Is Russell really a good strategist? in Survivor Sucks Forum

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Is Russell really a good strategist?

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Bobby Jon goes apeshit		#61	[-]
Posts: 1547 (12/23/09 01:49 PM) Reply Quote More Recent Posts	Cheese� milk's leap toward immortality. Remove this ad Far be it for me either to deny Russell from his right to be disappointed. We've all been there. Weve all gotten mad about things that didn't go our away. Sometimes those things are completely trivial though. You know what, maybe Russell did play the game with "all his heart" (I certainly dont see the quality in his gameplay but thats beside the point). Maybe he gave it his all and maybe, he wasnt rewarded for it. If he feels that way then yeah, he has every right to be disappointed over his loss. But THIS isn't disappointment. This is senseless bashing of someone who simple put, doesn't deserve Russell's ridiculous treatment, just because she beat him at his own game. Russell is 36 year old, grown ass man. And hes setting his kids a terrible example about "gracious defeat".
xoDC3xo		#62	[-]
Posts: 179 (12/23/09 01:52 PM) Reply Quote More Recent Posts	Sshaaz wrote: About the socks...how would you have felt about Russell had he handed Jaison the socks? Jaison's bitterness led to them ending up in the fire. It was a downward spiral since that moment... Not blaming Russell's behavior on Jaison by any means. But that was a defining moment in the post-show shenanigans. Imagine the interview questions had Jaison had a new pair of socks. Perceptions would change, you have to admit I haven't read any of his interviews but was Russell always intending on throwing the socks into the fire either way? It would have changed definitely, but I was under the impression that was always the plan? Look after the finale I was disgusted with Russell. I don't hate him. I think I actually like him. The guy is deluded. He lost fair and square. He easily could have won, but his blind arrogance cost him the game. There is no refuting that. But when Eliza, Probst, and all the posters clamor about how he should of won it, continues to stroke his ego and hurts him in the long run. Like I said, I think they guy could be a masterful player in the game, but continuing to feed his delusions isn't going to help him. He can still be a fame whore and play the character and be entertaining, but why not be a smart fame whore? Last Edited By: xoDC3xo 12/23/09 02:57 PM. Edited 2 times.
Sshaaz		#63	[-]
Posts: 674 (12/23/09 02:05 PM) Reply Quote More Recent Posts	I dunno DC, you have to think about it logically...Had Jaison been gracious about the whole thing would it have happened like it did? Its all speculation, but you really have to consider how much of this perception would have changed. I do agree with you, strongly, that everyone agreeing that he should have won is doing nothing to help him reach the point of acceptance. You can't put the blame on him for that, can you? As long as people believe he got screwed, he'll stand by that assessment. The good part about that, tho, is the charity thing. It's a good thing, in the middle of all of the negative.
cardswin5		#64	[-]
Posts: 2298 (12/23/09 02:18 PM) Registered user Reply Quote More Recent Posts	Yeah that sums it up really well. I would have been satisfied with Russell as a winner, I would have been annoyed by the editing and even though he played it up its not his fault they bought into it. And its fine that he's disappointed in losing, but the way he's outwardly handling it and bashing Natalie and the jury is what bothers me. And everyone fueling his fire (Probst, you, America) is making it way worse.
xoDC3xo		#65	[-]
Posts: 180 (12/23/09 02:23 PM) Reply Quote More Recent Posts	Sshaaz wrote: I dunno DC, you have to think about it logically...Had Jaison been gracious about the whole thing would it have happened like it did? Its all speculation, but you really have to consider how much of this perception would have changed. I do agree with you, strongly, that everyone agreeing that he should have won is doing nothing to help him reach the point of acceptance. You can't put the blame on him for that, can you? As long as people believe he got screwed, he'll stand by that assessment. The good part about that, tho, is the charity thing. It's a good thing, in the middle of all of the negative. I guess I look at it differently. Why was Russell so angry? Because he felt like he should have won. Jeff Probst and the show editors made him believe this. Had they actually bothered to not use his point of view in everything and edited the whole show from his whole point of view he might not have still seen it "his way" at the finale and might have been more gracious. The whole reason he was so sour at the finale is because he felt entitled to something that he didn't deserve. The editors wanted to make him popular because they felt he should have the Sprint 100k. So that begs the question. Even if the show had edited it from Nat's perspective or bothered to show more of why Russ deserved to lose would he still act the same way? I don't know. Russel is a prideful person. He's also stated on many occasions that he's been playing a character. But to behave the way he did at the finale and to be completely wrong about deserving it was messed up and could have been easily prevented. He's been rewarded for a mis step and America and Probst continue to foster the idea that he didn't make mistakes. I'm trying to answer about his behaviour in general and not just a specific moment with Jaison. Had the show actually bothereed to show his errors would he be bitter, is what I'm asking.
