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A natural first choice for the first game to analyze:

Richard (Borneo)



What did he do well in this game?
Richard early on in the game put himself at the center of the game's dominant alliance, thus allowing himself to make all of the decisions about who was voted off.  He carefully selected his victims one by one, while managing to keep the alliance secret.  

Richard had the major advantage of alliances not yet being accepted as a legitimate part of a Survivor's gameplay (though that same fact could hurt him, Tagi's visible leader, at FTC) and pagong's stupidity, but Richard's gameplay was still a huge accomplishment.  

If he played in, say, season 2, it's easy to imagine Sean in the alliance, and Richard would still be part of the core 3 (Rich-Sue-Rudy) with a near-guarantee to be in the final 2, very likely with his goat, Sue.  Within his aliance, Sue and Kelly were definitely playing the game hard, if not well, and hanger-on Rudy is similar to many players that fill endgames in recent seasons.  Rich had all of the power in the Tagi alliance, and had a great endgame setup, and it's mostly his fault.

At a critical juncture in the game, when the alliance fractured and Kelly left, he wisely took advantage of Sean's vote to ensure continued Tagi dominance, waiting for Kelly's streak to run out so he could boot her.  When she stayed and his plan to take Sue to the final 2 and cream her (no awkward All-Stars related pun intended) collapsed, he had enough flexibility to adapt, cutting a deal with the very loyal Rudy Boesch.

Also, it was Richard's ability to emotionally detach himself from Kelly's wishy-washy betrayal and decide to listen sympathetically to her during her fights with Sue and pretend to be a friend to her that caused her to effectively end her game and eliminate Sue at F4.

The brilliance of his decision to throw the F3 challenge, recognizing that his ticket to the finals was punched either way, and correctly foreseeing that the backlash from not taking the unbeatable Rudy would be too strong showed that, though Richard made mistakes, he analyzed the game of Survivor on its deepest level even during its first season.  

His arrogance overall definitely could have been toned down, but standing up for who he was and how he played lended him a certain level of respect, and the jury voted for him over wishy-washy Kelly because of this respect.  

Also, his work ethic and role as a provider (back when the survival aspect of the game mattered to jurors) won him some acclaim, though Kelly certainly was respected for her work around camp as well.  Though he came off as arrogant, he made sure never to bash anyone outright, and listened sympathetically to Kelly and Sue when they would fight.  Nudity aside, he displayed a certain amount of tact in his interactions with all of his tribe members generally.

Richard came into the FTC with 4 votes locked (Sean, Rudy, Sue, and Greg, who was just grandstanding with the pick a number, as he revealed in post-game interviews).  Colleen was leaning Rich and changed due to Kelly's question.  Gervase and Jenna were locks for Kelly.  Richard's speech was much less wishy-washy than Kelly's, and Rich won 4-3.

What did he do poorly in this game?
Though he and Kelly had a tacit deal to look out for each other on night 1, Richard couldn't take control very early on in the game and was caught off guard during the Stacey vote, needing producer interference.  If Rudy had left, the Tagi girls had a chance to consolidate power.  It's not a given that he couldn't have been able to form an dominant Tagi alliance with Stacey if Stacey was in the game instead of Rudy, though, because Richard and Stacey got along and she was a pretty rational thinker, and he would have had a chance to work with the guys.

Crucially, though definitely partly caused by the moral ambiguity of alliances at that point in Survivor history, but I'm sure also partly due to Richard's cold, unlikeable, unrelatable personality, Richard failed to keep Kelly in his pocket, and, growing distant, she left Tagi, jeopardizing Richard's game.

Later, when Kelly survived, Sue turned with Kelly against Richard despite a F2 deal to a large extent because he came off as so arrogant, admittedly decreasing her chances of winning just to knock Richard down a few pegs.  

Kelly and Sue could never do more than just tie the vote at F4, but had tie resolution existed at that point in Survivor history (Jeff claimed at one point they had no idea what they were doing, though Richard claims on the DVD that it would have been a physical challenge), Richard may have had a strong chance of being eliminated.  

