^Agree with all of this, nothing good can come from splitting the votes if KB is your main target anyway.

Also, Brenda's speech during tc was absolutely awful. She completely tipped her hand and made it pretty damn obvious that her and Marty were not on the same page, even though she and Sash had Marty convinced that Jane was this week's target.

Which is also why Marty's vote for Brenda was terrible. If he had played the idol, then it's excusable, because he's kinda just taking a shot and hoping to get lucky. But if he realized that they were going to try and flush out the idol (which he probably should have after hearing Brenda talk), he needs to think about who else they're going to vote out. It can't be Jane anymore, because they told him to vote for Jane. It can't be Jill cuz she has immunity, so the only reasonable guess left is KB. Even if Jane does vote for Brenda like he told her to, that's still only 3 votes for Brenda. 3 votes for Brenda would possibly work, but only if he plays the idol. Voting for Brenda and not playing the idol was a bonehead move.

Granted, it's a lot to think about while you're sitting there and the vote is coming up, but if you're confident enough to not play the idol, it should be because you've thought this through more. He didn't stay alive because of some great strategic play on his part, he stayed alive because the rest of the tribe is completely incompetent.

I'm not trying to defend Marty's vote for Brenda as a "good play" because it wasn't the best move, but from his POV, how would he know they're targeting KB? He would only know it if someone spilled the beans, and who would do that? Even KB thought she was still in with the kids, so I doubt Marty and Jill had any idea KB was on the outs. Now, if KB was a smarter player, she would have figured it out and joined up with Marty and Jill, but KB was merely a first-level thinker.

re: voting for Brenda, Marty knows they're trying to flush the idol, and he knows he's not going to play it, so he has to get four votes to boot someone, and that's highly unlikely. He's basically just telling Jane, "I'm not voting for you" in an effort to save face. He even said it during his vote: he didn't think Brenda was going home, but the lines were being drawn.

EDIT: I actually love Brenda's move to put a giant wedge in between Marty and Jane, but following that up with the decision to keep Marty is ******ed. I hope Brenda pays the price for this mistake by being idoled out of the game by Marty.

Gifs of Marty's multiple TC expressions soon to come

But Marty's goal there shouldn't be about getting 4 votes to Brenda, it should be about figuring out who they're splitting votes on and voting for that person. They're obviously not splitting votes on Brenda, which was why it was such a bad play. At least pick somebody who they might reasonably be splitting votes on, which is pretty much either Jane or KB. And if they're splitting votes on Jane, they wouldn't have told him to vote for Jane. Like I said, it's a lot to think about, especially on the spot, but I really think voting for Brenda there is probably the worst vote he could have made.

Watching Kelly B's secret scene tilted me so bad. She was ripe for the picking. I feel like Jill and Marty must not have tried at all. A good Survivor player is very good at getting people to do things which were not in their own best interests. Marty and Jill can't even get Kelly B and Fabio to do something which IS in their best interests. Fail.

I guess Alina was afraid to buck Chase and Benry and take control of Espada. The women had majority there and could have done whatever they wanted. (Cirie would have never let this happen.) Alina and Kelly B both seem like they think the proper strategy for improving their position is to just toe the line with their former enemies. Which I think is a horrendously awful strategy for them and it makes me insane with anger. Oddly enough, I'm completely okay with what Jane and Holly have done with themselves post merge. But following a similar strategy (was)/is exactly wrong for Kelly B and Alina. Maybe Alina would have had a hard time getting Naonka to go her way and against Chase's wishes, but I think she would have been open to it if Alina sold it right.

I am about to blow some minds here

Picture this strategic scenario:
1)Marty+Jill can't flip anyone (concrete 6 against 2 disadvantage)
2)Marty's idol is well known and Jill has immunity, forcing the group of 6 to vote for Marty
3)Marty knows he is on the block and he is practically locked in to use his idol to save himself
4)Someone like Brenda/Sash is smart enough to realize that if they all blindly throw 6 votes on Marty, there is an overwhelming chance that Marty/Jill get one free shot to send someone in their group home via the idol
5)To avoid #4, they wisely choose a goat on the bottom of the totem pole in the group of 6 and send false flares to the desperate group of 2
6)Marty could have been smart enough to SAVE his idol and instead have Jill and himself take a good shot of altering the 3-3 split which would be anticipated
7)If Marty/Jill had any good observational skills they would realize that Brenda/Sash/Purple are in the top of the group with Jane as a wildcard, Fabio as a clueless follower, and KellyB as an outcast (secret scenes confirm this, she is overwhelmingly isolated from the others)
8)Marty/Jill throw 1 vote each on Jane and 1 vote on KellyB to effect the expected 3-3 split of votes without compromising the idol
9)Resulting in = 3 original votes for Marty + 3 votes for the goat in the group of 6 (suspected to be KellyB or Jane) + 1 vote on suspected goat #1 by Marty (lets say on Kelly B) + 1 vote on suspected goat #2 by Jill (Jane)
10)This results in = 3 Marty + 4 KellyB + 1 Jane or = 3 Marty + 1 KellyB + 4 Jane, effectively saving the crucial idol for another week


