Yuku free message boards

143. Sean Kenniff says that getting to see his father is "better than the million dollars".

142. Billy Garcia announces his perceived love connection with Candice at tribal council.

141. Sean Kenniff builds an elaborate fishing pole he dubs Superpole 2000, but fails to catch a single fish with it.

140. Brian Heidik, who worked as a used car salesman, loses the car reward challenge because he couldn't spell "Road Trip".
(Of course it was also stupid for Jeff to ask him what he was trying to spell, which allowed Ted to hear the answer.)

139. Candice Woodcock "mutinies" and voluntarily switches to the Raro tribe.
(I don’t think this was as stupid for Candice as it was for Jonathan, because I think Candice’s chances of making the Final 2 were at least as good with Raro as they were with Aitu, but by flipping she turned 4 potential allies into major enemies and blew her chances of winning a jury vote.)

138. Brenda Lowe and Sash Lenahan arrange a split vote to get rid of Marty and his idol, but then when Marty doesn't play the idol they vote out Kelly B instead.
(Voting out Kelly B instead of Marty seems a little less stupid in retrospect than it did at the time, since Marty eventually seemed to become a pretty good ally of Brenda and Sash, but if their goal was to vote out Kelly B, then it made no sense to have the split vote, since having a split vote doesn’t actually make it any more likely that Marty will play his idol. On the other hand, having a split vote puts them in danger of being voted out by a potential Mary-Jill-Fabio-Kelly B alliance. So even if they were right to vote off Kelly B, this vote still makes no sense because Brenda and Sash put themselves at risk with a split vote that served no purpose.)

137. The Lopevi Guys vote out Brady over John K. or Rory.

136. The Yasur girls vote out Lisa over Rory.
(It's true that if they voted out Rory they would have lost the next IC, but who cares? If they lose, they can still vote off Lisa, and it's a challenge they should have thrown anyway, to protect Twila and Julie. The only downside to this strategy is if there's a late merge, and even then they still have Eliza to vote off.)

135. Roger Sexton, Butch Lockley and Dave Johnson vote out Jeanne over Heidi.
(But as with the entry below, in all fairness, she was pretty hot!)

134. The Lopevi Guys vote out John K. over Julie.
(I downgraded this because, in all fairness, Julie was pretty damn hot!)

133. Yul Kwon announces that part of the reason why he brought Jonathan his hat was to appease him for voting him out.

132. Sash  Lenahan refuses to admit that he had no intention of taking Fabio to the Final 3 when speaking in front of the jury.
(Jurors tend to be OK with lying as long as you own it. But lying about lying just irritates them.)

131. Austin Carty announces at tribal council that he was faking being weak at the last immunity challenge.
(Which, of course, kind of defeats the purpose of faking it in the first place.)

130. Amber Brkich announces "I can almost smell the money!" in front of the jurors.

129. Butch Lockley accidently burns down the Amazon merged tribe’s campsite.
(Yes, this entry is a little unfair, since at best he’s only indirectly responsible for the campsite burning down, but I feel like it deserves a mention of some sort.)

128. Neleh Dennis says in her jury speech that she didn't start playing the game until day 24.

127. Ken Hoang, Crystal Cox and Matty Whitmore vote off Kelly over Sugar.
(They could have also voted Ace off, but I think it would have been better to vote off Sugar first because they needed Ace in the challenges. Some fault also lies with Kelly, who revealed a spectacular pair of breasts at the Reunion, but failed to use them to save herself while she was on the show.)

126. Fang votes off Michelle over Gillian.
(Not only was Michelle infinitely better in the challenges than Gillian, but she was also the only attractive female on the tribe, which makes voting her off especially stupid for the guys.)

125. Danni Boatwright decides to vote out Blake over Amy or Brian.
(Hence throwing away Old Nakum's voting majority and greatly weakening her tribe in challenges. That being said, I definitely thank her as a viewer.... for obvious reasons.)

