He tried, but do you really think that one conversation/speech will sway people? There may be some shallow people on that jury, but most won't swing that easily (cept Shambo).

The difference between him and people like Yul was that Yul actively had jury votes in his mind while controlling his group of 4, all while maintaining a fairly likeable persona. Russell did the same thing but didn't make moves like Yul did with Candice and Adam, which eventually won him the game. Yul had his bargaining chip in Jonathan Penner, while it could be argued that Russell had a similar tool in Shambo. Then again, this is purely hypothetical, as Candice and Adam were pretty ****ing shallow and pathetic to just give up and be satisfied with simply outlasting Jonathan.

Looking back on it, the similarities are pretty scary between this season and S13.

i mean whether or not russ played a perfect game, he played it near perfect imo. MAYBE he could have answered q's a bit better but it didn't matter at that point. that jury wasn't going to give russ the win even tho he played the best.

watching the final episodes was interesting, i was thinking ''they arent gonna give him the jury votes, but man y would they ever give it to nat or mick instead they basically just were behind him w/ the decisions.'' def a bit tilting still
edit: maybe rus needed to be a ''prayer warrior'' weee

TLY: Rational, intelligent post.

Idiots: OMG calm down TLY! <insert something stupid>

TLY: You're stupid, here's why.

Idiots: OMG ur a meanie cuz ur smarter than other people.


...but thats how the world works. People react poorly when told they are stupid, even when it is almost certainly true.

Cue people flaming me for speaking the truth.

Even though they had the worst single episode ever (challenge canceled and no one voted off), overall this is the best season ever.

I think this samoa played out the way survivor is supposed to play out. You have to walk the fine line between scheming to make the finals and still being likable enough to get votes at FTC. Russell did the first very well and the second very poorly. Other than season one, I don't remember any truly scummy people winning. I don't think Russell was winning a final 3 no matter which 2 went to the finals with him. He probably wins a heads up with shambo but he doesn't win against any of the other final 8 or so.

According to the EW interview, everyone (cept Laura and Dave) came up to Russell after the reunion and told him that they regret their decision. Interesting.

can you link that interview?

The games will always be good for this reason. Telling people to settle down is a common defense mechanism to a point that is difficult to refute.

Ehhh... I have to disagree there. In my opinion, Micronesia tops it and Cook Islands is a tie for 2nd with this one. Borneo might also be up there. This season had few redeeming qualities except for Russell, and I don't think one person, no matter how good he/she is, can propel a season to the top.

Amber, Parvati, and Jenna turned out to be pretty scummy :P Brian Heidik perhaps.

I shared the same perspective at as you coming into last night... Pretty much thought it would be a 5-4 type vote with Russell coming second and Mick or Natalie winning.

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20332130_5,00.html

The not so mean jibes are to snap you out of this emotional state you are in (to quote the dog whisperer since we are into reality TV show stuff). I like much of your take on the game and analysis, but I think you have lost some objectivity because the character that represented how you would play the game got shafted in your mind in the end.

They cast all sorts of people, generally those that are not average. Some are extremely book smart but hopeless with people. Some are just completely dumb. Some are emotional wrecks. Some are passive types, some are very assertive types.

The game as structured now allows all of them to use a variety of strategies that could win, though some like the blatant coat tails one have always failed until this season pretty much.

Natalie probably wins this season 1% of the time or so and only by latching onto Russel and having it play out as it did, but you know what - she hit her 2 outers a few times, good for her. She had no other real solid approach given her personality type out there.

She deserved the win because she played the best game SHE could, in fact the only game she could. It was within the rules, so she earned it, even if it is not a way most people want to see win.

Never assume I am saying Natalie's strategy is the best of all strategies to use for winning, but for some players it is the best strategy as they will never be able to pull off a different one. When it does work you can be annoyed but that does not mean it was the wrong strategy for that player as their EV of the game was always very low.


My chip dynamics had a big part of it. I had 1/4 the stack of the next lowest player so doubling or even tripling up really did not increase my tournament EV that much in and by itself.

