Board Thread:Survivor 39: Poveglia/@comment-36035721-20190604010319/@comment-31200621-20190604191839

So I hope you understood how I really felt from my clarification but now onto answering your questions.

What was your end game plan if John did end up leaving at f5?

Had John left at final 5 I was in quite the dilemma at final 4. I had previously let Jackson know that if he voted for John that round I would target you the following round, however if I’m being honest I had not fully made up my mind at the time. I was in a debate of what can essentially be boiled down to head vs heart. Whether you believe it or not, I really wanted to go to the final 2 with you even knowing the huge risk that I end up in the position of looking like what I believe Devin looks like next to me. Final 4 would have had to be the round to make the decision, if I am being honest with myself and knowing now that Jackson will win immunity at final 4, while I want to believe I would have went with you and got you further, I don’t know if I could have justified voting for Devin that round with the game he played and I think I might have voted for you at final 4. While this decision really hurts me I think gamewise it would have been the best thing to do. I think that then leaves me in the same position of final 3 that I was in with Jackson and Devin and I see the endgame going the same.

''Obviously comp wins are cute and all, how much did you actually end up relying on them? Bc you were immune f6, you had an idol f5, had to win firemaking at f4 and had to win f3 to even survive so I’m curious what your opinion on that is.''

I think it be wrong to say I didn’t rely on comp wins a little bit in the end game but I think it’s equally as wrong that I solely relied on them, and I think that is where the distinction comes in. If you look at some survivor winners who only relied on them (I know you may not know them cause you don’t watch survivor lol) like Mike Holloway with immunity wins, or stupid Ben Driebergen with his 1000 idols handed to him by production, they had to just play the power or win immunity or they went home. I think the difference is those were only half of the parts that got me through the rounds and half were more strategic. Going through the rounds like you point out I want to explain how I see what I did to get through final 6 and onwards:

Final 6: Not much to say here because when you win immunity obviously you can’t be targeted, but I do think it is saying that I made it to final 6 without winning an individual immunity until then and still never having my name written down at that point, after final 6 I was the last person in the game who could say that.

Final 5 - Knowing I had the idol this round and knowing I had not told anyone about it and instead made up a vote revealer, I had wanted to put a test of my gameplay and relationships this round. Working with Devin to figure out how everyone except John was laying their spaces this challenge I realized we basically could decide who won immunity, while Devin originally wanted to give me immunity, I made up some thing about how I won it last time and it was his turn he should have it, when that is not the truth. I wanted to be able to play the idol on myself because I wanted to see who was really with me at this point and who was just saying they were. I didn’t need to play the idol on myself because I did not have the most counting votes against me even with John’s idol play, and had I did my second option of playing it on you, I would have been idol’d out 1-0-0, so I think I did what was right that round. And with the information I gained I knew Jackson no longer had my back and I was able to see the final 4 game board as clear as possible.

Final 4 - While Devin is now claiming he was always going to vote for me to stay at final 4, I have to say this seems more like he’s revising his history in order to seem like he player better than he did that round. This my side of the story of that round and you and the jury can make the decision of who you think is telling the truth. Once immunity was over I asked Devin if he would vote John with me at least no matter what and he said yes. Considering lying about who you are voting at final 4 is just poor jury management I had no reason to doubt it. Believing at the time I had at least half of the votes with me, I went to work seeing if I could avoid firemaking. Jackson and I had a good conversation but ultimately he let me know he could not vote with me that round and I understood. It wasn’t until having a conversation with Devin afterwards that I realized he was being quite shady with me, and it wasn’t until I called him out saying hey are you not telling me something, that he finally admitted he was voting me out. I then spent over an hour of pure strategic manipulation and pulling on heartstrings to get him to change his mind. While I did win fire making which allowed me to move forward, I do believe that the more important part of the round was my words that allowed me the chance to compete to begin with.

