Board Thread:Season 46 - Kariba/@comment-29651946-20180414121944/@comment-33060993-20180414193833

Hey Dan!!! Legit. Thank you so much for this. Call me a weird bitch, but I LOVE hearing criticisms, because the specificity of your speech really gives me an opportunity to address all of your concerns and perhaps earn your vote. I’m sorry for the delay - there is a LOT to go through with you.

I think more than anything else - what I’m starting to see is that I put a LOT of thought into things. Like I would never make a move without essays of confessionals, some that I’ll include the overall vibe I’m getting is that the jury is lacking specificity and evidence from a complex thought process that my speech may have genuinely undercut in an attempt not to force jurors to read a novel. There was a LOT I didn’t go into, because I tried to get to the essentials, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that I should go into more, which I intend to do with Jack's response. I’ll kinda address your points first and then go into your questions.

(And yes - my speech for you is actually twice the size of my FTC speech so I really am thankful for the opportunity to really get into these details and for the chance to earn your vote!! I really encourage other jurors to read through because I think I address some of your concerns here!) and it's not even done omfg. I will get back soon, but have to leave for call-time.

''“I think that, given my interactions with you, I could figure out that I wasn’t really someone you were looking out for or had any real interest in working long term. The main reason I say this is because we had minimal strategic conversations, like MINIMAL and so you didn’t surprise me when you voted me off, cute picture and all. I actually wanted to take you out two times: premerge cuz I had you as my target and then target you at the first merge vote because I had assumed you had an idol. I’m probably one of the few people who had a read on your game for a good chunk of the game but that don’t matter cuz my ass died early as hell.”''

That’s a very fair point; I didn’t go clarify in my speech, but the alliance network I mentioned on Zambezi 1.0 only lasted so long and was really only supposed to work within the context of the time to foster a deeper connections - I would go on to work with all of the Zambezis on the swapped tribes in some capacity (formally aligned with Dovile/Louise, but still conversing frequently strategically with Liz and sometimes, Ben), but it became relatively clear to me that once we merged, you and Becky had found a different direction in this game. I tried to maintain strategic bonds with her, and we did discuss votes, but that was because there was a distinction on our interactions throughout the Augusto vote: she kept me in the know, and when I tried to give you the same opportunity, you shifted the conversation point to personal (something along the lines of “maybe you should focus on schoolwork”) and then assumed I had voted the wrong way, all of which was very offsetting for me on a strategic level and kinda made you one of the people I saw myself less likely to work with. I felt like you didn’t trust me for whatever reason and my immediate assumption was that you all were perhaps aware that I was aligned with quite a few people in some capacity.

Voting confessional excerpt:

i just don't feel like i can trust you moving forward. you weren't straightforward with me on the augusto vote and that raised more red flags than some post-vote reassurances lowered. with ms. dovile's idol, this is p locked so thanks for a good game and hopefully you get a jury spot!

''“Anyway’s that’s enough about my personal feelings about you, I want to you about your case... that you haven’t made very cohesive so it’s a literal headache to follow your points. I think your points Jake are not concrete enough, you can *Claim* that you influenced things but what we need is concrete evidence. I also don’t think you really are as self aware as you probably thought you were coming off in the game, I mean you were always pretty confident with who was going when you draw your little pictures, which is why I believe you were indeed blindsided at final 9 (I’m pretty sure you’re going to claim you weren’t but I don’t think I can be convinced otherwise *shrug*)”''

I was. I won’t pretend otherwise. I suspected something was off, but my busy ass was at rehearsal and didn’t really have the time to dig - I did admit that in my speech: “meaning I was unaware when Drew went.” I think my mistake was placing too much confidence in how hard Drew was playing — I didn’t see an outcome wherein people who only had kind things to say about him voted him out, but in retrospect - I only had kind things to say about him too and it was my planned move for F8. In my mind, Matthias was going. The other side was throwing Vincent/Jack out as targets, though the overall consensus was that Vincent was a decoy for Drew and Jack’s name got somehow thrown in the mix. It’s not my strongest round and I won’t pretend otherwise, but there were highlights that I truly believe outweighed this and I’ll go into them in a little and on Jack's response, which might also be an essay dskjhfhkjsfd!