124. New Raro votes out JP over Stephannie at their first tribal council.
(Granted, he was an asshole, and for the girls it gave them the majority, but still, they nee9ded him in the challenges.)

123. Rob Mariano's alliance votes out Hunter over Gina.
(Thankfully for them there was a tribal swap right after this, so it didn't wind up hurting them, but that doesn't take anything away from how stupid this was.)

122. Corinne Kaplan and Bob Crowley make up an elaborate story about having an immunity idol to try to get Ken and Crystal to vote with them against Matty, when they would have been better off simply asking Ken and Crystal to vote with them.
(This is an example of how being too creative, without need, can hurt you. Had Corrine and Bob simply asked Ken and Crystal to vote with them against Matty, they would have likely done so and Corinne would have still been in the game. Instead, by telling them they have an idol, they’re basically telling them that their votes aren’t necessary, because if they really had an idol Matty would be gone regardless of whom Ken and Crystal voted for. This then leads to the situation where Ken, believing Crystal’s vote isn’t necessary, tells her to vote for Corinne. He could have also voted for Corinne himself, since his own vote against Matty would have been unnecessary, but apparently he wanted to take some of the credit for voting him out. In any case, the bottom line here is that Corinne and Bob would have been better off if they had just asked Ken and Crystal to vote with them, and they should have been able to realize from talking to Ken that he and Crystal would have gone along with it.)

121. The Raros vote off Jenny instead of Jonathan.
(They should have realized that Jenny was less likely to flip after the merge.)

120. Mookie Lee tells Dreamz that he, Alex, and Edgardo found the Hidden Immunity Idol, but originally didn't tell him about it.
(To be fair, I think Dreamz blew this a little out of proportion.)

119. Yve Rojas announces to Alina and Chase that she has more friends on her former tribe than Dan does.
(For someone who’s apparently an actual fan of the show, you’d think she’d know better than to make a statement like this.)

118. Michael Skupin falls into the fire.
(It’s amazing to me that after 20 seasons and dozens of clueless mactors, the only person to do something like this is still Mike Skupin, someone who clearly saw himself as some kind of master survivalist.)

117. Amanda Kimmel somehow manages to give a less convincing jury speech than Courtney Yates.

116. Danni Boatwright argues a pretty convincing case for Steph in her jury speech, and speaks little of her own deservingness.
(Danni actually managed to argue for Steph even more blatantly than Amber seemed to be arguing for Rob, but I still give Amber the edge for her "luck" comment.)

115. Amber Brkich argues a pretty convincing case for Rob in her jury speech, speaks little of her own deservingness, and names "luck" as the biggest factor that got her to the Final 2.
(These are my 2 candidates for Worse Winning Jury Performance of All Time.)

114. Chase Rice repeatedly plays Reward Challenge wins to his maximum strategic disadvantage.
(First he promises to take Sash on reward, but doesn’t, and instead leaves him alone with Benry, Fabio and Dan, giving them the opportunity to form a counter-alliance against Chase, Holly and Jane. Then he promises to take Fabio on the family reward, after Fabio tells him that he rarely gets to see his mother, but then he doesn’t do that either. And then he also passes over Jane for the family reward, which pisses off both Jane and Dan. So basically he winds up pissing off every other player in the Final 6 except Holly. And of course, winning two reward challenges is generally something you don’t want to do in the first place, because it makes you look like an immunity challenge threat. So basically Chase did everything humanly possible to hurt himself here.)

113. Shannon “Shambo” Waters loses one of her tribe’s chickens and the mouthpiece for their snorkel gear.
(Although she does redeem herself later by recatching the chicken.)

112. Jessica "Flica Flame" Smith loses her tribe's chickens.

111. Ted Rogers loses his tribe's boat and fishing net.

110. Russell Swan chooses the pillows and blanket reward over the tarp.
(After which it rains for about 15 days, proving both that God watches Survivor and that he has a sense of humor.)

109. Sally Schumann manages to lose her tribe's fishing spear apparently within hours of them winning it.
(Honorable mention to Shawn and Lillian of Pearl Islands, who lost their tribe's fishing spear and fishing hooks respectively.)

