, but I think clay would beat him.

I liked how you brought up Clay someone who was actually fairly strong at final tribal even picking up three votes he had no place getting. Yes, Russell would definitely be able to out talk him at a final tribal who used a similar argument to Natalie White.

Russel losing has nothing to do with butthurt, it has to do with him being the one of the worst social players ever

Obviously butthurt played a huge role but he is one of the worst social players of all time.

Thank God Survivor is on in <24 hours.

This is essentially what I think the discussion boils down to. Intuitively people think of average as the median, so when you think of Sandra's ranking in terms of percentile or "is she in the bottom half of X group of survivors" then she can place above average even if her chance of winning (mean) is below average. So for example if Survivor were 10 players, and Sandra had an 8% chance to win, but the chances of winning were distributed:

0% (quitter), 0.1% (Chet), 1.5% (Erik), 2.4%, 5%, 8% (Sandra), 15%, 20%, 23%, 25%

Then Sandra would be a losing player in the $100K buyin winner-take-all Survivor tournament even though she's in the top half. Casting seems to go for this distribution deliberately. That makes sense because you can't really have 20 people fighting for air time in an hour long show.

As Survivor becomes increasingly solved I think the winrates of players who aren't Sandra will increase at the expense of the winningest players. I say "not Sandra" because I think there's smart people who had a lower chance of winning than she at different points in the show's history who have more room for improvement because their mistakes are ignorance and not stupidity.

You can't really say he has terrible value tho when the 2 times he was vs. people who didn't know anything about him, he went deep (which you get progressively more $ for) and won fan favorite both times. I think if you run a bunch of simulations of Russell on a 'first time go' he goes deep and wins fan favorite a lot...though maybe I'm being results oriented.

I don't know where I'd quantify her, but this is what I've been trying to say all along. We are saying she's decent, not great, and people are getting their panties in a wad about it. It's so bizarre.

I think I put Sandra around 15th-20th percentile.

All of the HvV F3 are overrated. I think kartinken was a visionary when he said Jerri played the best game that season.

I don't think anyone's panties were in a knot. I thought we were having an interesting debate.

Cstone was questioning his love for the game of Survivor because Sandra won twice and thinks she's the $#!% when her thought processes sound suspect. KOS gonna KOS and Clovis gonna Clovis, but I love all you guys. And we were having an interesting debate. I actually enjoyed it a lot. Better filler than most between episodes banter we have. Also, there were my awesome thread savers.

...I hope disillusionment over Sandra winning twice didn't drive Empireman to quit watching the show. I miss him.

The fact Sandra had already won Survivor probably worked in her favor at F4, when Russel/Parvati basically had to decide if they wanted to lose to Sandra or Jerri. Had Russel not won immunity, it might have been ironically advantageous for Parvati to vote him out specifically because he would get 0 votes in the end. That could dilute the "butthurt Heroes" votes between both Sandra and Jerri in a way that Parvati could eke out a win.

jesus you guys post a lot tonight i actually thought I missed an episode cause this thread kept bumping up my panel =.=

Setting aside the Sandra debate, winning a regular season and winning an All-Star season are not the same thing. It's no coincidence that extremely non-threatening players have won each of the first three All-Star seasons, and if Cochran ships this one like I expect him to, it further solidifies the argument. If S28 is an All-Winners season, I might break the bank betting on someone like Natalie White or Vecepia to win, but that doesn't mean I think they're even in the top half of players that would be out there.

KOS gonna KOS

Unless I missed something, did you just equate Parvati with Sandra and Amber?

Does non-threatening just mean woman/ physically weak man to you?

One other thing I want to find out about is why so many posters say that Parvati played the best game in HvV and thus why she is amongst the GOAT.

I find that her HvV game is extremely overrated and can be easily compared to 3 player's games that have gotten no respect amongst this thread and the survivor public:

1. Colby's Australian game
I think most agree that Tina played a better strategic and social game and deserved to win and he gets a lot of flak for taking Tina to the end. Parvati's HvV game is similar in that she was second in command in strategy to Russell and she won some individual immunities. However Colby's Aust game gets no love despite being dominant in challenges and also a better social game (developed rapport with the other tribe members after the merge. Parvati avoided the heroes)

2. Becky - Cook Islands
Her game is one of the most thrashed amongst survivor finalists and she is constantly referred to useless and riding Yul's coat tails to the final 3. However she was shown in the game to be Yul's number 2 when it came to strategy, just like Parvati was the second in command to Russell.