Sshaaz		#66	[-]
Posts: 675 (12/23/09 02:24 PM) Reply Quote More Recent Posts	Nat doesn't deserve it, but the jury sure as hell does. I wish he'd do interviews with Erik. We'd have an influx of Russtards of biblical proportions
cardswin5		#67	[-]
Posts: 2301 (12/23/09 02:26 PM) Registered user Reply Quote More Recent Posts	Sshaaz wrote: Nat doesn't deserve it, but the jury sure as hell does. I wish he'd do interviews with Erik. We'd have an influx of Russtards of biblical proportions Again its things like that that bother me. If he were a gracious loser and willing to admit his faults he'd probably be one of my favorites.
Sshaaz		#68	[-]
Posts: 676 (12/23/09 02:32 PM) Reply Quote More Recent Posts	It is very possible that the edit is contributing to his reaction. Something else you really can't put on him. Since his 'deservedness' is 100% subjective, it will constantly be up for debate. I can say that Russell is the type of guy that even when he accepts what happened (and you guys may actually convince him to do that, who knows,) he probably won't let on that it has happened. There are two sides to every coin. What someone might call 'delusional entitlement,' to borrow a phrase, another person might call it 'courage in ones convictions.' Its still subjective...
LOLABINGO		#69	[-]
Posts: 8198 (12/23/09 02:45 PM) Reply Quote More Recent Posts	I don't know if I would call him a good strategist at all. Obviously, he forgot the most important strategy of all--giving the jury what ever it takes to make them vote for you. What I enjoyed watching was that incredible intensity and focus on the game. That kind of complete task-oriented play was fascinating (and fun as hell) to watch. It was like a piranha in a tank filled with pretty tiny tropical fish and a few tadpoles. I don't give a shit that he lost, because he forgot to do the most important thing. I do think the jury is beneath contempt, for the most part, because I didn't like the way they played the game, or the petulant and non-game based decision at the end. I am really glad it was Natalie and not Jaison that won though. Natalie did stuff, and that challenge when she hung out so far was impressive, as well as the one where she hung on to that tilting pole. She did more than sit around and complain, and though I don't give her the credit she is demanding for Eric's ouster (maybe she did, maybe she didn't) at least she stayed in there, didn't whine much, and attached herself to the right pit bull. Last Edited By: LOLABINGO 12/23/09 02:48 PM. Edited 1 times.
gotpez		#70	[-]
Posts: 17 (12/23/09 03:25 PM) Registered User Reply Quote More Recent Posts	Cheese� milk's leap toward immortality. Remove this ad Russell doesn't DESERVE anything. I think he played a great game, but he did not win. In my opinion, he didn't play a complete game. He played a game to get to the finals, but he missed the part on winning the jury vote. There are very few rules in Survivor. But the biggest one is that you have to eliminate the other players and then hope they vote you as the winner. There are no requirements on what criteria they use for casting their vote, and he knew that. His big mistake was that he assumed that they were going to use HIS criteria. On his comment that he should have been playing with superstars... If he had been, I doubt he would have made it as far as he did. This is where Galu screwed up. Even with taking out Eric first after the merge, they had plenty of opportunities to get rid of Foa Foa and Russell. But, they didn't see through his game. For this, I will give Russell and Natalie credit. They managed to overcome a huge deficit and gain the power. It doesn't matter to me who won, it was an entertaining season.
forsbergacct2000		#71	[-]
Posts: 149 (12/23/09 04:56 PM) Reply Quote More Recent Posts	Sshaaz wrote: About the socks...how would you have felt about Russell had he handed Jaison the socks? Jaison's bitterness led to them ending up in the fire. It was a downward spiral since that moment... Not blaming Russell's behavior on Jaison by any means. But that was a defining moment in the post-show shenanigans. Imagine the interview questions had Jaison had a new pair of socks. Perceptions would change, you have to admit Handing the socks would have been condescending as hell. Russell should have at most tossed out a one-liner about the socks and moved on. He did it; I do not see how it helped (or hurt) him. Dwelling on the socks makes him look like a jerk. He may not be a jerk. None of us knows how we would handle national television until we go on. But he is surely making himself look like one.