Final 3 - There’s no way to bullshit this, if I did not win final immunity I was going home. This is an immunity I completely relied on because both members of the final 3 besides myself said I would be who they would cut. However knowing based on my timing of the weekend I couldn’t win this challenge on just pure time spent alone, I put my effort more into not just winning the challenge, but convincing Devin that I had already lost so he would give up. I’m not kidding in my opening speech when I say if Devin had went for two hours more (after he already went for 29 mind you) he would have won because I had to go teach swimming and wouldn’t have access to a phone or computer. This was done through compliments to his great ideas on how to do the challenge that I did not as well as already going into pm’s doing a pitch on why he should take me to final 2 and trying to sound as desperate as possible. He chose to believe me and not wait for a host to confirm which I think is a mix of a credit to my game and a big blunder on his. I would never have stopped that challenge if I thought I won until I was certain and the host confirmed it because this game was that important to me. I think while I did rely on the challenge win to get me to the end, I relied on my own cunning to get me the challenge win and to me that’s the more important factor.

''How much of the game actually went your way in terms of who you actively wanted to target at the BEGINNING of rounds? Because I’m heavily doubting that f5 was your only slip up.''

In starting to answer this question I should probably state, when I said final 5 was my only slip up I mean in the sense that it was the only round I wasn’t an active part in strategizing and ensuring things went to plan. Obviously there were many rounds where things didn’t go exactly how I wanted at the start of the round but I think I was able to work to make sure by the end when the vote came it was still going somewhat to my plan and what I wanted to see happen.

Premerge - The only tribal I really voted at was Junessy so I guess I can say that my target the whole way through went home, though I don’t think this is a super relevant example

Jino - As you and I both know we were the ones who went into that one originally wanting to bring back the #gays alliance but together through talking our options we figured out it worked more beneficial to us to target Jino so this round went how I wanted vote wise.

Alex - I think this is one of the votes where I took more of a lead in planning, Alex was a scary challenge threat who for sure could have beasted her way to the end. Knowing we were planning on targeting one of Alex/Abi/Devin I tried to push the agenda of Alex going as much as I could and this round went exactly to plan.

Abi - This is probs the round things didn’t go as close to how I wanted to, I originally wanted to go after one of the Padua preferably Natalia, but you managed to convince me it was better for Abi to go. Considering the way the rest of the game went for me I have to say I think you were right, and I’m glad I was able to be convinced.

Natalia - Again this is a vote that went how I wanted it to. Me and you discussed pulling in Jackson and using the nullifier just as a precaution and everything went according to plan, so the vote stayed how I wanted it to the entire way through.

Scott - Obviously this vote went the most off the rails for me as I did not want you gone even the slightest bit. All other votes I was able to spin it in some sort of positive, and the only positive I had of seeing you gone was I didn’t have to keep going back and forth in my mind if we could go to the end together. This was the worst vote for me all season.

John - I went into this round kind of expecting a fire making between me and John as it seemed the most likely if neither of us won immunity based on what happened last round. While the circumstances of how I got their (explained earlier in the answer) were a little different than I expected the result was what I saw happening

Jackson - Again in my mind all of the round at final 3 I was pretty confident the only option I had was to win immunity and then planned to take Devin to the end. Nothing really changed this round based on how I expected it to go.

''Say you have 100% to allocate. Split that 100% between Social/Strategic/Physical. For example, 40% Social, 40% Strategical, 20% Physical. Is this in your mind what a winner’s percentage should be?''

I’m gonna put 38% for strategic that being the most because I prioritize my strategic game above all else. I put 35% for physical because while I valued it a little less than my strategic game I knew I still could count on my ability to win a competition if I absolutely needed to. And finally if my math is correct (i’m so bad at math watch this be like 103% or something) 27% of a social game, because while I still think it was a decent game making good connections, it was the lowest of my three. I think this is a winners split because while there is variation in what I excelled at the most to the least, all 3 are in a similar enough range that I don’t think anyone necessarily suffered at the expense of another. A good balanced winner of survivor needs to excel in all three.

