Board Thread:Season 12 - All-Stars/@comment-4723941-20140216131319/@comment-11497002-20140217054837

Hi Sole,

I thank you for putting up with my monstrous speech so I can handle yours :)

Thank you for your honest and quite accurate critique of my game. I did lie low in this game because I didn’t want to be seen as a threat. But whilst I did try to hide my allies, moves and plans I was still playing this game just as hard as anyone else. Visibility is not an indicator of effort or quality. And I was still very much aware of what was going on in the game. I was just able to keep my game a secret. You’re right, I probably did focus more on how the votes would go down, who would stay in and who would work with me. If I lose, it will probably be because the jury doesn’t know me well enough or doesn’t feel invested enough in me.

I know I didn’t talk to you as much as I did to others but I still think we kept in regular contact. Part of the problem is that we were never on a tribe together. I talked to everyone on my first two tribes, tried to be friendly and welcoming and involved them in my game. I think we still had a bond even without being on a tribe together so I think that would have been much stronger if we’d actually got to play the game together. I still considered you as someone who would work with me and I did try to at the merge. My social game was perhaps weak in areas but I think it was very strong in others. I didn’t talk to everyone but those I did talk to I was very sociable with. If I could have brought that level of sociability to more people in the cast I would have but I’m a shy person and with time constraints and life priorities I just couldn’t be as sociable as I should have.



Summarise your strategy throughout the game in one sentence.

I am the one person I can always rely on and I’ve got to be my top priority, so if one alliance or plan is working go with it, if not it’s time to find a better one.

Why are you more deserving of the title than both Lloyd and Gerda?

I honestly believe I played the better game. You really hit the nail on the head with your assessment of Gerda. She had to rely on others throughout this game whereas, while I worked with others, I was still playing my game, not someone else’s. I didn’t have someone holding my hand telling me “stick with me, vote with me and I’ll get us through to the end”. Like you said, once Adam was gone Gerda completely fell apart. It shows that Adam was the one keeping his alliance together because once he was gone she didn’t have any control over Andrei, Taylor or Lloyd. At the end of the game, they all sided with me. When Gerda was begging to stay and threatening to quit, I remained strong and rational, using my strategic savvy and connections with the remaining players to have them vote the way I wanted them to. I didn’t have the strongest social game but it was still solid enough that I could rely on it when I needed it. I focused very hard on my connections with Taylor, Andrei and Lloyd, and I feel confident they will all say I had a very good social game in regards to them. I used my strategic ability to make sure they would be the ones at the end so that my social skills could once again come into play and finish the game strong. I knew when to make moves, when to hold back, when to step forward and take charge, when to let someone else take the heat. I think I played on many different levels and played a much more complex game than simply sticking with a majority alliance, like Gerda and Lloyd did. Gerda will say I coasted and followed people, and that I was never in danger but that shows her supreme lack of understanding of what actually took place in this game. She worried about herself and nobody else. If you were her ally you were her best friend; if not then she didn’t care about you at all.

In comparison to Lloyd, I think he played a decent game but was far too insular. Once he was in an alliance he didn’t really think outside of that. He didn’t consider making moves or switching alliances to better his position. I took the risks Lloyd was too afraid to make and they paid off for me. Lloyd set himself up to go far in the game but once he’d done that he sort of coasted and hoped that his alliance would see him through to the end. I didn’t leave anything up to chance. If I was going to make it to the final I knew it was going to be based on my own hard work.



As to assessing what you perceived our threat levels to be:

I honestly don’t think you would have regarded me as much of a threat. I doubt many people did at the start of the game, which I used to my advantage. I’d guess I was in your bottom 5, I’d say around 20th.

For Gerda, as a winner I presume you perceived her as somewhat of a threat. However, you also knew her game well which meant you knew how she would likely play. I think that reduces her threat level. I don’t think you would have felt personally overly threatened by her but you thought she could be a threat in terms of going far in this game. I’d guess she was in your top 10, but below some of the other winners like Adam, and other players like Skandi and Alejandro. I’ll say around 7th.

I imagine you considered Lloyd ‘s winner status but saw him as less threatening than Gerda. He won a lot of immunities in Revival so I imagine you saw that as a possible threat. I don’t think you would have seen him as much of a strategic threat so I’ll say you ranked him around the middle; I’ll go with about 15th.



Thanks for getting to know me and my game Sole. And thanks for giving me something I can work on. If I were to play again I would definitely focus on improving my relationships with people.