Board Thread:Season 28 - Generations/@comment-25270574-20151009063700/@comment-24215409-20151011033333

Hello Tyler Poirier!!

1) Why should I make you a 2 time winner over someone who hasn't had a chance to win yet? Should I ignore what you said about nobody liking the idea of voting for a 2 time winner?

When I told you that about no one wanting a two time winner, I said that to make you think I wouldn’t have a shot at winning. I wanted to work with you, I enjoyed the calls we had together and I didn’t want you or anyone else to feel threatened by the fact that I have won this game before. When sitting on the jury in Heroes vs. Villains, I wanted to be the two time winner but Adam played a good game. He was constantly targeted, he created strong social bonds with people and he played humbly and appreciated every opportunity he was given in the game and at the end of the day that’s why the jury awarded him with the win. We all liked and respected him both as a person and as a player and knew that he would be extremely grateful to be a two time winner. Just like the Heroes vs. Villains jury did, I think you should abandon the idea that no one wants a two time winner. If you disregard the fact that I am a previous winner, I think I played an incredibly strong and well rounded game and when you add in the fact that I have won the game previously, I think it makes it far more impressive that I was able to once again make it to this point of the game. I think that I deserve to be a two time winner, it is not a coincidence that I ended up here. I worked so fucking hard to be sitting here in final tribal council. I made the moves I needed to, I won challenges and I created incredibly strong social connections with people in a game that is all about social politics. I think it’s a testament to my game that as a previous winner I was able to once again make it to this point of the game.

2) Why did you lie about the idol so long? I mean It was bound to get back to us at SOME point before the merge

The reason I lied about the idol for so long was because I felt like I was protecting myself. I have learnt that the more people who know about your idol, the less effective it is. I have also been burned by idols in the past and I didn’t want to repeat the same mistakes I had made in the past. The way I saw the idol was it was a last resort. I wanted to play the game and make the end without ever having to use the idol and I succeeded at that. I didn’t want to use the idol as a way to gain an ally or someone’s trust, I wanted to be able to do that on my own. The initial reason I didn’t tell you about the idol was because we were on separate tribes, I knew there was a lot of cross tribal communication happening and I felt like keeping that secret between myself and Jessy was the best thing for me at that point in time. When we got to the swap, I continued to lie about the idol because I felt as if I would be targeted for having it. I wasn’t extremely comfortable with my position knowing that both Jessy and Kevin, my allys, were targets at the first tribal council at the swap. I felt that even if people suspected I had it, suspicion is better than knowing for a fact and I wasn’t very comfortable with my position and I almost played the idol to save Jessy when Tom had left. Around that time, I told Kevin about the idol. The two of us were getting closer and I felt that it was appropriate to tell him. I obviously didn’t expect him to tell Ricky and for Ricky to go and tell the entire cast that I had it. I always planned on telling you guys at the merge, regardless of if you knew or not. I felt that because we weren’t on the same tribe, me having the idol shouldn’t have any influence on your game and when we did get together, I told you. I do realize how shady it looked that after I found out people knew, I told them but I was going to anyways.

3) What are the main strategic moves you made that I might not know about?

I think that there are a few strategic moves that I made that you are probably not aware of, I think you know about the rest!

While on Qahtan, I was aligned with everyone with the exception of Taylor. Because we had a lot of luck in challenges I was able to take the time to build relationships with my tribe mates. When the triple tribal happened, I knew that we would be swapping next so I targeted Taylor because he was the least active member of our tribe. I knew that the relationships I was forming with my tribe mates would help me at the swap and they did.

I may have mentioned this before, I don’t remember, but I changed my sleep schedule for this game. While we were on Qahtan, I used to stay up to talk to Joan almost every night. Because Joan lives in Spain, he used to wake up everyday at 3am EST and I would stay up to talk to him and we Skyped at 3am. From that point on I haven’t been able to sleep before 4am because I’ve spent the entire game staying up to talk to people who are in different timezones. I never wanted to be that person who missed out on an opportunity in the game so my body adapted so I could do what I needed to in the game.

Right when the merge started, Ricky and I made a genuine connection both in and outside of the game. After we made that connection I made a conscious effort to make sure that Ricky was the person who I would turn to when I needed a friend for non game related matters rather than the people I normally went to. Don’t get me wrong, our relationship was 100% genuine but I did this in order to strengthen our friendship and as our friendship grew stronger and stronger so did our alliance. It was something very subtle but it definitely helped us connect on a more personal level.

After Tyler R. was voted out, I was in a position where I was receiving a lot of information. Ricky told me everything and he was receiving information from Molly and Amelia. I had Kevin and Yap in my alliance who gave me game information and I also had Jessy and Mihai giving me information.

I think a big strategic move that I made that no one really knows about was to target Amelia. Amelia is someone I have a tremendous amount of respect for and I knew that everyone left in the game felt the same way. The round that Amelia left, Molly was the initial target. In my mind, Amelia was a much bigger threat and I felt like they needed to go instead of Molly. After talking to a lot of people I knew how the two of them were perceived and I knew that Amelia had a much higher chance of being able to work their way out of any sticky situations (s/o to baylor) so in my mind, it didn’t make sense to get rid of Molly because I knew she wouldn’t be able to integrate herself as well as Amelia would have been able to. I had approached people with the idea of voting Amelia out before the immunity challenge results. That round we had Touchy Subjects and Molly won immunity. The results of the challenge proved to everyone that Amelia needed to go if anyone wanted a shot at winning the game. I think that being able to identify Amelia as a threat before anyone was really considering writing their name down, shows that I had deep understanding of the social dynamics of the tribe.

When Jessy was voted out, Kevin came to Ricky and I and told us about her plans to blindside me that round. I also had Mihai come to me and tell me the same thing. When Kevin told us, myself, Ricky, Yap and Kevin all agreed to vote Jessy which was a majority and we decided to keep it on the DL. When Mihai came to me, I pretended that I didn’t know and told him that myself, Ricky and Yap were already voting for Molly so if he joined us we could form a majority and Molly would leave along with her express pass. I did that so in the event that Jessy was going to play the idol on our target in order to ensure that I left and Mihai came to me to find out who it was, I would still be safe and the idol would be played on the wrong person.

One very crucial thing that I did was make sure that Kevin was always kept in line. When we found out that Kevin was coming after us, Ricky and I got on call with him and told him that we forgave him and we still wanted to work with him. He ended up spilling the beans on a lot of things. From that point on, I made sure that every night before tribal council I got on call with Kevin and Ricky. We had a Skype group and I would call it every time we went to tribal council and if anything fishy was going on, Kevin always told us about it.