The main difference is Parvati won some immunities and also did the double idol play. If the main concern with Becky is that she was willing to go to the final 3 with Yul and lose, then Parvati should equally lose points for not trying harder to keep Jerri in the final 3 by forcing a tie.

Lets imagine this, if Yul was like Russell in the social game in cook islands, do you think that Becky would deserve to win and her game would receive the same accolades as Parvati's HvV game.

3. Natalie White - Samoa
Both Natalie and Parvati wanted to stick with Russell to the final 3 and have him as a finalist because of his terrible social game. They were both carried to the end by Russell's admittedly great strategic game. Apart from the double idol play, all the big moves were made by Russell:
- Giving the HII to Parvati and Tyson booting himself
- Swinging over Jerri and Coach
- Convincing JT to give him the HII
- Swinging over Candice to prevent Sandra from flipping
- Voting out Danielle
- determining who went to the final 3

These 3 games are quite disrespected to a degree amongst fans, yet Parvati's HvV game is so highly rated despite some major similarities with these 3 player's games.

Or is Parvati's HvV game so respected because of her major target pregame?
I think the emphasis that she places that only Russell and Danielle would align with her due to her supposed target is very overrated. It was identified that the majority alliance early on in the Villains was Rob, Courtney, Sandra, Parvati, Russell and Danielle with Coach, Tyson, Jerri and Randy on the outs. Eventually the majority alliance split 3-3 as Tyson smartly and sneakily pitted Rob and Russell against each other. Parvati chose to follow Russell to the outs on her own accord.

The other thing is why she thought that getting to the end as second in command to Russell would win her any jury votes. It was obvious that Russell called the shots in the alliance. Parvati is loyal to a fault and will stick to a final 3 alliance even if its not in her best interests (such as with Amanda and Cirie). Her game plan is extremely rigid and she had to know that her only shot at winning that way was sitting with Russell and Danielle (or Jerri later on) in the finals.

Parvati had the chance at Courtney's boot to call the Heroes bluff and blindside Russell and take charge and run the game as the Black Widows Brigade v2.0 and earn kudos strategically, but instead she decided to stick loyal to Russell and play the passive game and let Russell take all the credit for strategic moves. One double idol play won't convince the jury that it was in fact you that were running the show, esp when you couldn't control Russell and couldn't prevent your closest ally, Danielle from going home.

Sorry for starting a new topic in this thread, but it really tilts me when I see people say that Parvati should have won HvV or she played one of the best games. Given that she won Micronesia, her knowledge from that game should lead to knowing how to play a better game in HvV. Instead she plays a extremely rigid game requiring her in a final 3 with Russell and Danielle to win, and she makes no bonds with the heroes, when it was the bonds with Natalie and Alexis that factored in her winning in Micronesia.

Her supposed target is no excuse. If she really was a great player (like KOS, Colin and Dom like to say), she had her chances to take control of the game yet failed to do so. I doubt she really understands the intricacies of the game as well as the real GOATs.

I read through most of your post and have to defend Parvarti who did makes moves in HvV probably the biggest. By soul reading the information that Amanda was giving her, she used both idols and as a result secured victory for the villains. You can potentially make the argument she didn't deserve to win, but I ask you who came into that individual season with a bigger target after their previous resume? Does this not come into play when discussing her ability as a strong player? (Remember her worst place finish was 6th)

As for the three players I'm in the camp Natalie played the better game, as it seemed apparent she knew how Russell was being perceived by Galu. She also took the time to build strong bonds with those people as individuals, even to the point that Brett and her talked about how she should convey her thought process to the jury. I also find people say members of the jury "were butt hurt" which could be the case in some of the jury members but I have a problem when they look at Eric. This is because, before he was voted out Eric conveyed something along the lines of having a general respect for what Russell was doing but that it would be best to channel it a bit. Russell of course didn't do this, making it not that surprising he didn't reward Russell with a vote at FTC.

I think your summary of Parvati's HvV game is much more akin to Sophie's game. As in after the double idol there really was no incentive to mix things up and the optimal strategy was to stay the course. Unfortunately Russell is a moron and voted out Danielle which ****ed everything up for Parvati. She probably would have had a better chance at beating Jerri but I feel like that is a case of hindsight being 20/20. She definitely has massive flaws in her social game and isn't an elite level strategist but she was imo the most deserving in that final 3.

What are you thoughts if she would have orchestrated to get rid of Russell after the Danielle boot and gone to the end with Sandra and Jerri? I think that would have given her the highest equity post Danielle considering how being associated with Russell is what cost her the game.

Edit: If it's not clear +1 for the Parvati is good but not GOAT level camp