FTC Commentary

I've yet to read how the Jury is receiving this. So just IMO for now, the openers;

BJ: Good enough summation of his early game, but no-ones cares about pre-merge ever. Glosses over a few key points later but for the most part shows he had a good grasp of the game. Buuut, he doesn't really address the things the Jury is gonna be concerned about. I hope he's just leaving it so there'll be space for them to ask about it, but more likely he's read their focus incorrectly. He's not really presented himself as anything other than "doing enough to get here" which they already know. And he's nearly totally skipped anything about endgame. Also not a peep about the other two or why he stacks up better than they do.

Solid enough, no major fuck-ups, but a lot of gaps;
6/10



Lisa: Lol Lisa, I expected nothing less. She's not tried to claim extra credit for intentionally UTRing than she genuinely did (like I would have in her shoes :P ) and it's come across as genuine. It's at least showing an awareness of her position even if not what was going on around her too much. There is a passion and personality that is missing from BJ's. Brevity and just nailing what she wants to cover will work wonders too.

To the point and PPP as ever;
7/10



Kim's is actually pretty wow. I'm not blown away by it (and I'm biasedly rooting for her :P ) but she's nailed it for the most part. She's worked in most of the game with good understandable reasons for her flaws and how she worked around them, showing a pretty fine awareness of everything happening. This will sit very well with the strategy-based voters, but my biggest fear is that there are a few voters there she needs to target to steal away from the other two. For example Jolanda is one she could rob, but she's not made any move at schmoozing her. It might be a little dishonest if she did but hey, you gotta dig deep :P Get em where you can

Showing great awareness with a few little touches that give her more personality than most might have seen so far. Realistic, but maybe to much so :P
8/10

In fact let me stay right out of Ponderosa and Juror confessionals for the moment.

Caryn's question; (lol at Caryn owning the FTC thread before she'd even asked a thing )

Kim's answer is good. it boils down to yes I played in Tom's shadow, that was intentional & F6 was a pretty damn good time to step out of it.
BJ is starting to get a feel for how the Jury views his game a takes a good opportunity to try fight that perception. idk if that's possible any more.
Despite Caryn's snarkiness, Lisa gives a damn fine answer. She was never getting Caryn's vote anyway, so reinforcing the loyalty card is a good option.

I have a theory on these FTCs and basically there is no sure fire way to win them because every game, jury, and finalist is different. What you can do is take your main argument and hammer it home over and over (look at Penny). You need to consolidate the Jurors who are already voting for you, and hope that you can convince the others that your game was the best way for you to play and you were damn good at doing it that way. In Lisa's case, it has to be loyalty thus keeping allies confident in you, and non-threatening thus keeping enemies off your back. Hammer those points home girl.

The one thing she's yet to mention that could do her a world of good is how she was very rarely in any real danger.

Chris's question;

I'm glad someone asked Kim this because she really didn't touch on it much of anything in her OP. She continues in the honest vein and admits she may not have been in a great spot, but she sure wasn't in the worst. She does miss an opportunity and kinda stuffs up commenting on Caryn maybe leaving first. There was a golden op to point out how by being in not the best spot, had she gone with a Caryn boot then things not led to Lisa's next, it would have been a bigger target for such a big flip of the script. i.e. Playing the middle ground is what she's been best at, and the biggest reason she stayed alive so long. An opportunity missed.

Thank Christ BJ clears up that "playing to be in the minority" comment from earlier. he seems to have fared the best on this question of the three. What sounded like madness a few posts back makes a lot more sense now. I just hope for his sake people are reading all the posts and not just dipping.

Lisa gives a pretty good answer too, some people may not be aware that her head was actually in the game, but she's starting to open some eyes I hope. idk if it's gonna be enough though, she has a lot of ground to make up. But again, for her it's a case of hammering home her selling points and hammering them hard. I know it would be totally out of character for her, but she needs to start exploiting the other players flaws some. They are happy to give her schtick, she needs to bite back a bit - attack mode Lisa needs to undermine them any time they try to defend their integrity.

Jolanda's Question.

BJ's answer. Eek, he is making quite a big deal out of a nearly irrelevant part of the game unless he's thinks he has Jo in the bag, and is using the time to reinforce to Caryn that he didn't vote for her? Oooh fuck. idk idk, I didn't like that answer at all.