This relies heavily on Marty and Jill's decision to use effectively identify the outsiders in the group of 6. Using their observation and other secret scenes not making the edit, they can make a judgment call and switch Jane's vote to Fabio if they feel he has slipped down the totem pole

What is better? To use the idol, or to go home and end any chance you have at potentially winning? I sure enought after Brenda's terrible speech would have used it, because if it wasn't for the idiots playing the game, and I would even say if Marty was on his old tribe and had it gone down exactly the same, the other tribe full of young people would have booted Marty in the re-vote. Marty got extremely, extremely lucky last night, and even he knows it. But had he not played the idol, everyone would be calling Marty a even bigger idiot for going home when he had the idol, much like previous Survivor castmembers who have had a idol in the past and not used it.

Playing the idol also somewhat takes the target off of your back in that regard. There is less of a need to worry about someone who has the idol vs someone who does. And there is much more of a probability that the tribe you are on, that if they know you have the idol are much more likely to throw a challenge closer to when they suspect a merge, and then try to play a game of a under the radar game, or try your hardest to try to get people to change their vote.

I completely agree! They need to stop hiring actors/models, and people who understand the game!

I like your thinking here, but if they had these observation skills of which you speak, they could have just been in an alliance with Fabio and Kelly B and have all the information and voting power they needed. That aside, if they had just attempted to guess who to throw two votes at, it would have been better, than, "Jane, let's vote for Brenda."

LOL @ defending Marty not using the idol. Buying one week is huge when the other tribe sucks at challenges especially. It gives him time to find the HII again, it gives time to work Fabio or KB(who he expected to still be there). There was like a 5% chance he stays if he doesn't use the idol. One more week(technically 3 more days) is a hell of a lot better then no more weeks. Luckily, the minority alliance had an irrational fear of prosthetics. I thought Brenda may actually be intelligent too.

Here are my picks for this week:

1. Sash - He went from near invisibility to top mover and shaker. I give him edge over Brenda because he is in position to gain the benefit of her many allies and I think he can beat her in an end vote.

2. Brenda - Chase is her dog and is improving matters for the group over at the other tribe. Naonka is a tight ally, and can't win. Jane is a willing pawn. Her alliance with Sash is good and bad. He's a strong member of the group, but she might not be able to beat him.

Now...oy. Everyone else is in a bad position.

3. Chase - I think he controlled the other tribe this week, and they made a move which should benefit his core alliance down the road. I still don't like his chances.

4. Alina - I think she is probably going to lemming herself off the cliff along with Kelly B, Fabio, and Benry, but if she makes the merge and makes new alliances, she might have an outside shot.

5. Benry - I think he's toast shortly after the merge, but the pickings are slim.

Outside of Sash and Brenda, I really don't like anyone's chances that much. Brenda has a lot of pretty close alliances with people. If you watch her secret scene, she talks about making 'friends' and being open to everyone in case you need them. I like her thinking.

I'd like to see Marty and Jill pull a rabbit out of a hat, but I feel like they missed their chance this week. Until they do something to improve their position, I can't throw them any support even though the other choices are not good either.

KOS, I understand why Marty did what he did, but it relied on the kids being completely insane. Your EV goes immediately to zero once you are voted out. And something completely insane had to happen in order for him to not be voted out. And let's quit comparing Marty to Russell please. They both rub people the wrong way, and it pretty much ends there. Russell knows what the **** is going on in his tribe and can get people align with him if it's in their best interests, let alone get them to vote themselves out if its in his best interests. And Russel's move had the advantage of not only potentially saving an ally, but getting rid of a strong enemy. AND his move was a crapshoot too. It just had a lot more groundwork and upside to offset the risk.

Marty saving the idol is different than Russel giving it to Parv. Why?

