Thought it was funny Q found a way to sneak another "cancel Christmas" in there this episode.

so unbelievably bad by Hunter. Just play your damn idol and preserve your life in the game. He was also more likely to win an II challenge than anyone else, or to find a new hidden idol than anyone else. Never mind the fact that in modern survivor he can't even be directly voted out at f4, and is probably good at making fire.

Just crazy to me that he's saying he knew it was going to come down to Tiffany's vote but decided not to play it

So bad. Quit asking people if they are with you and believing what they say, and instead think about what would be in their best interests. Play your idol. Easy game.

Any why is everyone so obsessed with engineering 'the move' and getting the credit? It seems as if you could go to someone and say I'm going to eliminate all your opponents and pave the way for your victory and the person would be like, hold up bro, I'd rather do this other thing that is not really in my interests but that I could claim as mine.

Hunter showed what happens to a lot of people. You can be smart and have good competition skills, but when it comes down to strategy, if you play emotionally you're screwed. After seeing what went on with Tevin, why would he think he could trust anything that anyone said to him? Just play the stupid idol.

Liz crying about her "move" being discounted make me hope she's a zero vote finalist because I can't stand her. It also confirms to me that she's definitely not the winner. If there wasn't a clearer edit for a winner than Kenzie I don't know who's ever had one. I'd be shocked if she didn't ship this and the editors would have pulled a serious fast one.

Q, Venus, Tiff all drawing dead. Tiff has been way too loud about everything. Have no idea where Ben will end up but final four has to be Kenzie, Charlie, Maria, Liz/Ben.

You know who had 0 'game moves' on their resume to claim?

A lady who won two times out of two called Sandra Diaz Twine

Truthfully, she won the first one because Lil made probably one of the top 5 boneheaded moves in Survivor history by taking her to FTC instead of JFP. The second win she earned by making sure she was sitting next to two people the jury hated more. And she's played four times, not two - the other two times she was voted out in the middle.

Isn't the bolded a solid Survivor skill?

It's the best Survivor skill.

Exactly my point. The overwhelming majority of winners, including Sandra who won the first two times she played didn't win due to a 'flashy resume'. They won by sticking their bum in a final tribal seat next to people less liked and/or respected than them.

This trend of claiming credit for moves mentality has only really started in the past few seasons and even then you get people like Xander who had clear 'moves' to claim and.... walked away with 0 votes

Hyper turbo survivor strat

I can think back to the original season where Richard Hatch sat there and told them point blank he outplayed and outwitted every single one of them including getting the majority of them voted out. And he was right, so they gave him the prize. Which IMO is how it should be.

But in s1, they all thought alliances were cheating and for most of the season, nobody discussed who they would vote for before tribal, other than the one guy who voted alphabetically.

I can't understand how Rob Cesternino is trusting Hunter's read on what happened last episode. Hunter got voted out with an idol in his pocket at a point in the game where it was in everyone's best interests to get rid of Hunter if they could make it happen...which they did. Obviously, Hunter's reads are flawed. He clearly could not discern what was about to happen nor what should happen if people are making decisions with their best interests in mind. The guy can do a puzzle, hang on a pole, toss a bag, balance and carry $#!%...I trust his judgement in all those areas. I do not put any stock in his ability to figure out or sway people's actions. No evidence to support he's competent in that area.

Cliffs on Hunter's read and Rob's view?

Unfortunately it seems likely at this stage S47-S49 will be three more cut and paste new era seasons with S50 being New Era all stars.

In my realistic ideal world S49 would be a new era 'second chance' and the winner earns a place on S50 which is an all out legends season;

If they can scrape together enough returnees, it would be great to have three tribes of 7 - original generation (ie seasons 1-16), middle (seasons 17-33) and then new. Only way I could see three tribes working right off the bat is having even one more person on each tribe so that the numbers are odd right at the beginning. Would be great to see the variance in gameplay between the era based tribes I think.

Poor Hunter. Q cancelled his Christmas

Maybe Jeff will add some senior citizen advantages.

I've been catching up on this. Still have last week's episode to watch.

I'm sure a lot of player reactions to case numbers are for show for TV, but shouldn't the one playing the banker always want to knock out high value cases instead of low value cases based on the way the banker offers? The offer is always between the remaining values on the left and the remaining values on the right. If the goal is to find an offer higher than your case value, the more remaining values on the left, the easier your decision. And even if you make it all the way down to two cases remaining, it's still a pure flip. If you're playing the banker, staying in the game is way more important than how much money is being added to the prize pool.

The offer is somewhere in the middle between the top and bottom values regardless of where on the board they fall (it can be off by one in either direction). It just works out that often it is between the amounts on either side. What I'm not sure about is I thought they said the Banker doesn't know the value that the contestant picks. Is that true?

Here I thought I didn't want to see more casts full of superfans and masterminds, but this feels like amateur hour. I keep thinking back to seasons where there were probably a handful of folks who were strategic and smart enough to have completely breezed through this band of dimwits. For sure my least favorite season since I started watching again, and that goes back to season 29!

Your response made me realize I worded it poorly. I should have said, I can't recall an offer lower than the top remaining value on the left side, due to how lopsided right side values are compared to left side values.

I.e., let's say we start with 14 values. Let's say the player knocks out 8 cases in the first round and the remaining 6 values are $.01, $1, $250, $500, $100k, $500k. The offer is likely going to be between $500 and $100k. Your stay equity here is 67%. Even if it was $.01, $1, $250, $500, $750, and $100k, I think the banker offer will be between $750 and $100k for stay equity of 83%.

Let's say instead the 6 values remaining are $.01, $500, $100k, $250k, $500k, and $1 million, the offer is likely going to be between $100k and $250k. Your stay equity here is 50%. If the banker lowballs and goes between $500 and $100k, the stay equity is 33%. Maybe that could happen if it was something like $.01, $500, $75k, $100k, $250k, and $500k, where the banker offers between $500 and $75k.

To go further, let's say there are 3 values remaining. $500, $75k, and $100k. The offer is going to be between $500 and $75k. Stay equity of 33%.

Let's say instead the 3 values remaining are $250, $500, and $100k. The offer is going to be between $500 and $100k. Stay equity of 67%.

If I recall, the best stay equity offer I've seen was 75%.

Obviously there is some nuance, but generally, I think the playing player should always be rooting to knock out right side values. The banker's job is to get them to take the lowest offer possible, based on the remaining values on the board. I don't think the banker has any role in the players optimizing staying or being eliminated.

Whether the banker knows the case value, I don't believe he does, as that would give him an even more significant edge. But I could be wrong.

At the end of the day, it's all still completely random for what values are removed from the board, but I feel like we've seen some suboptimal decisions regarding stay and elimination equity.

I didn't realize Jeff has actually confirmed S50 will be a returnee season. Thought it was just speculation. Nice.