hahaha because shes insane? i didnt say she was smart or was going to be able to win. just that getting rid of brenda because she is going for first and thought shed lose the vote to her. even the crazy emotional players are still trying to accomplish something.

That Fishbach article was gold. http://www.people.com/people/article...421593,00.html

Never read it before, but I think he's right. And I also think he's in a better position to know if he's right or not because he's been there.

http://robhasawebsite.com/2010/11/19...vor-questions/

rob c podcast up

I think it goes back to having no idea where you are at in the game. Sure Brenda is a threat. However, is she a specific threat to Naonka more than other people in the game? Absolutely not. Not only did Brenda trust Naonka and want to move forward (probably to the very end) with Naonka, but Brenda was also someone who was not necessarily well loved by everyone. Was Brenda more or less likely to vote for Naonka at the end had Naonka not stabbed her in the back? Make Sash be the one responsible for getting rid of Brenda (although surely getting rid of Sash is probably the better option for everyone involved). Either way you slice it, Naonka is setting possible votes for herself on fire. AND putting herself at more risk moving forward. I think the only person this move hurt more than Brenda was probably Naonka is all I'm saying.

Maybe I'm wrong. Naonka is claiming in her secret scene that she thinks she is becoming a 'lot of people's favorite.' I don't know if she is referring to her status as the goat everyone would like to sit next to at the end. Or she thinks America must be loving her for her outrageous and maniacal play. Or she just thinks people in the tribe like her because they are talking voting with her because they needed her to help them do something that greatly benefited everyone who wasn't in what appeared to be her core alliance.

i didnt say it was her correct move at all. i think hes an idiot and has played awful the whole way through. i just think its what naonka is thinking. that she couldnt beat brenda in a vote at the end. she probably cant beat any combo of people but it wont stop her from making dumb moves.

Butch is failing as Survivor interviewee.

Who outplayed him exactly? It's easy to make the case that Russell only got far in the game because his opponents constantly made stupid decisions, but this is just as true of Natalie. Natalie getting to the end requires that a. Russell fails to recognise that she's the biggest jury threat, b. Mick and Jaison fail to recognise the same thing, c. Brett fails to win immunity at F4, and d. John flips to take out Laura at F10. Granted, these are all fatal mistakes for those other people as well, but Natalie can only be credited with them contributing to her win if she did anything to bring them about, which she did not. Did Mick or Jaison outplay him? Obviously not. Shambo? No. So we're left with the remaining members of Galu, who committed partial or collective suicide on multiple occasions.

And the argument that 'Natalie = Mick' isn't based on the fact that she got 7 votes to his 0 (because she obviously gave a better performance during FTC, even though it doesn't reflect the exact extent of this gap) but on the fact that their games before that point were identical. You can tell that Natalie barely did anything because the one thing (the only thing) that her defenders bring up is that she contributed to Galu voting out Erik. This ignores that a. it was Jaison who actually brought up the idea of blindsiding Erik and b. only Natalie could've swayed Laura because Natalie had been assigned by Russell to become close with Laura, which in turn was due to the fact that Natalie was a young Christian female. Even the editors recognised that this was the only thing she did, because they insisted in ramming it down our throats in the 'Previously...' segment ('Previously on Survivor, Natalie came up with an amazing plan to get rid of Erik and Natalie went and totally manipulated Laura and at TC Natalie's plan that Natalie started worked and Erik went home thanks to Natalie WOO YEAH go Natalie'), just like they did with Danni.

I've watched Samoa closely, and I've watched it many times, but I can't see how any of the idiots on that season outplayed Russell.

How do we think relationships are going to change now?

Holly, Jane, Chase, Naonka. Will they trust Chase after he scrambled more than Brenda did to try and save her? Can Purple Kelly fit anywhere in this alliance?

Sash, Naonka, Chase, (Kelly). Does this alliance still exist? Do they trust Chase? Can/should Sash trust Naonka?

Benry, Fabio, Dan. Are any of these guys ever going to muster up an action on their own? Shouldn't Benry and Fabio be sitting ducks?

Oooo, Rob and Nicole are discussing this very thing now.

Why not Holly, Rob C? This is what can happen if you are so gung ho on dragging the most with you to the end. If it turns out they actually do want to win, they all gang up on you and vote you out before you can ship the victory. It's kind of nice this isn't turning into China II...well not yet, Sash is still in. Maybe Naoka/Kelly is the new Amanda now.

I like Rob's plan to use the idol and vote off Holly this week. I think that would have been a better move for Sash and Brenda. Problem is Chase made it sound like Naonka was the spear head of this move when he approached Brenda to let her know she was toast. Maybe he approached Sash first, I can't remember. But he made it seem like Naonka was the driving force instead of that Holly and Jane instigated this move. I think that was part of why Brenda was like ??? The person I thought I was tightest with is against me and my fellas are saying I can't be saved. I thought I was the King, and now I'm realizing I'm the new Alina, but I refuse to flail around in the water...blub blub blub. {Sash standing on the shore mouthing "sorry" and waving}

How could Rob and Nicole not realize that was the immunity idol on Brenda's vote?

I think I agree with both Rob and Nicole regarding the Parvarti/Brenda comparison. Parvarti is much better, natch. But Brenda might be able to be better next time than she was this time.

yeah glad they have all this content after butch was on. havent had a real podcast talking strategy in awhile

Shame you weren't on the jury so you could cast the third vote for him.

I love you, Soncy, but I'm sure you understand why Russell's game is significantly different from the one NaOnka is currently playing. I won't open up this can of worms again simply because I think it's a waste of both of our time to even discuss it.

That doesn't mean he got outplayed, and I think you realize this.