And so his arrogance resulted in a dangerous flaw in his endgame; had tie resolution been past votes like the next season, Rich could have easily been gone, though it's arguable he's the favorite in fire-making challenges.  Luckily, the difficult option for Kelly was either keep voting all night with no resolution in sight, or turn against someone who had expressed a desire to turn against her in favor of someone who had listened to her empathetically, and she made the emotional decision.

[The optimal move for Sue at F4, btw, is to either eliminate Kelly if she's not immune or tie the vote against jury darling Rudy, who, if eliminated, ensures that Sue gets taken to the end by everyone.  Overall, she was kind of a goat, and was likely going to lose to everyone regardless.]

Overall, Richard's outright arrogance and coldness caused him to be somewhat despised by everyone.  His "corporate world" approach at the beginning of the game was also out of touch.  

His serious lack of charisma jeopardized both his control of the vote and his chances at FTC, though ultimately, his rare strategic flexibility allowed him to make effective contingency plans, and though everyone may not have liked him, Richard, unlike other CPN gamebots like, say Boston Rob in Season 8, tactfully made the jury respect him and his strategy, delivering him the win.

SNAPSHOT:

Pros:
- Controlled eliminations for virtually the entire game
- Good endgame plan with goat Sue
- Had flexibility to change his endgame when he needed, going after Kelly and pulling in Rudy
- Listened tactfully to Kelly, getting in her good graces, and influencing her flip
- Though not loved, and came off as too arrogant, was respected for his integrity/strategy, tactfulness, and work ethic
- Great move to throw the FIC

Cons:
- Coldness failed to keep Kelly on board and jeopardized his endgame
- Arrogance made Sue want to turn against him, also jeopardizing his endgame

In summary:  Richard had a pretty good endgame setup that gave him a great opportunity to win against a goat, and he controlled eliminations throughout most of the game; this accomplishment would be difficult and impressive in any season.  However, his personality lost the girls and endangered his previously excellent endgame with a tie at F4, though it was a tie and not a guaranteed non-immune elimination, and he successfully recovered from it.

survivorfreak101 wrote:

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Will you seriousely do every winner please!!!! This is going to be awesome!

I'm missing Tom and obviously Sophie, but most of my stuff is winners, so I'll post them first.

Tina (Australia)



What did she do well in this game?
Tina was very social, and was the only person to make real connections with everyone on the Ogakor tribe in the first few days.  Maralyn and Kel weren't long for the game, but being the only person to make a connection with Keith would prove important for her long-term game.

Of course, it was her relationship with Colby, and her ability to bond closely with him, and then convince him to make decisions that weren't in his interest but were in her interest (choices that he often otherwise wouldn't have made without her active influence), that is the story of the season.  The first time was at the Mitchell vote.  Jerri's alliance with Colby, Amber and Mitchell was dominating Ogakor and the old folks were being thinned out, with Tina being the next to go. 

Savvy about Mitchell's past vote, Tina organized a 3-vote tiebreaker elimination, sending Jerri's pawn Mitchell packing, and, taking a critical vote away from Jerri, Tina put herself at the center of the major alliance with new partners Colby and Keith.  She kept Jerri and Amber on board and happy by insisting that it was just for the sake of the tribe and Ogakor's ability to compete in challenges, and not a political move.

At the merge, Tina was again the one who manipulated the past vote game mechanic to ensure her continued control of the game, sending Jeff packing.  Her decision to give up immunity to Keith was also a smart decision, again related to her awareness of the importance of past votes.

Tina had a potential problem - though Colby despised Jerri, he despised Keith more, and had long ago made a F3 deal with Jerri and Amber.  If this situation were allowed to happen, Tina leaves the game at F4 and the popular, respected Colby takes the game in a cake walk.  Tina was Colby's #1 friend in the game, but he could certainly wake up to the fact that a Tina endgame was suboptimal for him and vote her off.

Tina knew that, once they had pagonged away all of the immunity threats, she had to shake the game up.  She began openly spewing some bullshit about how she wanted good Christian people to win the game (cough*NOT JERRI*cough) and how the pagoning process put her in a dilemma and was hurting her heart and so on. 