''The reason you did so well imo (and you can dispute this) is that you had virtually no allies at final 6 when it would’ve been rational to take you out, people took out Matthias because of him being aligned with Hals. Final 4 was also good for you because for whatever reason Vincent kept you, I don’t know why, I would love that elaborated but if it was because you had somewhat worked him over then congrats. I don’t think however it was your intention to take out dovile and then see louise go and put yourself on the bottom, I really do feel like this is something you did that was unintentional, but super beneficial. but, again, this is just my opinion. :P''

Ahh! I guess I didn’t go into my exact alliances in my speech, so I’ll map them out:

Some of these were just voting blocs, but this was every formal chat I was in across the season:

As you might be able to infer, Gossip Girl, Legends Only, and Two Straights and Jake were really my core for a lot of the season.

A - Gossip Girl: Jake/Augusto/Dovile/Elizabeth/Louise - F17 - F15

A - Skinny Legends: Jake/Augusto/Becky/Dan - F15

A - Legends Only: Jake/Dovile/Louise - F14 - F10

VB - Unnamed: Jake/Drew/Vincent/Roisin/Jack - F9

A - Two Straights and Jake: Jake/Vincent/Jack - F8 - F5

A - Unnamed 2: Jake/Louise/Vincent/Roisin/Jack - F8 - F7

VB - Unnamed 3: Jake/Hals/Roisin/Matthias - F6

VB - Unnamed 4: Jake/Vincent/Jack/Roisin - F6

At Final 6, I had three real strategic alliances and one false one -

Jake, Roisin, Hals: This was v low key and I’m hesitant to include it, but all three of us discussed making a F3 and that was the foundation for Hals/Matthias attempting to cooperate with us at the vote.

Jake, Vincent, Jack: Myself and the straights!! We made this at F9 when Drew had left and the game looked somewhat grim for us. We immediately established that it was time to start playing harder and being more direct, and that the easiest crack to exploit was Roisin/Louise being on the outs of their alliance of five, which obviously happened. Nonetheless, this was a core for quite a few votes before Jack left at F5.

Jake, Vincent, Jack, Roisin: This was just a formal chat for the voting bloc that would vote Matthias, wherein we kinda strategized a little, but it was really just a formality!

And then there was the fake voting bloc of myself, Hals, Matthias, and Roisin, wherein I did not really try to sell the story to keep the lying at a minimum, because I knew I wouldn’t be voting with that group, but wanted to preserve a strategic bond with Hals.

I felt strongly that I couldn’t move forward with Hals/Matthias, though, because Roisin informed me that Jack had messaged her, informing her Matthias told him I was targeting him, (telephone oml) which was directly leaking my conversation with Matthias wherein we did discuss getting the votes for Jack by working with Roisin, at which point I threw Matthias’ name and the next day Roisin reaffirmed that that was our best direction. At that point, I attempted to reaffirm Alliance #2 by convincing Vincent we had to go on Matthias when he was relatively set on voting Jack. I broke it down to him in the simplest terms that Matthias’ plan to flip the situation on me wasn’t gaining traction yet, but could potentially if we were to throw an ally away. It took a lot of campaigning, but Vincent agreed safe was better than sorry and that given I had just voted Hals at F7, Matthias could have an easy time finding votes for me and thus, I asked Vincent to plant a lie with Jack, something along the lines of “Matthias approached Jake trying to get him to vote you, but Jake wasn’t here for that”, and then I reaffirmed by saying “I think they’ll try to turn us against each other” to Jack or something along those lines. In my opinion, this reaffirmed Jack’s stance with us and given Roisin’s open season target was Matthias, four votes were found for him, plus she was concerned about moving into the next phase with a duo. So this vote definitely wasn’t one wherein I was ignored due to a lack of connections, but rather one where I threw two names, and both gained enough traction that they both received votes.