forsbergacct2000		#72	[-]
Posts: 150 (12/23/09 05:00 PM) Reply Quote More Recent Posts	gotpez wrote: Russell doesn't DESERVE anything. I think he played a great game, but he did not win. In my opinion, he didn't play a complete game. He played a game to get to the finals, but he missed the part on winning the jury vote. There are very few rules in Survivor. But the biggest one is that you have to eliminate the other players and then hope they vote you as the winner. There are no requirements on what criteria they use for casting their vote, and he knew that. His big mistake was that he assumed that they were going to use HIS criteria. On his comment that he should have been playing with superstars... If he had been, I doubt he would have made it as far as he did. This is where Galu screwed up. Even with taking out Eric first after the merge, they had plenty of opportunities to get rid of Foa Foa and Russell. But, they didn't see through his game. For this, I will give Russell and Natalie credit. They managed to overcome a huge deficit and gain the power. It doesn't matter to me who won, it was an entertaining season. I agree, except with the point that you have to eliminate the others. All you have to do is avoid being voted out. How you do that is up to do. I will admit that frequently, those who do a lot of the eliminating with respect from the jury, but that clearly does not always happen.
Sshaaz		#73	[-]
Posts: 695 (12/23/09 06:00 PM) Reply Quote More Recent Posts	I dunno, man...handing Jaison a brand new pair of socks would have been apologetic more than anything... That is had Jaison been gracious about it at all. If he glazed over the sock thing in his comments and laughed about it, then Russ wouldn't have done what he did. I'm pretty sure of it.
token lunatic		#74	[-]
Posts: 28454 (12/23/09 08:15 PM) Registered user Reply Quote More Recent Posts	gotpez wrote: Russell doesn't DESERVE anything. I think he played a great game, but he did not win. In my opinion, he didn't play a complete game. He played a game to get to the finals, but he missed the part on winning the jury vote. There are very few rules in Survivor. But the biggest one is that you have to eliminate the other players and then hope they vote you as the winner. There are no requirements on what criteria they use for casting their vote, and he knew that. His big mistake was that he assumed that they were going to use HIS criteria. On his comment that he should have been playing with superstars... If he had been, I doubt he would have made it as far as he did. This is where Galu screwed up. Even with taking out Eric first after the merge, they had plenty of opportunities to get rid of Foa Foa and Russell. But, they didn't see through his game. For this, I will give Russell and Natalie credit. They managed to overcome a huge deficit and gain the power. It doesn't matter to me who won, it was an entertaining season. This. Russell was an ass at the reunion, but his finding the first idol and playing the second idol causing Erik to leave was entertaining.
seltzer3		#75	[-]
Posts: 1600 (12/23/09 08:42 PM) Registered User Reply Quote More Recent Posts	I have some questions to a couple things Russell did. I would like to have someone answer some of these, because in all honesty I thought some of the things he did was virtually stupid. -What was up with his deal with Brett in the final episode? It seemed like there was no real point in making a deal with Brett. Russell had no intentions of ever letting Brett of going to the final 3. Even if Russell voted with Brett against Mick, that would be stupid since all he would do is piss off Mick, and most likely lose his vote. It also seemed like there was no possible way of Russell getting voted off anyways. Natalie was going to vote with Russell, and it seemed like Brett was originally going to vote off Mick. It seemed like there was no real upside to that deal. All it did was build Brett's hopes up and crushing them at the tribal council. I wouldn't be surprised if he lost Brett's vote because of that. -I don't really understand the deal with burning Jaison's sock, pouring out water. Yeah, it was good in "creating chaos"...but all he did was weaken his tribe...which caused them to lose the first immunity challenge....which messed up their momentum...which had them end up to a 8-4 disadvantage. -Showing the HII to virtually every Galu member at the merge. When he showed to just Shambo, that was smart. But then once he started showing the idol to Monica, Laura, John etc. it just seemed stupid. Because then every Galu member wanted to try to flush it out. Galu actually sort of did it right...by planning to initially voting for Jaison and scaring Russell to use the idol. -Several of his vote offs have been incredibly reactionary. He would make alliances with so many people...only to break virtually all of them immediately. Yeah Marissa, was concerned about Russell and her loosing trust for him. But I don't see how Russell could have just calmly reassured her that everything is okay...instead of just flipping his lid and getting her voted out. I understand that sometimes you have to break your alliance...but the way he does it seems counter-productive. -Voting John off instead of Dave I thought was actually a really dumb move based what exactly Jaison said. There was a very high probability they may have alienated Shambo. I thought Russell got really lucky that Shambo didn't flip out. Voting Dave before John wouldn't really have made that much of a difference anyways. -According to several interviews. Russell would make fun of people in their face when they got voted off. Laura was one of the examples cited by Natalie. I wouldn't be surprised if Kelly was another person that Russell made fun of when she got voted off (On the Ponderosa videos she pretty much sobbing). If this is true, the guy has virtually no grasp of social gameplay. If the guy doesn't understand why he didn't get votes after acting like a douche to people who got voted off, he is clearly delusional. People keep on making comparisons of Russell to the past "arrogant" winners. Such as Rich, Todd, Brian etc. However, Richard and the rest of them never got in their fellow contestants' faces and made fun of them when they got voted off. The other winners knew how to read a room. Russell clearly cannot. Last Edited By: seltzer3 12/23/09 08:47 PM. Edited 2 times.