108. Crystal Cox passes over numerous strong young males and chooses Susie Smith to be on her tribe, thereby creating a tribe consisting of herself, a 47 year old woman and a 61 year old woman.
(Shockingly, the tribe winds up not winning many challenges.)

107. B.B. Anderson washes his shirt in Pagong's drinking water.

106. Erik Huffman almost gets his closest ally Peih-Gee eliminated by failing to go along with a plan to vote for Todd at the tribal council where James is voted off.
(Erik and Peih-Gee were supposed to vote for Todd so he would go home if James used one of his idols, but somehow Eric fails to go along with the plan. This means that if James had used the idol there would have been a 1-1 tie between Todd and Peih-Gee, most likely followed by a revote where Peih-Gee would be voted out 4-1.)

105. Lisi Linares, Stacy Kimball, and Boo Bernis decide vote off Liliana instead Cassandra, which is pretty stupid in itself, and then fail to see the problem in alienating Dreamz and Cassandra, whose votes they'll now need if they want to have a post-merge majority.

104. The original Aitus throw the Episode 2 immunity challenge so they can vote off one of their own members.
(And I believe it was a combined immunity/reward challenge too.)

103. Sean Kenniff fails to or declines to join the Tagi alliance.

102. Gabriel Cade fails to or declines to join the Rotu 4 and announces that he's "not here to play the game".

101. Shane Powers announces that he wants to leave the Casaya alliance.
(And previously he asked to be voted out, which needless to say is pretty stupid as well.)

100. After Greg Buis asks them to pick a number between 1 and 10, Richard Hatch somewhat unintelligently says 7 and Kelly Wigglesworth stupidly says 3.
(Rich should have said 5. Kelly, knowing Rich had said 7, should have said 6. Then she would have theoretically gotten Greg’s vote if he was thinking of any number from 1-6. Greg, by the way, says he was always going to vote for Rich regardless of the numbers, but if this was an intelligence test Kelly would have failed.)

99. After Shane Powers asks Aras and Danielle to pick a number between 1 and 1 million, Aras moronically says 4.
(He should have either said 500,000 or perhaps something like 1,000, if you take into consideration the fact that Shane was unlikely to be thinking of a number higher than that. Danielle, knowing Aras said 4, should have said 5, but her actual response of 10 wasn’t too bad either. Out of the 6 people who have been asked this question so far, Danielle’s response was probably the least stupid.)
(Note: I believe someone told me that Aras said 4 because Shane had said that was his favorite number or something, so if I can confirm that then this will eventually be removed.)

98. After Kelly Goldsmith asks them to pick a number between 1 and 1,000 and Kim Johnson moronically says 3, Ethan Zohn even more moronically says 888.
(Kim should have said 500. Ethan, knowing Kim had said 3, obviously should have said 4. Then he would have gotten Kelly’s jury vote if she had been thinking of any number from 4 to 1000. Ethan’s response of 888 instead of 4 is easily the most moronic response to this question ever.)

97. Terry Deitz attempts to get members of the majority alliance to join his minority alliance by offering them safety for the next 2 tribal councils.

96. The Galus vote for Russell at Final 11, even though they know he may have the hidden immunity idol.

95. The Raros insist on voting for Yul after the merge, even though they know he may have the hidden immunity idol.
(Hence risking the loss of their numbers advantage when they could have just voted off Becky or Sundra, risk free.)

94. Andria "Dreamz" Herd makes a deal with Yau-Man that requires him to either give up immunity at Final 4 or look like an asshole in front of the jury.

93. Jonathan Penner doesn't make Yul Kwon give him his idol in exchange for flipping sides and voting with Aitu at merge.

92. Terry Dietz doesn't use the hidden immunity idol to pull over Bruce and vote off Aras at merge.
(And yes, it's possible that Bruce wouldn't have been willing to do this, but he should have made every possible effort.)