If you saw the final table you would realize it was not lucky that a bunch were eliminated. Two were playing every flop and six others were playing 75% + of hands. Amid all of the bustouts a lot of hands did just trade chips back and forth, but every hand for about 24 of them in a row had someone all in that was not me.

So I basically given my stack used the Sandra "not me" approach and went from winning $55 or so to 350 or so for 15-20 minutes of folding. I did fold an AAxx hand (a bad rainbow one) in that time since 2 people were already all in before me with a third likely to call as well.

I did pretty much give up my chances of winning the tournament by that play (which was about $750 or so), but I am confident it was the right EV move for that very strange situation.

With a normal table I would be getting it in with all sorts of hands and raising to steal blinds while I could, but in this case that was not practical.

With poker a player can adjust to situations. Not every player can make that adjustment in Survivor, and some like Natalie have to take a harder to win path, but one with a viable path to victory.

Some times a donk just playing badly will win, but in this case the donk had no other better options. If you think Natalie (with the limits of her personality type) had a better path to victory with the tribes and players as they were please feel free to explain it.


I'm not shocked by this. They were caught up with the moment with that group in making a statement against the evil Russel at the time. Some just followed the peer pressure at the time and had regrets later. Nothing new there in terms of human behavior.


I agree. I keep falling back to Yul as the comparison person though with much different personalities and approaches.

Yul played the perfect game in that regard because he won.

Russel played by far the most entertaining game I have seen , but it was not perfect because he lost. He did help redefine the game in many ways that nobody else did which is an accomplishment as well.

I know Rupert is pretty dim as far as strategizing, but he is still one of my favorites of all time. How can you not like the guy that stole everything out of his opponent's unguarded raft? That is a top 10 survivor moment.

Soz for my bad english, fr spotted.

Russel's problem is that he dominates too much, never tell or show a moron he is otherwise that's what happend (FrankieBigNuts is one of them, don't try to answer him)... You got to outplayed them in silence, it's physically impossible to proove to a idiot that he's one. By definition, they can't understand they are stupid, by trying to show them you just loosing your time and made it back fire at you.

He should ve said he outplayed them by luck, that's what they wanted to hear... No seriously, he could ve told them whatever they wanted to hear, they still would ve voted against him BUT at least he would ve made them happy...


There is non sense at trying to find a mistake in his plan, i mean he did 99% right where people is at 60% on average. Wtf can you justify his lost by the 1% missing.

Last thing, some people says he's a bad guy but the people who followed him and agreed on a huge part of his strategy are better? They're just coward, they do the same thing without the risk BUT they still want the reward(guess what? they got it). Judge, critic, make people look bad then do the same without showing it, that's what your godly social game means.

For the morons who still don't understand, the jury didn't vote for Natalie but against Russel. If you don't get that read the beginning of this post, oh yeah nvm.

What a disappointing finale to a pretty good season (have watched all 19).

Holy smokes, come back after one day and the board explodes. So many posts this year, it'll take hours to go through it all. I love how there are 2 "shifts" of posters in this thread, the east and west coasters . I love how we have so many new posters year after year. I imagine next year will be even more and who knows how it will be if survivor continues. I see the community will keep growing.


Anyhoo, it's been a day and I'm still so tilted about this season. One of the most enjoyable seasons ever with the absolute biggest bull**** finale ever. Epic Fail. I don't know what it was but I just find this season so exhausting
because I was so emotionally involved. It's quite embarassing really how someone can be so into the characters that they see on TV. That's why the finale killed it for me. I will watch S20 Allstars, but after this I am officially done with survivor forever. This season has left such a bad taste in my mouth that it will never go away. It's like watching a really intense drama for the whole season and getting very attached to the characters and then in the finale the director decides the whole season was just a dream, so nothing matters. That's how I feel about this season, to have Russel do what he did and then have the whole voting be a complete crapshoot is the final straw with me.

Thank you everyone for a fun season and goodbye, I am done with survivor.

I think I'm more upset today than yesterday if it's possible.

And so yet again we have another worthless player who did absolutely nothing win the game of Survivor.