Kim. Is Kim actually attacking Lisa here? O.o Is she starting to fear Lisa's threat level Good woman yourself Lisa! Outside of that Kim gives a very reasoned argument to Jo that outlines exactly why it was in Kim's best interests to move away from the Chorotegan core. Kim would indeed have only made 5/6 had she stayed true. Unless Jolanda chooses to edit the game history in her mind she should take this answer very well. Although her response about not leaving Kim out of that group PM is confusing. I specifically remember a conversation in PM about whether they should include Kim in a certain Chorotegan merge group message. Hrmm, maybe it was between Ibe & Tom?

I'm afraid people aren't really reading Lisa messages with the delayed response she's dropping, but again she is answering better than I expected. That particular one shows she did have options in the game at certain points, but she chose not to flip or go a different route in order to get this far, and get this far with a solid rep.

Mia's question.

Wow.

BJ's answer. lol, yes he was not getting her vote but he got antagonistic with her without being fun about it. The Mia haters will love this, but these are the same votes he has locked in anyway. His ranking is probably the most accurate of the three too.

Kim's ranking takes a different approach. I do believe she's used that question as a chance to butter a few people up some without being crazy obvious about it. Maybe she didn't at all and I'm totally rose-tint-reading her answers right now :D The body of her answer compared to the others should be enough to lock Mia's vote in - so long as that's what she was really looking for. She kind of answered a question Mia didn't ask for, but she answered it really well :D Plus there's a little bit of fight in there too, but in a playful way.

Lisa continues to reinforce her main points. Anyone voting for that game is already locked in though. She needs to bolster her main argument with something else like attacking the other people's games like I mentioned, but unless someone directly asks her to do this, I don't think it will even cross her mind.

Bobby Jon - I had a question all prepared for you regarding randomly guessing words to type into a box that saved your game versus your actual gameplay. But I decided to scratch that. It's a dead horse.

Kim's answer to Chad is not all that great at all but I reckon his mind is already made up.

His "question" to BJ is hilarious in fairness, and BJ is probably right to steer well clear of even attempting to answer it. he can tell Chads vote is lost, and any kind of big argument here will only make him look worse. Is he savvy enough to realise Chad is the Juryhais driving force? Probably not. I don't think the Jury even realise that yet.

Lisa's answer. :/ well she's not getting Chad's vote regardless but I guess it's at least gonna confirm to anyone who's vote is really still up in the air that she had some awareness in the early game too.

Just when I though Ibrehem had eased off the self-righteous brigade. I just can't with that question. Although it's interesting to note here is an opening for Lisa to take the other players down a peg or two. Also interesting to note that BJ telling Tom about haveing the idol before Ibe's boot might haunt him yet. Might Ibrehem actually vote for Lisa??? O.o

Saying that, for the two overnight Qs of Ibe & Gregg, BJ scores some major points in my book. He explained away the very tricky subject of the idol treachery with ease, and then turned Gregg's question into a very legitimate answer about social game. Bobbi's strong suit compared to the other two in a certain light, and turns on the attack since defense isn't working out all that well for him.

But that's only in my book. Locking down Ibe's 90% BJ vote doesn't count for all that much in the grand scheme, and much as I liked the second answer, Does that gif mean Gregg didn't? idek.

Now I don't know whether to dip into Ponderosa & confessionals to see how wrong I am, or to try keep myself spoiler free til the reveal.

Like I could resist

Locked in votes so far;
Ibe: Booby

Chris: Kim
Mia: Kim

Tom & Chad have not voted yet but I find it hard to imagine either voting anyone but Kim.

Caryn is probably about 90% a Booby vote but it's not yet confirmed.

Jolanda has yet to vote and my gut says she is leaning Booby out of loyalty, but quite wants to vote Kim at the same time.

Gregg is a fucking mystery as ever. I suppose his fallen comrades will give us a hint;

Lisa- DENTAL PLAN

Bobby Jon - You are a nice guy idk if you played great or not i really checked out with the strategical he said she head mumba jumba after i left bra

Kim- IDK if you played great or not I guess you did or whatever

Ami is actually a very hard to call voter. I think in her heart she wants to vote Lisa, but knowing full well the rest of the votes aren't there, she is afraid of robbing Kim of a win and handing Booby it instead. And that's a very hard call indeed. I would hate to see Lisa get completely shut out because her game did have merit, but I would rather Lisa get shut out than Kim lose outright just so Lisa could be a single-vote third placer over a zero vote third placer.