91. Becky Lee declines Yul's offer of the hidden immunity idol, twice.
(I guess the second time it would have been stupid of her to take it, because it would have hurt Yul's chances of winning, while her own changes of winning would have still been close to zero, but the first time she should have at least taken it until the merge, and then given it back to him.)

90. Yul Kwon offers the hidden immunity idol to Becky, twice.
(He probably knew she wouldn't accept it, but if he was really considering giving it her then that's pretty damn stupid.)

89. Rafe Judkins and Stephanie LaGrossa vote off Jamie instead of Gary.

88. Todd Herzog allows James Clement to keep both immunity idols, instead of insisting in their original agreement that James would give the second idol to Todd if he found it.
(Some people claim that Todd did makes James agree to do this, but James just didn’t do it, but there doesn’t seem to be any indication from the show that that’s the case, and if it is, then Todd is a fool for not making a bigger issue out of it. He could have even used it as an excuse to vote off James.)

87. Kimmi Kappenberg blabs to Ogakor that Jeff has a previous vote against him.

86. Drake votes off Shawn instead of Jon "Jonny Fairplay" Dalton.
(They should have realized that JFP was much more likely to flip after the merge.)

85. Jonathan Penner "mutinies" and voluntarily switches to the Raro tribe.
(Hence leaving a tribe where he had a powerful ruling alliance to go to a tribe where he had only one strong ally. This action also ruins his chances of winning a jury vote.)

84. Sue Hawk quits All-Stars because Rich's penis touches her during a challenge.
(To be fair, it was also very stupid for the show to allow Rich to compete naked in a challenge that required physical contact.)

83. Travis "Bubba" Sampson signals his old Lopevi tribemates and tells them not to "forget about the merge" in clear view of Ami and his other new tribemates.

82. The merge tribe on Australian Outback decides to build their shelter in a dry river bed.
(I think this was Jerri's idea.)

81. Joanna Ward freaks out about the immunity idol being evil.

80. Neleh Dennis feels guilty that she didn't bring any food back from reward so she offers her other tribe members a tiny mint from her mouth.

79. Russell Hantz sabotages his own tribe.
(I have no problem with dumping canteens and burning socks, but these are the sort of things you do after the merge, not before the merge when you need your tribe members to be strong to win challenges.)

78. After apparently throwing the Episode 3 immunity challenge, Sook Jai votes out Jed, one of their strongest members.

77. The Fans tribe (Airai) votes off Mikey and Mary instead of Chet and Kathy.
(Note that I’m really referring to just Alexis, Erik, Joel and Natalie here, not the whole tribe.)

76. Marcus Lehman is voted out shortly after throwing an immunity idol into the ocean.

75. Randy Bailey acts like an even bigger asshole than usual to try to get people to vote for him so he can use the idol he thinks Bob has, but he starts doing this before he actually confirms that Bob has the idol or that Bob would be willing to give it to him.

74. Ken Hoang, Crystal Cox, Matty Whitmore, Susie Smith and Jessica “Sugar” Kiper decide to vote off Randy instead of Bob, even though they know Bob is a much bigger threat.
(Some people might rank this higher, but I think their concern that Randy might burn down the camp or sabotage their food supple was a legitimate concern, and probably few people could have predicted that Bob would go on an immunity run.)

73. Benjamin “Coach” Wade votes for Courtney instead of Russell or Rob.
(After stupidly making conflicting promises to Rob and Russell, Coach decides to break both promises and vote for Courtney, a move which probably won him few fans on either side and which he knew would result in his ally Rob being voted out. You can read more about the thinking that went into this move in Coach’s upcoming book “How to Betray Your Friends and Be a Pussy About It”.)

72. Rupert decides to break firewood in the middle of the night when everyone’s trying to sleep.

71. Danielle tells Russell she’s closer to Parvati than he thinks.
(Not the best thing to say to someone when you’re trying to convince him that your alliance with Parvati is not a threat.)