Seems Natalie came back to the mainland and couldn't wait to start stuffing those twinkies down her bimbo mouth. Nice round, fat face there sweetheart. On the Today Show she has the typical "I'm a donk, sucked out and now I'm going to rub it in your face" responses too.

Sigh.

I hope all the contestants that voted Natalie get berated everywhere they go for the next couple years.

Russel absolutely deserved to win, and I think Kos is dead on with his 'social game doesn't mean being friends' quote. Not on Survivor. You're playing to win, and it seems the common lvl 1 thinkers really believe they can get there by being friends with everyone (lol..)

Buuut I do think Russel could have used a little more tact and realized that the Jury members were mostly emotional bitter idiots who would vote the same way, so maybe he could have brought other people or tried to kiss a little more ass at the final tribal (although i guess he did try to but they just weren't having it).

Also, what do you guys think about him going to Jaison and telling him he was not going to bring him, instead of just kind blind-siding him? Would this have helped him and possibly gained a vote and 1 less ****-talker amongst the other Jury members, or does Jaison still be super bitter either way, even if russ tries to BS him w/ "you have to good a chance at beating me blah blah, sake of hte game yada yada"?

What response should she give in that case to a person like Russel or people berating her who are Russel supporters? If I suck at something and luckbox into a win and an "expert" can't stop whining about it I make sure they fully appreciate the pure unmitigated donktitude they lost to with various songs dances and comments that fill the heart with warmth.

Good for her if she is essentially extending her middle finger in response to silly things like Russel offering $10,000 for the title of sole survivor. He played hard, lost in a frustrating manner, but if he continues to act like an emotionally stunted baby then treat him like one, especially since Natalie was not the real cause of his anger.

This is reasonable. Berating Natalie because she received votes after playing probably the best game SHE could have played is silly.

"She deserved the win because she played the best game SHE could, in fact the only game she could. It was within the rules, so she earned it, even if it is not a way most people want to see win."--- Monteroy

holy **** this is ******ed. Wow. So you're saying that a worse player should win b/c they did the best they could? Awesome poker analogy too... dude just give up trying to sound smart. TLY is obv. a lot more informed on the subject.

EDIT FOUND ANOTHER GEM.

So you say natalie deserved the win but then you say ...

"I'm not shocked by this. They were caught up with the moment with that group in making a statement against the evil Russel at the time. Some just followed the peer pressure at the time and had regrets later. Nothing new there in terms of human behavior."

So basically... you are admitting the people are idiots at the time who voted purely out of spite, but natalie also played the best so she deserved to win? Doesn't that mean she should obv. win with a non-bitter or spiteful jury? Hmmmm...

Don't forget about Cirie. She's got under-the-radar-while-still-being-aggressive down to the T. And she, herself, suffered a screwjob of her own at the hand of Mark Burnett deciding to go to a Final 2 in Fans v. Faves. I'd safely say she would've won that Final 3 over Parvati and Amanda.

Horrible that Russell got Romber'd, but I felt the nasty spite coming.

Stop looking at this out of context. He clearly has stated that Russell played a near perfect game, but in this case he's saying that you can't blame Natalie for the way she played and, for her personality and style, this was the best way to approach it and it got her a win, so you have to commend her for that.

You can say everything about Russell playing a better game and everything, but Natalie got the win with a landslide, so clearly in her situation and for the jury, she played it the best. You can't say "Oh, what a travesty, Russell played better so he should have won." No, he played a great game, but in the end it's the jury votes that counts. It is part of the game. It has been for the last 19 seasons, and you can't forget that while playing it. That was Russell's flaw. Every jury member is different, and you have to keep their vote in mind when you're in a situation like this. That's why I think Yul played the game perfectly, while Russell was only "near-perfect."

Read his other posts. He's pretty much saying that they both deserved to win because they played it to the best of their abilities, and I have to agree with that. Just because Russell played such a good strategic game and was entertaining to the audience doesn't mean he should automatically be commended for it and given a million dollars. He missed a big part of the formula, and he paid for it. As much as you'd like to disagree with the jury's decision, when you're playing for their votes it's all part of the game, and you can't ignore it. Even if they regret the decision at a later point in time, it's what they think then and how they perceive you then. This is one of the reasons why Survivor is so interesting as a social experiment, as frustrating as it was for the audience in this particular case.