LOLABINGO		#76	[-]
Posts: 8200 (12/23/09 08:52 PM) Reply Quote More Recent Posts	M guesses. 1. Brett. He was just trying to win a jury vote. He praised him honestly, said he wanted real players there, told him he didn't know if he dared since the jury was all Galu, but acted as if it troubled him to not keep him. Zero intention of ever keeping him according to interviews. I think he was trying to convince Brett to vote for "real players," and it could have, but didn't work. 2. From the show confessionals, he didn't care if his tribe lost at all. He wanted them weak and more easily manipulated, never felt in danger of going home himself, and had an idol anyway. He used it as a way to get off people that seemed on to him. 3. It looks like a bragging gamble thing, but since it worked out and no one called his bluff on using it--it was apparently the right move to use with these pussy players. No harm no foul on that one. 4. Except for the ones made to keep peace in the tribe, Ben, etc. he voted of people that he felt were a threat to HIM, since he didn't care at all about the tribe...see answer 2. 5. Shambo was a wrap and really had no where to go anyway. He had a plan to handle her, and it worked. (again, lots of pussy players so easier than usual???) In my opinion his two biggest blunders were confessing he had money, and not sucking up to the jury from the moment the booted were becoming jury. Last Edited By: LOLABINGO 12/23/09 08:54 PM. Edited 1 times.
AussieOriginal		#77	[-]
Posts: 2077 (12/23/09 08:58 PM) Registered user Reply Quote More Recent Posts	They're some good points there, seltzer, and reading them it becomes evident that Russell actually played quite a dumb game. His moves pre-merge weakened his tribe considerably, and really should have and would have come back to haunt him, if not for Shambo. But mostly he played a dumb game because he thought all the jurors would think of him as he thought of himself - a mastermind superstar. Um no... cause he's just a stupid pathetic prick who felt he had to bully all the women (Marisa, Betsy, Liz, Monica, even Natalie) and that's what they saw. If he could have seen past his own massive ego and tried to be even a little bit nice, he might have gotten more votes.
seltzer3		#78	[-]
Posts: 1601 (12/23/09 09:01 PM) Registered User Reply Quote More Recent Posts	3. It looks like a bragging gamble thing, but since it worked out and no one called his bluff on using it--it was apparently the right move to use with these pussy players. No harm no foul on that one. But thing was they did flush it out. Russell did end up using the first idol, because he did get paranoid that he may have been voted off. He actually did get played, but was lucky that at the same time that Galu canniblized themselves (through their own help...and Jaison and Natalie fanning the flames). The fact that he didn't care about his tribe, is really messed up. Pre-merge, one of the biggest things that you need to worry about is tribal numbers. If you are down to 3-4 people, chances are you will get pagonged.
LOLABINGO		#79	[-]
Posts: 8201 (12/23/09 10:46 PM) Reply Quote More Recent Posts	I don't think the fact that he didn't care about his tribe, and used that to keep them weak so he could control them was necessarily "dumb" though, because it got him to final 3. He kept the ones he COULD control, and they never even thought about voting him out. Risky as hell, could have been dumb, but worked the way he wanted it to. He used the first idol because he didn't trust Natalie's impression that Erik was going. I would have too. He used the 2nd deliberately to get a Galu out, and that was a pretty good use there too. (and fun to watch) His game style was unconventional, but I think it worked well. Where he REALLY blew it was admitting to being rich, bragging too much, rubbing it in to jury members, getting in people's faces when he didn't need to, and not sucking up to these people and fake-bonding with them over Jesus. Game skills? A or A- Jury Skills? D or F. Last Edited By: LOLABINGO 12/23/09 10:48 PM. Edited 1 times.
TheDumpRecruiter		#80	[-]
Posts: 52 (12/24/09 06:55 AM) Reply Quote More Recent Posts	Cheese� milk's leap toward immortality. Remove this ad ross is meh voter sprite plyrt samolia sesin

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Is Russell really a good strategist?