''It’s cute and all that we are talking about why you deserve to win. Why do you deserve to win OVER the other person? What did they do wrong that you did right?''

This is a question I am very thankful you asked because I’ve been waiting to bring this up. We can talk all day about the fact that you played a better game than me which probably could be true, but the fact is as a survivor finalist I don’t need to justify why I played the best game of the season, but really why I played the best game of the people sitting at final tribal and I truly believe my game excelled compared to Devin’s. I don’t want to be rude to him because I have a ton of love for Devin, but I truly believe in the context of survivor I played him and manipulated him to the best of my ability. Devin talks a lot about in his answers if he didn’t do all this for me I wouldn’t be here. And I agree I needed to rely on Devin many times in the game, however I think that is shown merely as a detriment to Devin’s game and a bonus to mine. Devin knew the perception of the jury, and knew he was seen as a goat and that I was seen as a bigger threat. And yet despite this I was able to convince him time and time again to go further with me in the game, and thus letting me get to final 3 where I'm sure he planned to cut me, but it was too late for him to have the chance. Devin claims I owe him my life in this game but I really don’t see it that way. I’m thankful that I am still here and got to play my game, but I got myself here not Devin. And I think that’s where he messed up and what I did right. I had every reason to go to the end with Devin because I knew I was seen more as the player and him more as the goat, and yet here I sit with him. But on the reverse side Devin knew he was seen as the goat and I was seen as the bigger threat and had many opportunities to get rid of me, and yet here I sit with him. I hope you see the game how I did and you see I played at least what I believe was the best game of the final 2.

''Lastly, I would like you to rank the jurors AND yourselves on a list for the following category: “Played at their full potential”. Not rly a question moreso. A command. :x''

1) Natalia - I think Natalia was looked at as a social game dominator this season but no one even noticed she was everyone’s best friend until late in the game. I think she used her best assets to the best of her ability and played a dominant game.

2) Scott - Knowing what we did together this game you had to be ranked right near the top, because you played an exceptional game, and if that wasn’t you at your full potential colour me shocked and terrified for what you are at your full potential.

3) John - I believe the ability of a great gameplayer involves being able to not be seen as a threat until right at the end where it’s almost too late. If a few challenges go another way John is sitting at the end and I think that’s because he played the game in the best way for him.

4) Jordan - While the narcissist in my wanted to put myself right at the top, I thought a little more on it and realized that sometimes playing your game at your full potential can get you very exposed if you are putting everything out on the table so I think I played as close to my full potential as I could without being all in.

5) Jackson - I think Jackson demonstrated the ability to lay back and strike when needed, and never was seen as a big threat despite all he was apart of it. I think he showed great gameplay and played a really strong game which I think is high full of potential

6) Jino - Jino played a pretty chaotic game, but was never afraid to take a risk and i think that was both a strength and a weakness and I think maybe a bit more calmness could have led to him being around much much longer, so I think while he lived up mostly to his potential, it could have been more

7) Devin - I don’t want to be mean putting Devin this low on the list but it’s really how I feel, I think there were so many opportunities that Devin let slip by throughout the game that he could have been sitting her as the strong contender to win instead of having to forcefully prove he was apart of things.

8) Abi - I think Abi got a little too complacent as the merge started and therefore didn’t try as hard with the padua’s and that caused her not to have as much sway with the other side when she needed. I think Abi had such a great social game with those she was close with that with a little more effort reached out to the other side she could have been a major force

9) Alex - God i feel bad putting this one last, but the way I view it is Alex was very personable and amazing at competitions and could make very coherent strategic conversations, but I think she just went a little too hard in all this early on that led to her being WAY to big a threat down the road, I think her game potential could have been so much more if she had just died down a bit in the premerge.

I hope this answers all your questions and once again I want to just apologize for the poor wording in my opening speech. You were my rock this game and I hope you forgive me and enjoyed all the answers.