I wanted to read more about this season of survivor so i started browsing http://www.fansofrealitytv.com/forums/survivor-samoa/ which was the first link after googling stuff.

anyways, those ppl are insane. they basically started guessing who was on the next season of survivor by who didn't update their myspace/twitter/facebook in a while or who was spotted somewhere irl when they were filming. pretty nice dedication. they also got complete results of the NEXT season of 20, including round by round knockouts and who actually wins all the way up to the final 3. you can find the thread pretty easily if you are into spoilers?

also if you read their thoughts about this season, most of the ppl really disliked russell which i thought was pretty weird, opposite of 2+2 really. reminded me of poker a lil bit, some guy was trying to argue natalie played a better game because she won, results oriented ldo. i almost registed jus to argue because their threads annoyed me alot.

i don't mean to be mean, but if you think natalie played a better game, you are 100% without a doubt an idiot in my mind. also, if you think russell is acting bitter because he has lost and can't understand why he should be bitter, i think you are very dumb also.

i'm sorry but i can't give credit to coattailers no matter what. oh i'm just going to be myself, hope i win. i absolutely hate when people make it deep in a show and were like, i'm just being myself!

this season has really left me blue balled about sums it up for me.

[QUOTE=Kos13;15512698]http://www.russellgotscrewed.com/

One thing I will admit: Russell is not the best Survivor of all time...he's #2. His ego does hurt him, and whether it's fair or not, his over-the-top aggression pisses people off. The best player in the history of this game is still Rob Cesternino, who managed to control every single boot, play extremely aggressively but maintain an under-the-radar persona, execute a literally flawless strategy and boot order, run the entire game from start to finish, and still have the respect and friendship of every jury member heading into the F3. I'm still not convinced his Amazon game can ever be topped because it was perfect.
QUOTE]

Ah, finally. I forgot about the wedding. Welcome back, Kos. I'm so frustrated I can't catch up to all the posts because there is still so much I want to hash and rehash.

Rob C is my point. Not necessarily that the best strategy is to be nice and make friends (though I do believe it is a viable strategy for some). Just that you should probably inccorporate that aspect into your strategy if winning the game is so important to you that you will cry if you don't. If you can be completely happy with how you played after they announce someone else's name, maybe even whooping with joy, then fine, go out there be a huge @$$hole at every opportunity. If you really want to win, then pay attention every time Jeff mentions that the power is starting to pass to the jury members. I thought he might have played so well, that he could overcome it, but he clearly didn't. The jury matters. The fact that we get a mix of people makes the thing interesting. But it also means that it's very difficult to say, 'X' is perfect strategy and if you do 'X' you will win. You have to play the best you can under the table conditions. Russell failed miserably at winning jury votes. He HAD to have. He utterly owned other aspects of the game and still DID NOT WIN. He crushed the tribal counsel and still lost.

So I ask you people this, could Russell have won this? What did he need to do differently? Was it simply a matter of taking Jaison instead of Natalie? I like his chances better there. Is he capable of holding himself in check enough to have executed everyone without generating as much bitterness? Was he doomed?

I enjoy the discussion in this thread a lot. I welcome all reasoned opinions, though I probably value the opinions of those who disagree with me more than those who agree. I don't need somebody to tell me why I'm right, I already think I'm right. I value those will attempt to convince me I'm wrong. I'm generally open to the possibility.

If this is true, then Russells need to start trying to understand these dumb people he has to play with because you need them to decide to give you the money. He seemed to understand that they are dumb, but didn't come up with a way to get their votes. If there was no way to get them, then I guess he just has to be happy in knowing that he is smarter than they are.

I have to take this stab at Jaison's comment from the reunion show. Isn't the guy that everyone hates in the office the one, that does little but complain, and tries to take credit for the work of others? What exactly WAS Jaison's final tribal strategy if he had gotten there?