Natalie would have been a ****ing idiot to play any other way then she did. For all the chatter about how undeserving she was i would like one person to lay out a better path to the finals for her. When you have one of most irritating human beings on planet earth (by all accounts) and he is playing hard and making a lot of fancy moves, you have no choice but to ride that horse to the finish line.

Natalie knew Russell was loyal to him, Natalie knew that he couldn't win in the end. She also knew he had an excellent chance of taking them to the end. So she built up relationships with others. It wasn't fancy. It wasn't over the top. She wasn't in control. She couldn't be, she instead took the smarter path, her only path, and secured herself a pretty easy win.

Yes, it is a shame. Care to explain what I posted that you can show to be wrong?

Do the Russell people know that there's a difference between tactics and strategy? Russell is tactically brilliant, and if you include the use of somewhat gimmicky immunity idols he's second to none. His overall strategy though leaves much to be desired and is WAY behind people like Hatch.

Probst.

in before Kos telling you that you're a ****** for thinking that Russell isn't superior to every other contestant in every aspect of the game.

Fishbach's article quotes Natalie outlining her winning strategy. The season shows her executing it. It wins her the game. Russell was better than everyone on that season.

There are some real strange analysts in this thread.

You're picking 4 random things. C isn't relevant to this thread's gamebots anyway and it's ridiculous to pick out any one challenge. Why do you think that a and b are out of her control? Why are you sure that out of the dozens of hours leading up to the Laura decision that we didn't see, Natalie 100% positively had NOTHING to do with helping convince John to flip?

Again it's tactics vs. strategy. You can't just randomly "outplay" people while alienating the **** out of everybody. The overall outplay is the only thing that matters.

is anyone else getting tired of re-hashing s19 and s20 arguments for the 84th time? it's becoming really annoying to continue following this thread every week when so much of the conversation is kk/clovis/boc/kos/etc insulting/bashing each other and re-hashing the same tired arguments where no one's opinion ever changes.

the last time i made this point (probably about 5-6 weeks ago), people said it was fine because nothing was going on in the season, but i think that's different now. there's clearly more going on now in s21, there's a lot to discuss, and i personally would like to keep this thread on point.

agree/disagree? i'll shut up about it for the rest of the season if everyone else wants this thread to continue as is.

How the f*ck do we constantly derail this thread to argue about Samoa, it's absolutely beyond me.

Granted (aside from the description of idols as 'gimmicky'), but I'm not sure why we're supposed to prefer someone who showed little awareness of strategy or tactics.
Why am I sure that Mick wasn't the secret UTR mastermind controlling his fellow castaways? Why am I sure that Monica wasn't some masterful power player who struck fear into the hearts of men? I'm not completely sure about either of these things, but I assume that the editing is at least accurate because making unfalsifable, unsupported claims doesn't help anybody. AFAIK no-one - notably, neither Natalie nor John - has suggested that she had anything to do with his decision to flip.

You're on a poker forum and yet still being this results-oriented? Her game pre-F3 was almost identical to that of Mick or Jaison (who played a better game than she did imo). Replace her with most other UTR females in Survivor history and the result is probably the same. Replace Russell with almost anybody else, and she's unlikely to make the F3.

vyk: I know it's annoying. If this were a Survivor forum everyone would be eager for a Russell Hantz containment thread.

The people who constantly bring it up are the haters. Here's a suggestion: if you block kartinken and boc, it all goes away. I really wish everyone would do this so I don't have to keep reading quoted posts from those two ******s.

(I mean, I guess I made a comment about Russell, but it was more about the comparison to NaOnka. I agree that it's stupid to keep discussing Samoa, as no one is going to change their opinions, and it's no longer relevant.)

It's only being results oriented if you ignore the first 2 parts of what I said where I discuss her plan and process.

Kos, how do you like living in your imaginationland?

Because Russell is the biggest point of contention on this thread. People refer to him a lot and it gets emotions on both sides flaring. You can just skip over those posts, it's not a big deal. I skip over lots of posts here I am not too interested in reading.

People should just talk about what they want to talk about. For every 1 complainer about the topic there are 2 participants, so I really don't see a problem.

That's pretty unfair towards me. I don't talk about Samoa at all. If you want me to make a tired argument, bring up how good HvV was and see what happens (I rewatched it last week, so I have new material!)

And I think my posts ITT are pretty damn good besides the ones that bash Kos. And since Kos apparently really has me on ignore, I can probably cut those out now.

I'm just trying to have good discussion with the few good posters here. It's too bad that gets sidetracked all the time by people who refuse to acknowledge how little we actually know as viewers. For example, those who have taken in Brenda's interviews the past few days have heard that she was uncomfortable with the Marty vote, and would have preferred to vote Jane at that time. Did the edit tell the viewers that? Not even close. If anything, Sash was the one portrayed as wanting to keep Marty more between Brenda/Sash.

I dunno. As I think more about it, maybe it's not such a big deal for people to just have these discussions about the cast as they're portrayed in the hourlong episodes. SASH IS AN IDIOT! SHOULD HAVE GIVEN UP THE IDOL, WHAT'S HE GONNA DO NOW?

Guess what the edit didn't show us there? NaOnka told Sash that Brenda was plotting to possibly stab him in the back, and he was making a move to get her first. It's very apparent in his voting confessional, where he says basically that exact thing.

Like I said, I guess there's no harm in people discussing only what they're shown on TV as if it's absolute gospel. I just hate it when people start dumping on this season and its contestants for the "mistakes" they're making, because the herd mentality is strong, and I want this season to be well-liked so future seasons of Survivor will continue to be produced.

I just wish people would spend more time discussing the storylines, the editing, and trying to delve into what ACTUALLY happened, rather than what's being shown. All the armchair expert "OMG! [So and So] should have done [this] for [these reasons]"-type stuff isn't interesting or useful discussion to me.