As I told Poody when I started this game, and as I have now told some of you, I have played online reality games before and when I play them, I try to employ a very similar strategy every time. Perhaps it's because that is the most authentic version of myself that I can bring to the games. I'm competitive, but I still try to play with as much integrity as possible. That strategy, to sum it up briefly, is to talk to everyone I can before making any decisions about the vote, that way I can generally avoid being blindsided and I can do my best to make something of a bad situation. I will admit that I had to adapt my strategy to the personalities of this game and that I didn't talk to some of you as much as I wish I had and I would say I regret that to the extent that I could have gotten to know some of you better. But that strategy worked in getting me to this point, despite never winning an individual immunity and often being the underdog. I played a wholly social game and I hope that is ultimately what I can convince you, the jury, of.
The last game I played was in 2010 and afterwards, I hung up my hat and said "never again" because they get to be very stressful and it was hard to remember that they are supposed to be fun. This game helped me remember the fun side of these games and while it was stressful strategizing day and night with some of you just to survive another vote, it was worth it and I don't regret a thing about applying to play this game. I never told anyone this, but I was a last-minute filler in this game for someone who dropped out of the cast and, because of that, I wasn't fully prepared to commit the amount of time needed to play this game. I had already booked a trip to see my partner who lives approximately 500 miles away from me and, as I said during that time in the game when I wasn't as active as I could have been, real life had to take precedence because I hadn't seen him for months.
What I'm trying to say is that I began this game thinking it would just be a fun bit of nostalgia to remind me of the good old days playing online reality games, but what I got out of it was so much more. Before the merge, I had been strategizing a bit with my "BP" Alliance (Beautiful People). This was how I first became attached to Jessica, Cass and Cecilia and when the tribe swap happened after Papa Smurf was voted out and Yau-Man dropped, I was genuinely afraid for Jessica because I had the closest bond with her and watching some of our allies go home made me think she'd be next.
And then we merged and once we merged, it became an individual game and that's when my goal shifted from just making the jury to making the Final 3 and winning. Jeff reminded us constantly at tribal that there are two types of dangers in this game: "Threats" and "Goats". I figured those who could avoid both labels would be most likely to succeed in this game, but it wasn't an easy thing to do. I had surrounded myself with "Threats" (Jessica, Cass, CiCi) and so I could easily be seen as a Threat by association. I had also missed a couple of challenges at that point so I was seen as a Goat by the opposing alliance during the first tribal council after the merge.
So my first obstacle was to convince enough people that I wasn't a Goat and that I was there to play without then becoming a Threat. In the process, I befriended Candice and Penner and strengthened my alliance with Nate. I managed to convince just enough people to keep me and survived that Tribal Council by just one vote. If anything had gone differently, I might be sitting on the jury right now, but I chock that week up to the fact that I took the time to talk to the right people to keep myself in the game.
In the weeks that followed, it would be a constantly battle to avoid being seen as "The Next Big Threat" while still making the big power plays I needed to to get to the Final 3. When CiCi won immunity, I made the pitch to Cass and Jessica that I was suspicious of the fact that CiCi was so desperate to spare certain people, one of which was Flicka. It made me think she might create a group of those people who were outside of our majority alliance and try to turn the tides in the game. If we wanted to maintain the power we had, we couldn't let that happen, so we tried to target someone who we suspected she might use to do that. In the process, I got to know Flicka better and, as I said previously, she was one of the people I regret not talking to sooner because she seemed sweet and like she had just gotten the short end of the stick in the game. The group of us did, however, still suspect that because of her lack of ties to anyone else in the game, she'd be easy for CiCi to sway and so, since CiCi had immunity, we voted out Flicka and I think, part of that, was based on the intel I had gathered from CiCi and the suggestion I had made to take out part of that group while we still had the chance. I have Cass and Jessica to thank for pushing that agenda too.
The next week, CiCi was wide open and although her elimination was a blindside for her and perhaps for those watching, it seemed to be a foregone conclusion for the rest of us. CiCi was great to talk to but from everything I had been hearing, people were getting conflicting stories from her and it's hard to know who we could trust. CiCi was paranoid and she was making everyone else paranoid, so we turned our attention to her while we still had the chance. No offense to you CiCi, but you were definitely playing the game hard and that was what worried me most.