As for the Final Four situation, I really tried to break it down to Vincent why Hals would win the game and guarantee he didn’t. I said they appealed to different voting demographics  (as Hals’ social was v strong with quite a few people) within the jury, and that he and Roisin would be left fighting for the remaining votes, which he would not receive compared to her game, which was strategically stronger. I also tried to play on Roisin’s flaws in our conversations and hype her down as a finalist to convince him it would be us two fighting for votes and that she would be a third-place finalist due to a follower mentality, which surprisingly worked well. I tried a similar approach with Roisin, but most of her responses were "ahhhhh!" and "truee" which was very offsetting and ultimately indicative of the direction she would take.

And then for my role with Ms. Dovile, here is some evidence to back what I’m saying from my confessional excerpts:

post-results at F10:

“we could've preserved it and used it going forward, but i'd rather leave her vulnerable because she makes a MESS that way. desperation and dovile do not mix well.

plus i always have mine xoxo.”

pre-immunity results at F10:

“there really are three factions rn and it's about letting people see that. i definitely have my eyes on drew. he's playing the best and i'm not here for it. i'm too tethered to louise and dovile to play all sides, which is why losing one of them might be ideal for my game”

post-immunity at F10:

“if dovile went, she’d be frustrated with me, but she’d the perfect martyr upon which to flip hals/becky/matthias on “the middle” with louise and i to take a shot at a larger player like drew or jack in a round or two. it’d be a strategic necessity albeit a personal loss. girl has EYES on her and sometimes that extends to me which is not okay for my game.”

''I guess my problem with your jury management so far Jake is that your case is like throwing every case point and every idea in *your* head and seeing what will stick and what won’t, and while you do make good points, you also have points that don’t add up 100% and therefore sour my overall perception of you and it makes it very difficult to see your cohesive game. It was good that you weren’t seen as being linked to anyone because it ultimately meant Vincent underestimated you and Roisin waited too long to take you out, but… the fact that you don’t identify this as your strongest point in your case, and instead something SOMEONE ELSE did that you *may* have influenced, means that after reading your responses it leaves more questions unanswered and just makes your case far too complicated for my dumbass to follow LMFAO.''

I really do think I did influence that outcome; it’s just weird claiming credit for what was such a decisive part of the merge; for clarifications, I brought receipts that it was my contribution that set the plan to rope in the other Hwadzes by leaking information to them and splitting up the majority that would vote Dovile. And I do think it was one of  bigger moves because it strategically routed me to Drew, Roisin, Vincent, and Jack, which became the foundation for my role in quite a few of the merge votes!!

Confessional excerpt from F11 vote:

“so i kindly suggested to my dear friend dovile that she leak the hwadze 2.0 alliance of dan, becky, hals, matthias to everyone to get a 7-4 and she did. i didn't expect people to be so loose-lipped about it bc now there is DRAMA. it got back to becky and she is coming for dovile now. i used it to pull A LOT of info from her though since she realized she needs me on her side now xoxo. half of it was probably a lie, but i can still use it against her later if necessary.”

Conversation excerpts when I suggested the approach we used to flip Hwadze on itself:

DOVILE

Becky told me they have alliance with Hals&Matt

Noo

They are close

But the problem is that, Dan and Backy did not inform me about it

JAKE

yikes that's not good but it could mean it'd be easy to get the other 7 on board

LOUISE

They aren’t online Matthias only came to me just now abt it

DOVILE

So I am 99% sure Dan and Becky lie us

Dang

Why do people wanna vote me out

Like what did I do

So guys

JAKE

if drew/roisin/vince all knew they were on the outs on hwadze 2.0

we could pull them in?

LATER

DOVILE

I do not know Vince or Drew

How do u know they are with us

LOUISE

But if we don’t talk to them we might not have any chance of keeping you

DOVILE

Well, this is right..