70. Amanda Kimmel and Colby Donaldson let Danielle have her immunity idol clue back.
(Granted, it probably rightfully belonged to Danielle since she found it, but considering how badly they needed the immunity idol they were stupid to not at least try to get her to agree to share it or read it together or something.)

69. At Final 7, the four remaining Timbiras, Benjamin “Coach” Wade, Debra Beebe, Sierra Reed and Erinn Lobdell fail to put aside their differences and get back together to vote off JT.
(Granted, this would have been difficult to pull off since they all hated each other and loved JT, but clearly it would have been the smartest thing for all four of them to do strategically. Sometimes you have to wonder if some of these people are even trying to win. I mean, is having to work with people you don’t like for one vote really so horrible that it’s worth giving up a million dollars for?)

68. Brenda Lowe tells NaOnka that she's thinking about voting out Sash.
(Not only should she not have mentioned it to Naonka, who was of course a close ally of Sash and hence likely to tell him about it, but she also shouldn’t have been thinking about voting off Sash in the first place, since doing so would have significantly weakened her position in the game.)

67. After the merge, Brenda Lowe, Sash Lenahan, Holly Hoffman, etc. vote out Alina over bigger threats like Jane, Benry, Marty or Fabio.
(Alina was definitely a potential threat, especially to Brenda and Sash, who she apparently disliked, but she had few allies and wasn’t a significant threat to win the game. As such, this was a major missed opportunity to vote out one of the bigger threats in the game.)

66. Brenda Lowe and Sash Lenahan vote out Marty over Jane or Benry.
(Although I question their decision to not vote him out earlier, I think by this point Marty was definitely a stronger ally to Brenda and Sash than Jane was. The only potential downsides to voting off Jane over Marty would be that it may have possibly alienated Chase or NaOnka or opened the door to a more significant alliance between Marty, Benry, Fabio and Dan. Another possibly would have been for Brenda, Sash, Chase and Kelly Two-Legs to vote for Benry, which would have led to a 4-4-3 tie between Benry and Jane, with Benry likely being eliminated in the re-vote.)

65. Alina Wilson allows herself to be associated with Naonka’s food stealing, even though she apparently didn’t do any of the actual stealing herself.
(Presumably Alina didn’t want to say that Naonka did all the stealing, and she only knew about it after the fact, because she didn’t want to alienate Naonka, who was one of her only sort-of allies. But considering the fact that she was obviously in very serious danger of being voted out, you’d think she’d try to do whatever she could to disassociate herself from this.)

64. Sash Lenahan and Brenda Lowe fail to work out a plan to use Sash's idol to save Brenda and take out a member of the opposing alliance.
(I know Sash distrusted Brenda at this point because NaOnka told him that she was talking about possibly voting him off, but since they knew everyone was voting for Brenda this would have been the perfect time for them to use Sash’s idol to blindside one of the big threats like Jane or Benry or Fabio or Holly. Then with only 9 people left, Sash, Brenda, Chase and Kelly Two-Legs could have pulled in Fabio to vote off NaOnka and then they’d basically have the majority again.)

63. Alina Wilson and Kelly Bruno target Brenda instead of NaOnka.
(Alina and Kelly B seemed like pretty promising players, but they screwed themselves with their decision to target Brenda at La Flor’s first tribal council even though they knew they didn’t have enough votes to vote her out. If they had simply targeted NaOnka instead, then Chase probably would have voted with them and their alliance could have gained the majority and taken control of the game.)

62. The Villains have Courtney and Sandra sit out for two reward challenges in a row, forcing them both to compete in two immunity challenges in a row.
(Which, not surprisingly, results in them losing two immunity challenges in a row. This happens in episodes 7 and 8, the episodes where Rob and Coach are voted out.)

61. Russell Hantz votes out Danielle instead of Rupert.
(I understand Russell not wanting Parvati to have more power than him, but since there was nothing to suggest that Parvati and Danielle had any intention of voting him out before the Final 3, this move really accomplishes nothing while at the same time turning his closest ally against him. This is also stupid in the sense that at this point in the game, with Candice already out, Danielle would have probably been the easiest person for him to beat in a jury vote. Of course, that said, he probably wouldn’t have won the jury vote regardless of who he took to the Final 3.)

