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Russell's maneuvers are overrated. He was certainly bold and brash and led the way for his alliance, but a look at his maneuvers shows that they weren't all that significant.

His first moves after the merge were completely bungled. He showed the idol to nearly everyone, and none bit. Instead, it was John overplaying his hand, deciding to take the opportunity to take out Laura/Monica, and Erik totally mishandling the tactics of pulling it off by giving too much of the plan away to Foa Foa. (Before you make the point that John's move was based upon Russell's actions, I'll point out that John was hoping to leave Russell out of the loop so that he would use his idol - as he did!) True, Natalie may have consulted Russell regarding how to respond to Erik's suggestions, but it was still Natalie that went to Laura, Kelly and Monica and got the vote to turn. By the time word of the voting change reached John and Brett, it was a fait accompli. Russell never looked so humble as he did in the leadup to that vote because he really had no idea how things would play out.

With Erik gone, John realized he couldn't safely move against Laura/Monica so Galu reunified for the next vote - even Shambo - who knew she couldn't impact the result. Sure, Russell saved himself by finding and playing the hidden idol, but that's hardly a strong maneuver - it was just self preservation. The mistake was Galu failing to anticipate the possibility and vote for a different Foa Foa. John was a headcase regarding the first vote and the next one, but on this one, he had it right. There is credit in targeting Kelly with the vote since she was one of the most dangerous players to save for last.

And, sorry, but the next vote against Laura is all on John. He didn't buy that Russell would follow up on the deal so it wasn't like Russell tricked him. Instead, he fooled himself into believing that he would gain time by voting out Laura to reorient the game to his advantage. Russell did turn Shambo for the vote, but it wasn't like he had to convince her much to vote against Laura. To be fair, John was in an awful position by this point because no matter who went home, he would be in the minority before long. Of course, a lot of that was the fallout from his plotting that did in Erik. But even so, taking the risk of the purple rock was worth it. If Jaison or Shambo went home, he could still work with the other, Russell, Mick and Natalie to form the new majority, in which he'd have a lot more power. If Russell went home, all the better! (And it isn't clear whether Russell could have saved himself from the purple rock with his immunity idol. Technically, the idol means votes cast against Russell don't count, but votes aren't involved with the purple rock.) If a Galu went home, then at least he still has the option of working with them if they can pry Shambo back. Of course, don't promise Russell that you will flip ahead of time! He only really would have been worse off if he was the unlucky loser, and the odds were against that. John decided he wouldn't take a rock for Laura, but really, he didn't see that he would have actually have been drawing the rock for himself. With no real endgame allies at that point, the odds favored him in the rock draw, but he took the one option that made things worse.

And Russell's decision to vote out John instead of Dave next turned out OK, but it was unnecessarily risky. If Dave and Monica had been able to forgive John and work with him, the opportunity was there to get Mick out (since Shambo actually liked John and may not have voted for him on a revote especially after being left hanging on the original vote). But the vote just showed how foolish John was on the prior vote in selling out his alliance. Dave and Monica don't get off the hook for their shortsightedness, but it is somewhat understandable why they didn't trust John.

Voting out Dave next was fine though I'm not convinced he was a larger threat than Brett, and clearly voting out Monica was the only move with Brett immune, but Russell certainly did not handle Monica's endgame play well, likely reinforcing others' dislike for him in his bullying response.

Voting out Shambo was an absolutely horrid decision for Russell. At that point, she wasn't going to turn against him, and she was the one person he was sure of beating. The only defense may be that Brett was likely to vote for Shambo anyway, meaning the best Russell could do was force a tie. Even so, it was probably worth trying to force out Jaison or Mick at that point, more likely Jaison just because he was the one so insistent on voting out Shambo.

Russell kept himself in the game by finding the immunities, and I guess we can give him credit for putting pressure on the Galu cracks, but I see no great maneuver on Russell's part that doomed Galu as much as mistakes on Galu's part, particularly by John.