JAKE

idk i think if they heard they were on the outs on hwadze 2.0

they'd join in

then we just kinda went in the specifics of who would talk to who, what we’d heard, our targeting options, etc - but I do really think this conversation shows it was my idea, but because I wasn’t headlining the conversations, I managed to hide my involvement!! Instead I was really trying to follow up, enforce opinions, and play a little dumb.

Is it my biggest move? Perhaps. I really think I planted the seed that grew into a huge decisive merge moment and avoided the association with it. Even the hesitation overall to accept it from the jury kinda evidences exactly how much I managed to instill this other perception in my one-on-ones. Other big moves included the Jack vote, but those were more to display strategic acumen and weren’t AS decisive for my own game as I was already close to set for FTC.

As for your questions, 1) You spent a lot of time building up your own case in your speech, but I would like to see how you think your game is compared to someone sitting next to you: Give me 3 reasons why Roisin deserves to win why over you and 3 reasons why you deserve to win over Roisin.  

Three reasons why Roisin deserves to win over me:

⁃ She navigated this game with a successful flip-flop strategy whereas my strategy was a little less consistent and hard to pin down in a speech.

⁃ She received zero votes throughout this game, whereas I received three, indicating my ability to manage a target might have been less solid.

⁃ She always voted majority, whereas I was blindsided twice, which I personally attribute to the swapped situation translating to the merge, but also to some of my own weaknesses!

Three reasons why I deserve to win over Roisin:

⁃ She followed others and voted outcomes that weren’t ideal for her game: Dovile / Louise. In ROP, she admitted this wasn’t what she wanted; every vote I made, I voted exactly what I thought was best for my game and relationship network. If we’re measuring strategic success by ideal outcomes, even though she was in the know on Louise and Dovile - it was not what she wanted, at which point she didn’t use her knowledge to advance, but rather to sit by and watch allies die. By that measure, we could really be on even ground with regards to voting outcomes.

⁃ Her social game was relatively lacking and she was harder to connect to; you pinned it down perfectly - she lowered her threat level, but at the expense of her ability to connect to others and I feel like when she was included, it was more of as a number than a serious voice. Her position was excellent, but when did she use it to set and execute a target? I don’t think she orchestrated an outcome, but picked another player’s plan and did that all the way until the bitter end. I’m not saying I was a mastermind, but I feel strongly that there were several votes where I was more instrumental in the outcome, which I’ll go into in Jack’s response.

⁃ I overcame a lot more adversity in this game. There are some things truly out of our control - like me losing allies across the swapped tribe and her having more time to cement her position. Hwadze / Hwadze 2.0 members just had an easier time this season due to luck of the draw. Four out of five made it to Final Six. I lost all of my Zambezi friends, some admittedly by choice and some by swapped circumstance, and had to form critical new bonds with Hwadze to advance; she had twenty more days to navigate that dynamic and was not on top of it, and there were several people who I feel felt closer to me despite more time to get to know her (e.g. Jack/Vincent)

2)      I know you’ve got a lot of questions to answer but if you don’t mind can you run us through your game again, but this time sort of focus in on like the really crucial points, gameplay where YOU directly affected your fate in this game and how your decisions got you to day 39, I know it’s a lot to ask but a more tidy case may help me and maybe a few people see a case that flows better.