The week after, Jessica and I went straight to work on deciding whether it was time to take out Cass. We had a feeling that, eventually, Cass might strike first and take out us so we had to do something to ensure that didn't happen. Like CiCi, Cass was one of the more vocal players and so she had become "The Next Big Threat" and pitching her elimination to Candice, Penner and Nate wasn't hard. I assumed the players who weren't in the majority alliance would be on board with it too because they saw Cass as a threat and it also meant they wouldn't be targets that week. I see that as the first big blindside of the game.
The week after, I had spoken to Penner about a potential "implosion" of our alliance that might lead to the group fracturing and others making the Final 3. I did not know, at that time, the way the later weeks would play out, but I figured that voting Lil out was a good way to reaffirm that our alliance was still together. Lil was also a strong player so we were worried that she could, eventually, win an immunity and make it harder to vote her out.
Then came the week where Jessica was voted out. That was described as a blindside and everyone thinks that the moment we all realized what was going on was when Rocky accidentally CC'd Jessica on a message that he shouldn't have, but that's not true. Jessica, Candice and I suspected much sooner that Nate and Penner would turn on us and target Jessica that week. My goal, then, was two-fold: Try to save Jessica, if possible, because she was my ally and also a bigger threat than me and if she went home, I could be next. And also try to make sure I wasn't the backup plan if Jessica won immunity. Well, she didn't win immunity, but I also wasn't able to save her.
Candice and I quickly went back to the drawing board because we knew if the Penner/Nate alliance remained in power, we were the next two to go and I knew that if Candice won immunity, which was a possibility, it would be me unless I crafted an alternative plan. So I talked to as many people as much as I could that week and found an angle I could spin. Both Nate and Penner wanted credit from the jury for taking out Jessica, but if they both made the Final 3, there was a distinct possibility that they would split the votes of the people who wanted Jessica to go home. When I pitched that idea to Penner, he bought into it. Sure enough, Candice won immunity that week, so I knew if my plans weren't solid, I was a goner and sure enough, in another close vote, I was safe and Nate was going home. I took that as a sign that I was making the right moves in this game to keep myself safe and on the road to the Final 3.
And then came the Final 3 eliminations of this game. Had Rebecca not dropped out, Penner had said to me that he wanted her and I in the Final 3 with him. He could tell the jury that he had bonded with Rebecca. That was true, but there was still the risk that he and I would be in the same situation as India's Final 3, so I knew we needed a backup plan and when Rebecca essentially dropped out, the race was on. There were 3 slots and 4 people and I knew that I needed to make sure I was one of those 3 that made it. I found it interesting that at the last tribal council, my name never came up as a possibility on who to vote for. Part of me thought it was because I did a good job of convincing everyone that I wasn't the biggest threat to win. Rocky and Candice were bigger threats for the reasons that they spoke about. I had the power in that Tribal Council to force a tie where, on a revote, I knew Penner wouldn't change his mind and we'd likely end up drawing rocks or forcing a challenge between Candice and Rocky. It was a risk to vote for Rocky and not a risk I was willing to take because I knew Candice, despite being one of my closest allies in the latter half of this game, was the one to beat. Her popularity in challenges and otherwise had proven that. She had convinced Rocky to give her immunity. She had gotten the most votes for most likely to win. Taking her to the Final 3 would be to ignore all those warning signs, so I took the vote into my hands and put myself in the best position I could to win this game. It was an impossibly hard decision because I truly do like Candice and, if I wasn't so sure she would do phenomenally when faced with the jury, I would have taken her from a personal standpoint. But from a strategy standpoint, I stand by my decision.
I did what it took to avoid being seen as both a Threat and a Goat. I did what it took to save myself from two near-miss votes. I convinced Penner to vote out Nate or risk sharing the credit for Jessica's elimination and bought myself another week which proved to be enough to get me here, to the Final 3. I offered an alliance to Rocky long before the Nate blindside, which led to him coming back to me after that and taking me up on that offer. I put myself in a position where my name wasn't even brought up at the last tribal council. And I did all this while not ever winning an individual immunity. I played a wholly social game that got me to the Final 3. At this point, you may not agree that it was the best strategy, but I ask that you keep an open mind. Tonight is about all of us trying to convince you that we played the best game and that we are the person who deserves the title of Sole Survivor. I hope by giving you honest, well-thought out answers about how I played this game, I can do that. It's been great to play with all of you and I look forward to your questions.