Elizabeth and Rodger ate that shit up and became best friends with Tina.  Tina told them she would do what she could to keep them around.  Now it was simply a matter of getting the pair to put enough pressure on Colby so that she could successfully manipulate him into prematurely jettisoning his Jerri-Amber F3 alliance, which he did, reluctantly.

[Rodger and Elisabeth, the latter especially, were buying what Tina was selling to such an extent that they assumed, despite Keith continually staying around every vote for an obvious Ogakor F3, that Tina would keep them around for F4 over the unlikeable chef, and the pair refused to turn on Tina when Amber offered them the opportunity at F7]. 

The Jerri boot was good because it made Tina an absolute lock for the FTC, but it was good for her on another level in that it farmed the jury in just the right way for Tina, a sociable woman who was well-liked and respected for her "values" and "faith," to have a favorable setup against even Colby, a formidable FTC opponent.  Tina couldn't convince Colby to vote against Amber (he pulled a JT and didn't vote for someone he knew was going home) because he was trying to look like the good cop this time, but Colby's complete betrayal of Jerri that early in the merge meant that her vote would be "anybody but Colby."

Tina, weak physically, still in all likelihood needed Colby or Keith, two challenge studs, to take her to the end, though.  Cleverly, her 3-person alliance was set up so that both of the other two members were closer to her than anyone else in the game, and also happened to fucking hate each other.  Keith was the easier opponent, and clearly who Tina wanted to be at the FTC with.  It wasn't to be, though.  After he won, Colby, who believed he was going to win either way, was easily manipulated into taking Tina to FTC; it was almost a foregone conclusion at that point.

Tina came in with at least Elizabeth, Jerri, and Keith locked.  Alicia leans Tina, Rodger is genuinely undecided, Nick leans Colby, and Amber is a lock for Colby.

Tina's speech was more about strategy than Colby's rambling, perhaps too self-deprecating speech, and respect for her gameplay and her coherent answers gave her the nod.

What did she do badly in this game?
Be old at the beginning of the game and thus put herself in jeopardy.  Her combination of fantastic social skills and strategic planning made up for her age disparity, though.

On a minor note, her answer to Jerri's FTC question was, I thought, a little too snarky, though she still got Jerri's vote.

Many people (an douchey machismo 12-year old version of myself circa 2001 also included) thought at the time of the season's airing that Colby got robbed and/or that Tina got lucky that he was such a nice guy.  This is just simply not the case.  Unlike, say Sugar's on/off desire to take Bob to FTC, Colby's relationship with Tina was both extremely tight and something that Tina actively created and cultivated, and would have not have happened if she didn't work extremely hard at it.

Colby isn't Stephen Hawking, but he's no slouch intellectually, and Tina continually convinced him to do things that weren't in his strategic interest.  Tina's endgame was set up so that she was going to the end and win regardless of any contingencies, and this is because she read Colby's psychology and determined that he just hated Keith so much, believed he was winning either way, loved her, and could be emotionally manipulated.

It's true that having a game set up to have something like a 40% chance of taking a dangerously likeable opponent (Colby) to the end was pretty risky (though, on the flip side of her alliance, Keith was easily beatable and if either Keith or Tina wins immunity, Tina wins Australia, no question).

It was definitely Tina's best available option, but if something went wrong along the way, she could have lost FTC to Colby.  Luckily, after quashing the possibility of a Jerri-Colby-Amber F3, she kept Colby close and farmed the jury, ensuring her win against either of her FTC partners.

SNAPSHOT:

Pros:
- Socialized/had connections with virtually everyone pre- and post-merge
- Was very well liked and respected/farmed the jury
- Read/manipulated Colby time and time again
- Took more and more control away from Jerri/Colby as game progressed
- Had great F3 setup/was guaranteed F2 against a goat or someone else who was tough but beatable

Cons:
- N/A

In summary:  Tina played a fantastic social game, seized power strategically from Colby and Jerri, manipulated Colby, and setup a F3 endgame where she was basically guaranteed to win.  She played at the highest level a Survivor can play.

Bones979 wrote:

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I don't understand what this is supposed to accomplish.

make me smarter.  other than that, it has no purpose, and is done for pleasure.  it might not be appropriate for this folder/this site.