Rotfl at the people itt saying Vanessa is bad at this game. Serious epic fail read.

Vanessa is playing a better game than most of these dummies, yes. But she'd get slaughtered in a season of reasonably intelligent contestants, even with production helping her.

What does this even mean tho? I'd take this cast over last year. Every cast has dumb people.

Didn't watch last year, so I'll take your word on it. But even way back in season 5 they were smart enough to eliminate twins as soon as they came in. Vanessa wouldn't stand a chance in a season that had even a handful of good players, which this one doesn't. A smart player would have seen through her game from day one, as well as seeing the potential threat, and would have easily used all of her meltdowns to turn the house against her.

eh?

vanessa wins easily against everyone.

MAYBE not johnny mac cause everyone likes him but they dont respect his game

You think Vanessa plays flopped top set the same every time? Of course not. Against a TAG she might lead the flop but against a LAG she might check raise. Same thing on BB. She happens to have been dealt a cast of total morons so she plays the "crying whoa is me" card over and over because she gets away with. You think she tries to tell Dr Will to pick Austin in the bowling comp? Of course not, but she knows her opponents are idiots so why not push that edge. She knows she can smooth it over after because it's worked every other time.

Thinking she plays the exact same game against a cast of good players is naive.

Her game is far from perfect; she has emotional control issues and holes in her social game. However saying she is bad at BB is like saying Hellmuth is back at tourney poker because he is a tiltmonkey. Both would be better if they plugged those leaks but neither is bad at the game.

This cast is above average strategically for the show's run.

Assortment of mouthbreathers per nornal, but also 3 players trying to think well. She's an A- player because of her emotional volatlity. Austin and Steve are B+ players grading on all seasons curve. Dealing with a 3 headed beast, despite only 1 head thinking, is trickier than it looks. No shocker she made a play in the one spot where Julia couldn't consult or ask Austin/Liz what to do.

Compared to last year with Beastmode Cowboy, Victoria, and that moronic runner-up whose name I can't recall, it's a murderer's row of intellect. Was it Cody? He was about equal to Liz, except even Liz knows enough to have not taken Derrick.

There's been a lot of seasons where there's been one good player and a bunch of C students at best.

Vanessa is more like the Jamie Gold and the rest of the cast have just found out that three of a kind beat two pair.

Vanessa's go to move is beginning statements with lines like "I know you're not stupid so you'll understand..." or "Do you understand how stupid this is?" She's basically appealing to every individual players ego with these statements. They know that she has a superior intellect to the rest of them so agreeing with her gives them confidence that they too are intelligent.

Also, I think she wins against everybody but Steve. He's played a very good game, especially in light of his social anxiety and awkwardness. And more importantly, has far less blood on his hands and is generally perceived as the pure, innocent one who somehow stumbled onto the set of his favorite TV show. Basically, Steve winning makes for a compelling story. He should be the target next week but everyone has been deemed suspicious so who knows how the next hoh will go.

As is, Steve and Vanessa are the two heavy favorites. I'd be very surprised if one of the two of them doesn't win.

You know it's been a season of clueless dummies, feckless floaters and summer campers when Steve is considered to be one of the better players. Steve, who due to a complete lack of social game has for the entire run of the show sat at the bottom of a group that he could loosely consider his "alliance", doing their bidding while simultaneously being used as their punching bag when it was convenient for them. And when it was finally down to only him and them, he decided it was time to abandon his enabler role and make his "big move". Ya think, Steve? Sure you don't want to wait a few more weeks?

Of course even as HOH he is still completely on the outside and banging his head against the wall while the others make the decisions about who goes and who stays. And he's now drawing dead to a series of perfect comp wins by him and his floater buddy/fellow punching bag Johnny.

lol Vanessa has been terrible but everyone else has been even worse.

season is basically a cripple fight .

Luckily most BB seasons are lacking in reasonably intelligent contestants.