60. Russell Hantz goes along with his tribe’s plan for a split vote between Rupert and Candice, instead of insisting on a split vote between Rupert and Colby.
(I don’t hear this talked about too much, but this was one Russell’s stupidest mistakes in Heroes vs. Villains. His tribe wanted to vote off Rupert, but they believed he might have an immunity idol so they decided to split the vote. The logical thing to do would have been to split the vote between Rupert and Colby, but the female Villains wanted to do a split between Rupert and Candice because they didn’t trust Candice. The whole idea of this is stupid to begin with, because Colby was a big jury vote threat and Candice would have lost to anyone, but it was especially stupid for Russell because he probably needed Candice in the Final 3 to have any chance of winning the game. Also, having Candice in the game would have given him a distinct power advantage over Parvati and would have therefore eliminated any perceived need to vote out Danielle, which, as I said above, is also something that I think was a mistake.)

59. Russell, Parvati, Danielle and Jerri vote off Rob instead of Courtney or Sandra.
(There was no need to vote off Rob at a time when they still needed to win immunity challenges and this is particularly true when you consider the fact that Courtney and Sandra were both in Rob’s alliance, and hence by voting either of them out they’d be putting Rob in a very weak position anyway and they would have easily been able to vote him off at the next Tribal Council. This was also a needlessly risky vote as it could have easily resulted in a tie if Coach had decided to vote with Rob against Russell.)

58. At Final 7, Amber Brkich, Elisabeth Filarski, Rodger Bingham, and Nick Brown fail to form a counter alliance to vote off Colby and Tina.
(I don't mention Keith with Colby and Tina because if they were smart they'd keep him around as a Final 2 goat.)

57. Jessica “Sugar” Kiper uses her immunity idol to vote out Crystal, one of the only people she could have conceivably beaten in a jury vote.

56. The Mogo Morons boot Rich, Colby, and Ethan over Jerri.
(Hence dooming them to an incredible challenge losing streak.)

55. Fabio Birza votes for Jane instead of Holly.
(Fabio should have realized that with Jane gone he’d be the next target to be voted out and he’d need to win immunity at Final 5 to save himself. On the other hand, if Holly went home, the next vote would have been against Jane or Sash and Fabio would have been safe until Final 4.)

54. The Morgans sell their clothes, fail to spend all their money, and let Rupert steal their shoes while shopping at the village.

53. Drake throws the Episode 4 immunity challenge and then votes out the person who's perhaps their biggest challenge asset.
(This, of course, was especially stupid for Burton, who suggested the idea of throwing the challenge and then wound up being booted himself.)

52. The Micronesia girls alliance doesn’t team up against Erik in the Final 6 shooting immunity challenge.
(If they wanted one of the girls to win, all they had to do was have all five girls shoot at one girl’s target. It amazes me that nobody thought to do this.)

51. The Rotu 4 unwittingly reveal the pecking order when they target Kathy, Neleh and Paschal at the coconut chop immunity challenge.
(Hence causing the formation of a counter-alliance which then proceeds to vote them out.)

50. The Galus begin their tribe’s self-destruction by voting out Erik instead of Mick or Jaison.
(I don’t think this was necessarily a bad move for Monica, who was apparently being targeted by Erik, or for the Laura/Monica/Kelly alliance in general, but why John, Dave and Brett would go along with this plan is a total mystery to me.)

49. The Rotu 4 vote out Gabe over Rob/Sean/Vecepia.
(Why would you vote out one of your own tribe members when you have a chance to take out someone from the other tribe? And had they not made this blunder, there theoretically wouldn't have been enough people for a counter-alliance at Final 9, since Gabe was apparently anti-alliances.)

48. Rupert Boneham attempts to build an underground shelter on a beach.

47. Boran dumps out their water on the walk to their campsite because the jugs were too heavy.

46. Nicaragua merged tribe decides to protect their fire by surrounding it with the wooden supply chests containing all their food and supplies.
(I’d love here whose bright idea this was. Maybe Butch from Amazon suggested it.)

