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surprised at how far they made it/surprised at how quick they were gone:

S1. Gervase/Joel and Gretchen
Gervase got off to such a rough start in challenges and was taking heat for not doing work around camp, so I was surprised when Joel went instead of him. Gretchen was a surprise...but it made sense after the fact.

S2. Tina/Kel
I never read the spoilers during this season, but I knew there was a lot of talk about the opening credits giving clues to who the prominent players were (Rich and Kelly getting the longer scenes in the S1 opening)...so I figured Tina would be gone early since she had a pretty low-key intro....I suspected Kel would be around for a while since he was in the military and probably would have useful knowledge for his tribe.

S4. Gabe and Hunter/Sean
I was pretty disappointed when they dropped Gabe before getting rid of Rob or Sean (hence why I'm surprised Sean went far), but I guess it was a decent strategy by the Rotu 4 to not risk Gabe screwing up a vote. Hunter of course was a surprise for obvious reasons.

S5. Jan/Stephanie
I thought Jan would be the first one out, but Brian (I'm assuming) made a brilliant move to get rid of John first and keep Jan as the goat. Stephanie seemed to be the strongest and best looking woman on Sook Jai, so I figured she'd make the merge and then be picked off second if there was a Chuay Gahn majority after Ken.

S6. Christy/Matt
We found out Christy was deaf, and early on it seemed like she was such an outcast that I expected her to go pre-merge just because if the women stuck together post-merge and had equal or a majority in numbers, they wouldnt want to risk a communication problem when making their plans. So I thought the tribe shuffling saved Christy. I didnt think Matt would make it far for a lot of reasons....he seemed close to Ryan and Dan, the first two guys out, then the tribes switched and he and Deena seemed to be in trouble, then there were several times in the post-merge when he could have been picked off for his strength since he was outright dominating anything largely physical. Rob kept him and Butch around and it turned out to be a pretty good strategy.

S7. Burton first time/Darrah
Its hard to predict who is going to make a strategic blunder, so predicting Burton to go early never crossed my mind...particularly when the matchup after Burton was gone were Rupert/Shawn/Jon vs Andrew/Ryno/Osten (which you'd assume would favor Morgan) and Christa/Sandra/Trish/Michelle vs Darrah/Tijuana (probably slightly in Morgans favor since two of the Drake women would probably end up sitting out). I would have thought if they wanted to get rid of Burton, that they would have waited a little while longer just to keep his strength. Darrah just got no air time at all, especially in the beginning....so she was this seasons Butch, except actually good in challenges. Once Nicole was gone, I figured Darrah would make it through a few more votes (Ryan S, Lill) and then be picked off after that, but she hung in there till the final 4.

S15. Aaron/Denise and Peih-Gee
Aaron just got screwed by the twist. If the twist didnt happen, I'd have expected him to have either made it to the final 4, or been voted out immediately after the merge if Fei Long had a huge numbers advantage, or Zhan Hu had an advantage, since word was out that James had Immunity Idols. Just looking at the cast when they first posted them, I figured Denise would be this seasons Debb Eaton. I guess if you make it clear from the beginning that you have no intentions of playing strategically, then the strategic players will keep you around to use you for your vote. Peih-Gee seemed destined to go home early since there was such a negative reaction from her tribe mates when she tried to step in over Dave as the leader and then cried when they lost a challenge. As for Courtney, I knew she'd go far as soon as she wasnt the first person taken out of her tribe.

S16. Johnny Fairplay/Not really surprised by the other two votes, although disappointed in them.
With as big of an attention whore as this guy is, you'd think he would have wanted nothing more than to hang around a while.