Because if Russel's play worked, it left him with a majority alliance, and if it failed, he was only going home one TC early.

Best case scenario for Marty is hoping to save the idol, hope his tribe sweeps ICs and then... what? Scramble and hope you can put together something post merge?

Not to say that it's hopeless, but he was taking a HUGE risk on going home now (like Russel) without putting himself in a position to go far in the game.

EDIT: Also, he KNEW he was the target by the end of TC. He had to. The only reason he's still there is Brenda et al are ******s. Russel had reason to believe that his play would work, whereas Marty didn't. This is all discounting the fact that something happened during TC they didn't show us that would lead him to believe Kelly B was the primary target, but I don't think so. She seemed pretty stunned.

If Espada loses next week(and if Dan has to play they probably will), who do they target? i think Benry has to look at Chase at this point. He's a II threat, he's Brenda's whipping boy and he's not mentally unstable like NaOnka. Ben only needs to sway Holly which shouldn't be too difficult to make it happen.

Hating what Alina did this episode for sure, but hopefully they make up for it a bit next ep.

Sash is the only competent player on this show

Alina doesnt deserve any praise. She appears on tv only to say bad things about other people and try to look like a devious player. Vote off nay and chase or else stfu and just look hot. Dumb bitch.

Problems with this idea include, but are probably not limited to: Ben thinks he's aligned with Chase and vice versa. Ben could only be sure of Alina's loyalty, if that--she hasn't been knocking my socks off with her good decisions. Alina might be more interested in being 'in' with the cool people rather than making moves which benefit her in this game--verdict is still out. There might be a little danger he gets found out if Chase convinces Dan that the target is Holly--and it may well be, following the same logic as this week, and Dan rats Ben out for wanting to target Chase. Also, despite her recent reasonableness, Holly really isn't that stable. Relying on her to do something important involves significant risk. If Ben, Alina, and Holly all vote for Chase and Chase, Naonka, and Dan all vote for Holly is the tie breaker fire building and how burned are those bridges?

Nope, the offical rules in their contract state it goes to pulling out rocks. The skill challenge of fire burning only happens if there is a tie at the very end prior to the final tribal council I believe. So the short answer would be at final four that would happen at.

I just got dumber from watching this episode. That's all I can add since my pony is pretty slow and I just watched it now. I'm also confident that Fabio is a cartoon character and Purple Kelly = Sixth Sense Bruce Willis.

Agreed, and that's why I'm saying it wasn't *smart* to vote Brenda. From his POV, though, it really would just be a complete guess, as he and Jill would have no idea KB was an outsider. They can't really vote for Jane either, as she's a more likely ally (from their POV) than anyone else on the tribe.

They shouldn't split their votes. Marty and Jill should vote together for the kid (i.e. not Jane) they think is the most likely target. It's pretty simple, they just panicked at TC and switched to Brenda, which only works if both Jane AND Fabio also vote for her. They screwed up their end of it, but they should vote as a block, regardless of who it's for.

You might want to look up "expected value." If he burns the idol, he's toast unless they sweep immunities until the merge (or there's another swap, but that's unlikely). With so many kids left, they might even throw the next immunity so they could boot him. So yeah, he survives one vote, but he's in a terrible position. Your advice is to take the risk-less, lower-EV move, which is why you'd be going home at the next vote if you were Marty.

Also, I find it funny that you said not using the idol ends any chance he has of winning. He didn't use it and survived, so clearly, not using the idol does not mean certain death.

What? No, it didn't. He had no idea Jerri would flip and Coach would non-vote the next week.

I'm admittedly bad at survivor strategy and learn a lot from reading you guys' posts, but even I was dumbfounded at them not voting off Marty.

Why?

Assuming there is a block of 6 votes being split 3 and 3, all they need to do is add one vote to the non-marty person getting 3 votes.

It clearly isnt sash/brenda/purple kelly.

Then they have 2 choices of kelly/fabio/jane.

Yes, but why would you put 4 on someone and waste the extra vote when you could just put all 5 on them? There's no upside to wasting one of the two votes you have.

Well, you only need 4 to make that person have more votes than marty, voting for 2 separate people makes it more likely you select the correct person to give an extra vote to.

This picture would be so much better if he was playing coach.

What? Making it 5-3 is no different than 4-3-1. By spreading their votes they've increased Marty's chance of staying from 33% to 66%.

Yeah, I missed the point you guys were trying to make. You're right, and KB would definitely be one of the two.