45. New Espada kills one of their egg-laying hens before their rooster because they believed that hens wouldn't lay eggs without a rooster around.
(This one is just completely mind-blowing to me. I can’t believe that out of the 8 people on the tribe, which included 4 women and a guy from the South, that nobody could figure out that a chicken didn’t need a rooster to lay eggs. I mean, I’m a guy from NY and I know that. You’d think the women at least would know that they don’t need men to produce eggs every month, so why would they think it would be any different with a chicken?)

44. Kelly Wigglesworth changes her vote from Rich to Sue.
(Hence eliminating the person she had the best chance of beating in the Final 2 and turning a sometimes ally into a very vocal enemy. But of course this led to Sue’s jury speech, one of the greatest moments in Survivor history, so how can you really hold it against her?)

43. Danielle DiLorenzo votes out Courtney and Shane, the only 2 people she could conceivably beat in a jury vote.
(And voting off Courtney was especially stupid since she was a close ally of Danielle.)

42. Jaime Dugan somehow believes that a blank piece of wood that James left on the ground is an immunity idol, continues to talk about it as such until the day she’s voted out, and attempts to play it at tribal council.
(There’s nothing wrong with her playing it at tribal council, it’s just stupid that she believed it was real. And no, I don’t buy into the argument that she knew it was fake. I think that’s some revisionist history on the part of Jaime and Frosti.)

41. Jason Siska somehow believes that a wooden stick with a face carved on it is an immunity idol and appears totally dumbfounded when Eliza suggests that it’s “just a stick”.

40. Sundra Oakley is somehow unable to start a fire during a Final 4 fire-building tiebreaker even after being given an entire packet of matches.

39. Brendan Synnott joins the long list of players voted out after not playing an immunity idol.
(The inability of the players to learn from previous seasons never ceases to amaze me. Brendan also gets bonus points for stupidly announcing to everyone that he has the idol.)

38. Jason Siska is voted out after not playing his immunity idol, even though he knew most of the players wanted him gone and even though he just saw the same thing happen to Ozzy.
(But to his credit, at least he had enough sense to take the idol to tribal council, unlike Ozzy!)

37. Ozzy Lusth is not only voted out despite having an unused immunity idol, but even more amazingly he apparently goes through his entire time in the game without taking his immunity idol to a single tribal council.
(This definitely isn’t as stupid as what James did, since James had two idols and a much shorter period in which to use them, and I don’t think it’s as stupid as what Jason did in this same episode either, but nevertheless the fact that he never even bothered to take the idol to tribal council just blows my mind.)

36. At Final 9, Benjamin “Coach” Wade, Tyson Apostol, Debra Beebe and Erinn Lobdell vote for Brendan and Sierra instead of JT.
(Meanwhile, Brendan and Sierra make the equally stupid decision of voting for Coach instead of JT.)

35. Jill Behm and Brenda Lowe solve the Hidden Immunity Idol clues, but neither keeps the idol for themselves.
(If this had happened just once it would have been stupid enough, but the fact that both of the people who solved the clues did this is absolutely amazing. You’d think, at the very least, they’d come up with some sort of agreement to share the idols with Marty and Naonka, but instead they both just gave them up entirely. And fittingly, both of them wound up needing idols and getting voting off as a result of not having them. Amazing.)

34. After Brendan is voted off, Benjamin “Coach” Wade, Tyson Apostol and Debra Beebe once again pass on an opportunity to potentially vote off JT and instead vote for Sierra, arguably the smallest threat of any player left in the game.
(And to make things even more impressive, they don’t even succeed in voting her out and Tyson winds up going instead.)