Okay! I think the common theme in each of the moments I am about to list is how intuition translated into action. In other words, I used my strategic perceptions and understanding of the dynamic to advance myself and prioritize myself and how to get to this moment. I know a concern of yours is a cohesive depiction of my game - I think I truly understood what I needed to be and when I needed to be it, allowing me to manipulate outcomes that worked to advance me to FTC! I was adaptive strategically. There were times when I'd anchor down to my loyalties, like I did in swapped tribes, and times when I'd abandon them to advance, like I did with Dovile and Augsto. There were times where I'd push in challenges to secure myself safety while dynamics set or to make big moves, like I did at F11 and at F5, and times where I knew I didn't need it and wouldn't try, like I did with the F10/F9 immunities. There were times where I'd play aggressive and blatantly hard, like I did F7-F4, or times where I'd take a more quiet role, like I did from F10-F9. I was really just understanding of my place and what style of play was best suited for an individual round. Some might call it messy, but I'd disagree because it got me to where I am. I’d say my decisive moments that really benefitted me and evidence this were: I think a lot of this was strategically more bold and decisive in general than the moves my fellow finalists made, which were more following the directions of others rather than setting their own!
 * 1) Not going to a 4-4 tie on the Augusto vote and exposing my game and instead using it as an opportunity to cement bonds rather than destroy them. It allowed me to work with almost everyone from Zambezi moving forward, which would prove crucial to my survival.
 * 2) Siding with Dovile and Louise against Ben and Elizabeth, allowing me to secure an idol and walk into the merge with allies I could fully trust. It definitely set the direction for my game for a solid four tribals and allowed me to pull off the next move:
 * 3) Enacting the plan to flip Hwadze on itself by exposing the Blackpink alliance consisting of yourself, Becky, Hals, and Matthias, resulting in your own elimination and setting a target on Becky, Hals, and Matthias that would plague them across the merge as a “threat” due to how solid they were with each other. It pulled people in the middle like Louise/Roisin to vote with me and the straights on more than one occasion! Even Roisin just admitted a factor in Becky’s premature departure was the association with Hals/Matthias. Not claiming credit, but contribution! Went into this above, so won’t reiterate!
 * 4) Advising Dovile misplay her idol, leaving her more vulnerable and allowing myself not to be tethered to her side by voting her. With her tenacious approach, she’d become a sinking ship and I needed to jump. Hwadze would be deciding the merge, and I needed more friends than enemies.
 * 5) Forming crucial connections to Jack, Vincent, Drew, Hals, and Roisin that would allow me to navigate several merge votes. I worked with all of them across the merge in a series of alliances.
 * 6) After Louise left, it was really a wake-up call to how tight Hwadze was and how hard I would have to work to stay in. I’d say I played a large role in the Matthias vote - when he attempted to turn things on me, I went to action and did what I could to guarantee he would leave using my own alliance network, which I went into above.
 * 7) Knowing Jack had played one of the best games and posed a severe immunity threat, utilizing advantages to see him go was definitely my most fine-tuned and well-executed move. There was another layer that I tried to add, but a certain someone’s personal ambitions deterred that in a way that left me going with a 4-0 vote instead of the 2-0 one I wanted.
 * 8) Surviving this final vote! Roisin is definitely backtracking in her commentary on this round. She theoretically voted me to gain sympathy with Hals on jury, so that she could directly SAY she only did it for that reason, letting Hals know it wasn’t sincere only two days after it happened? As I think I’ve said, my shows started, IB exams are in a month, and I’ve been crazy busy - the time FIC took was just not something I had and I knew losing would pit me against Hals, but I still managed to convince Vincent it was better for his game and work the tiebreaker, which I went into above.

There are also smaller moments that I think added to perceptions of me as less of a factor and took the target off my back: I will get to your third question in a little because I have a lot to say for that too, but I need a mental breather and wanted you all to know I am alive and I’ve just been writing this response since I woke up fsdjjsfdhk. Thank you for giving me a chance at your vote - I really really appreciate it and have my final show after three years of theatre tonight, so I just need some time to breathe and focus on that, but I will get back to you and others in a little with this because legit writing this really helped me, so I thank you for giving me a chance to address all of this!!
 * 1) Consistently referring to myself as a goat in my interactions with Hals, Matthias, and Becky before F8. I’ll go into this more in my response to her, but I think it was a factor in taking the target off me at that vote.
 * 2) Blaming the Becky vote on Louise/Roisin. Naming Becky herself was more their initiative; admittedly, if they asked me to pick a name, I still would have picked Becky because it was the easiest out of the trio - but after Matthias blew up at me in the tribe chat, I decided to still have a conversation with him, knowing it could backfire - but I ended up getting him even more set on Louise than before. It put her in front of me on his priority list and perhaps those of others, but I don't know how true the second part is given that Jack really was behind the Louise vote and I don't think the two of them were vibing at that point considering he was also unaware she was leaving.