The screen shot of Jmac doing squats while Liz and Austin argued was bizarre.

I'm not really sure why people don't like Austin.

Austin is pretty likable. His social game has been impressive.(only from show, don't watch feeds etc)

I do watch the feeds, and imo Austin is playing the best game of them all. He's got a great social game -- people trust him and feel safe giving him information. He's extremely stable emotionally, and did a brilliant job talking Vanessa down when she was ready to backdoor him and forced himself to be subservient to her knowing that was his only way out. He's kept 3 people safe in this game and has never been nominated himself (until this week). At the same time he has gotten others to do his dirty work or get used as pawns on several occasions. And unlike Vanessa, they have for the most part not resented him for it.

The only weak point I can see has been an inability to make a move against Vanessa when he had several chances to, which he may come to regret at some point.

Austin is just a tool. He comes into the game with this lame Judice thing and is desperate find a bromance, and a showmance even though he already has a girlfriend. The Judice angle is the lamest thing of all time, does anyone, anywhere on the planet think it is cool or interesting? The guy just oozes lame.

His game has been pretty good though, specifically his social game. Socially he has worked a lot of angles and has played a game on par with Vanessa. No one else in the house is even close to Austin & Vanessa in terms of game play.

in conversations, he comes across pretty likable. but he had a girlfriend in the real world, seemed like he was sexually harassing liz until she fell for him, he's smelly, his judas personality is dumb, and his overly romantic persona all don't sit well with people. people also hate the twins which he's a part of, so they're all viewed poorly.

as for this season being dummies, i agree to an extent, but it's still better than last season. vanessa would've rolled through bb16's cast as well. at least becky picked up on vanessa, and she had vanessa dead to rights. unfortunately she was aligned with a trio of morons, but becky could've played it better to guarantee that vanessa went home.

vanessa could lose to austin in the final 2, because it seems like he has the twins, james and meg's vote. then he just needs 1 more. final 2 will be determined mostly by the ability of people to win the next 2 HOHs. liztin could win this week. steve should be nervous.

steve and john were pretty lucky that the austwins are so dumb that they evicted james instead of one of them. most likely it should've been jmac gone. alot of people have been defending them sticking with vanessa, but it's results oriented.

i don't think vanessa is that emotional. we've seen her in high stress poker situations for years, and she doesn't have a hellmuth reputation. she's just extremely manipulative and uses emotions in a calculating fashion 90% of the time. she's probably gotten away with this for years in her real life too. the way she can turn it on and off is amazing. did she leave chad brown when he had cancer, before he died? how many times have we seen her cry alone when no one's around? her manipulation isn't perfect though, because her social game is her weakness but it's not below average.

I don't mind Austin on game level but still think Vanessa is better. I'm pretty okay with anyone left winning. John wouldn't thrill me but wouldn't shock me either.

Make vote would go...

Vanessa
Austin
Steve
Liz
Jmac
Julia

Exactly my ranking too.

agree

Get all these horrible poker metaphors out of here jesus christ.

Social game matters. Vanessa doesn't know how to talk to people. That's why she's not playing a great game. She's playing well but these people are also unfathomably stupid. She should have been gone a long time ago.

Austin def seems likeable and is smarter than the typical jock each season. His issue comes from his association with Liz and as a result Julia who are genuinely two awful human beings.

I still don't know how Steve got cast on this show. However, he has done what he needed to in order to position himself for a win. If he makes F2, he is winning.

Johnny Mac seems like a pretty good guy and pretty smart but he's mailed in this entire season. He has a chance at winning against a few people solely based on not being a terrible person.

Steve
Austin
Vanessa
JMac
Liz
Julia

Also, huge LOL at these ****ing bozos allowing the twins to decide who goes home this week.

My list for who I'd like to see win would be something like:

Don't care
Don't care
Don't care
Don't care
Don't care
Hitler
Vanessa

Well at least this won't be another 15 minute "endurance" comp.