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craig wrote:

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"He who can modify his tactics in relation to his opponent … may be called a heaven-born captain"
- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

(1) That pinpoints what was wrong with Coach's game. Would you agree that he came into S18 with an a priori ideology about how to play, which didn't serve him well.

Because Coach wasn't playing against the BWB, but a bunch of women who didn't get along (Debbie, Sierra, Erinn), who never seriously considered alligning until it was way too late for Timbira. If Coach or Tyson had scooped them up, not made it has obvious that women had no place in his alliance plans, they might made F2.

(2) Stephen, are you more proud of your premerge or postmerge game?
I'm more impressed with premerge, because JT could easily have become the 4th member of the other allince (Joe and Syd were working him), yet you pulled the southern boy into an alliancxe with the NY Jew and the black lady. Buit postmerge, Timbira just handed you the game with near Pagong-like failure to work together.

(3) Would you agree that you were better at manipulating JT than manipulating the girls? You could get him to boot people that was in HIS interest to keep (such as Coach and Taj over Erinn), but you couldn't round up anyone but Erinn to take out JT.

I thought you'd do better at the end because you were closer to the women, but I was wrong.
You controlled JT, but he controlled the tribe.

Totally agree with a lot of this. Coach's big(gest) problem was that he came into the game with this idea of a "warrior alliance" and kept on trying to find people to fit that mold. When things didn't work out with Brendan, he discarded Brendan and focused on JT. I -really- agree that Tyson could have won the game if he hadn't alienated Erinn. But that's not trivial. Every season, people screw up because they can't put aside their personal dislikes. -Not- doing that I think is both good discipline and good gameplay.

2) I think it looks a lot easier post-merge than it actually was. JT and I worked -hard- to fracture Timbira and at the same time, conceal from them how screwed they were. We spent a LOT of time buttering up Tyson, Debbie, Coach, Brendan, Erinn - even Sierra. A -lot-. In my mind, there's not much difference between strategic and social game play. You need to create social bonds that serve strategic purposes. We looked at it as work, and whenever we came back from a challenge or a reward, we said to each other, "Let's get to work." For example, when Erinn came back from Exile Island, I instituted a "lockdown" policy, where either JT or I would be with her ALWAYS. That way, nobody from Timbira could ever approach her about backstabbing us, because we'd be right there. I think that's one of the reasons that Jeff and the producers thought the season was going to be a lot better than it was. Out there, every vote really was a blindside. But when it's on TV, it's clear that Timbira is falling apart.

That said, some of my favorite moves were pre-merge, such as a week-long process of poisoning Sydney against Spencer, and juggling JT and Taj so that I stayed in the middle. You're also right that JT made much more sense aligning with Sydney and Joe than with me and Taj. In fact, JT and Joe had a very easy bond from the first night. However, my connection with JT is not something I can take strategic credit for. It happened organically. We both quickly discovered that we were the hardest workers around camp and the only people really thinking strategically, apart from our antagonist Spencer. There was sort of no way for us to avoid working together without working against each other.... and at Jalapao, I would have been on the wrong end of those numbers.

3) Heh. I agree my real best moves of the game were getting JT to eliminate people who were in his interest to keep around - Brendan, Taj and Debbie being the primary ones. (JT's willingness to vote off Coach was actually a generous concession to me, bc Coach really did have the best shot of the final 5 of winning an endurance challenge at 3). I think you're right, and as much as I've overanalyzed this, I don't think I ever thought about it like that. I put so much effort into working through JT that I didn't put enough into the girls. One of my regrets is not cultivating Sierra more. On the other hand, Sierra would tell anybody anything - she told all of Timbira about my idol basically as soon as I told her. So the thought of suggesting backstabbing JT .... she could very well have run right to him. And I -tried- to get Taj to stick with me to the end, but she was committed to giving it to me and JT. One of the flaws, I think, of having wealthy people on the show. There are so many variables in the game. I know I've said before that my position couldn't have been better at final 4. I also think it was pretty good at final 3. I'm guaranteed a spot in Final 2, and if Erinn or I win the IC, I win the game. Not bad, right?

Whew! Long-winded! Sorry!

IvanV wrote:

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Are you sure you would have won the game? Because even though the jury didn't really like Erinn, you didn't really put a very good final tribal council performance, and I imagine Erinn as a person who would attack you even more than JT did at the the final tribal and possibly win over you. But I wasn't there so I can't really tell.

I agree, but part of that was I felt really conflicted about going after JT, since he had just agreed to take me. Also, I really did not feel like I could talk strategy, since most of the jury would credit JT with more moves than me. And as I mentioned, the jury gave JT an -ovation- in the previous tribal council. And, look, part of the reason it looks -so- bad is that I lost in a shut-out, so they need to make it look bad. (Not that it was good.) However, against Erinn, I would not have worried about fracturing our friendship and I would have just laid out my gameplan. I agree there's no way for anybody to -believe- me. But it almost wouldn't have mattered what I had said. Just like there was no way for me to win against JT, there was no way for Erinn to win against me.

But anyway, yes, I'm 100% positive. I know you guys love Erinn and think that she would probably have shut out JT - that JT himself would have stood up to vote for her and everybody would dance together in a beautiful circle of Erinn love - but the actual people in the merge tribe did not.

SkyDreamer wrote:

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TheWizard wrote:

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Kirblar wrote:

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Had JT decided to take Erinn- could there have been enough of a backlash from the jury to get her the win? Taj would have been an obvious vote for her, but I'm not sure how it would have played with the rest of them.

No, I don't think so. People really didn't like her and really liked him. (And, in fact, they -loved- it when we went at each other in the final tribal). I would have voted for him, too. I really do think Taj would have voted for her.

Why would you vote for JT over Erinn? Only because of your friendship?

Because I think JT played the best game.