I think Kim has it locked. Even with Ami voting Lisa and fulfilling here moral obligation, there should still be at least four votes locked in Kim's corner meaning unless Jolanda/Gregg change their minds, Ami will tie-break for Kim anyways. From her perspective, though, she wouldn't realize that, of course. Chris was the biggest vote in flux, in my mind.

I agree with your original post that Lisa could have actually crafted a pretty articulate (but disingenuous) argument about how with all the power players in the game, she knew she had to sit back to watch them take each other out, because the big movers were destined to go home and being quiet is the only way to never be targeted with the power shifts going down every other day.

And in your last post quote, Gregg sounds drunk.

And in your last post quote, Gregg sounds drunk.

Helen, meet Gnarls. Gnarls, meet Helen.

Tom should really stop trying to convince Ibe to not vote BJ. One glimpse at that latest argument and the conclusion is that well wait, had BJ played it on Ibe at F6 it would have been wasted. And they'd have a minority at five.

Sure it was selfish, but *correctly* playing it would have landed BJ in an FTC with Ibe most likely, or burning Ibe worse, and osing his locked in vote plus maybe more whichever way.

Furthermore, had Tom et al trusted Kim that round and laid three votes on Ibe, Kim would actually have maybe flipped her vote, which when planning for a tie might have been worth considering. Tom talks a lot of sense, but right now he is raging against a machine.

BJ's move was fine. There was far too much unpredictability in the air (with Kim possibly turning, unaware who the votes would land on, and from his perspective, whether Kim would even stay loyal once Ami was gone) that you can't really judge the guy for either playing it or not playing it that round. He wanted to keep it to guarantee himself F4. That's fine, nothing wrong with being selfish. Hell, another idol could've come into play at F5 and been used against HIM.

Sure, though, hindsight is 20/20. But I'm not sure what you mean by this:

had BJ played it on Ibe at F6 it would have been wasted. And they'd have a minority at five.

If Ibe held the idol, BJ was immune, and Ami/Kim were in the tie, only Lisa and Tom would draw rocks, so Tom would potentially defect against Ami (realizing they were losing a number either way, so why let it be himself) and simply hope that Kim fears Ibe being an FTC threat, teaming up with Tom/Lisa to take him out one last time. Landing us exactly where we got anyways. (Kim would've probably stayed true to BJ/Ibe, and yes, they'd have a majority, but simply running through scenarios here...)

There are heaps of arguments in favor of him using it, but there are definitely ones against, too. Since that's all complete and total speculation, I can't fault BJ for holding onto his idol (though there may have been better payoff for using it). In fact, he's probably all the better for it (HIM being BJ, specifically, not his alliance as a whole), since he's now getting the votes that would've otherwise gone to Ibe.

With that being said, there's no point arguing with Ibreham ever. "Bobby Jon LOVE. Tom HATE. Loyalty OBLIGATORY. PERIOD. STFU." It's not worth wasting breath on trying to get a broken record to change its tune.

I didn't actually read the thread this is about before writing that, since the over-activity of Ponderosa makes me feel faint (kinda like how Christy walked in for a moment and swore she would never return). Worst sauna on earth.

So, of course, much of what I said here was already said there.

Oops no, you are right. that doesn't work out the way I'm thinking. That makes Tom's argument even worse

Also, do you want to do a host's fallen comrades for cast reveal? Like, we'd reveal each player's identity one post at a time, along with a *brief* and (mostly) complimentary comment on their game.

I've always liked the fuss and pomp around doing it that as opposed to Jeff's plop, "here's who was who" single post thing. I've not actually asked him yet though. We'd each write it up in here in advance, then compile each of our thoughts into a single post per player?

If I have time to?

Is this just going to be, like, a few sentences about them?
Or, taking quotes from their confessional (like your post-game replacement for rankdown)?
Or, something simpler like superlatives?

It wouldn't be a Helen post without at least four question marks.

Ehhh, I was think a standard post would look like;

Jeff was played by Suppis from Survivor Sucks

[img]Jeff's%20Avvie[/img]

Probst - Jeff is an experienced gamer, but unfortunately timezone caught up with him. He had a short run in this game, but what he brought in his short time was appreciated immensely

Helen - I didn't get to know you all that well, but damn if you didn't leave with a bang with that vote.

Brenda - Let's see it one more time [quoteofvote]

Like, long or short as you want, but aiming at approx three sentences? We'll give everyone a nod that way, they can read more later, this is more to space out the reveal and give people a chance to say, oh hey Suppis? I know him! and yadda yadda. two mins later, drop one for Julie and so on.