33. After going through a lot of trouble, and risking his security in his own tribe, to put together an intertribal alliance with Taj and Stephen, Brendan Synnott seemingly ignores them after the merge and allows the alliance to fall apart.
(I thought this was, in theory, a pretty cool idea, but Brendan managed to create so much distrust on both sides that he wound up being this first person voted off after the merge. I guess this is another example of how being too creative can hurt you, because Brendan would have clearly been much better off if he had never attempted to form the intertribal alliance in the first place. But regardless of whether forming the alliance in itself was a good idea, it baffles me that he would go through so much trouble, and take on so much risk, to create it only to not maintain it after the merge.)

32. The Heroes vote off Tom over James.
(A tribe desperate to win challenges votes off a guy who dominated his previous season physically in favor of a guy with an injured leg. Huh? And on the top of that, the guy with the injured leg was also acting like a complete ass the whole season. What exactly is the argument for keeping someone like that around? I mean, I can understand why Amanda might want to keep him around since he was her closest ally, but what the hell were JT and Rupert thinking? Had it not been for Tyson, Rob and Coach being voted out, these guys would have probably been Ulong-ed before the merge.)

31. James “JT” Thomas decides that he should give his immunity idol to Russell after him and the rest of the Heroes decide that there’s a female alliance on the Villains tribe and that Russell is going to be the next to go. Most of the other Heroes support this idea.
(I don’t think is even close to being the stupidest thing done this season, because unlike Candice’s move and Tyson’s move, it at least had a chance of succeeding if it turned out they were right about the women’s alliance. That said, it was moronic of them to assume there was a female alliance on the other tribe just because men were being voted out and even if there really was a female alliance, there’s still no guarantee that Russell would even vote with them if they saved him. Also, without having seen him naked, there’s no way to exclude the possibility that Russell himself wasn’t simply just an attractive female.)

30. Russell Hantz votes off Jaison instead of Natalie at Final 5.
(If you believe the Samoa jurors, Russell still would have lost if he did this because a majority them claim they would have voted for Mick, but even if that’s the case, it was a gigantic blunder on Russell’s part to not realize that Natalie was the biggest jury vote threat. This was also stupid in the sense that Jaison may have theoretically had a better chance than Natalie to beat Brett in the final Immunity Challenge.)

29. Russell Hantz and Parvati Shallow vote off Jerri instead of Sandra at Final 4.
(This mistake hurt Parvati more, because she probably would have won if they voted Sandra out, but I think the blame for this lies mostly with Russell. Once again, just like he did in his previous season, he somehow manages to dismiss the biggest jury vote threat as the smallest. Parvati at least seems to see that Sandra is a major jury vote threat (she tells Russell that if he voted her off Sandra would win), but it’s unclear if she tried to convince Russell to vote her off. If she didn’t, then a big part of the blame for this mistake lies with Parvati as well. That said, since the vote was originally supposed to be against Parvati, I have to give her credit for at least saving herself. It’s a shame she barely missed winning that last immunity, because if she had immunity she would have been in a much better position to pursue a vote against Sandra.)

28. Sean Kenniff unleashes his infamous "alphabet strategy".
(Later revived by Susie Smith in Gabon!)

27. James Clement is voted out after failing to use either of his two immunity idols.
(It annoyed me when Jeff called this the “biggest blunder in Survivor history.” It’s clearly nowhere near as stupid as what Ian, Colby and many other people did. Also, James should be given credit for at least taking his idols to tribal council, unlike Ozzy.)

26. Marty Piombo gives his immunity idol to Sash.
(This didn’t wind up hurting him, but that doesn’t make it any less stupid. And it was especially stupid for him to do it when he did it, because had he been voted out, he wouldn’t have even been on the jury so Sash would have been in no danger of losing a jury vote for voting him out.)

25. NaOnka Mixon and Kelly “Purple” Shinn (aka Kelly Two-Legs) quit with only 11 days left.
(It’s hard decide where to place something like this, but I felt like it needed to be here somewhere. If either of these girls has stayed in the game and toughed it out for those last 11 days, they would have been pretty much guaranteed 3^rd place because everyone would have wanted to take them to the end. And even though neither of them would have had a chance to win the million dollars, they still would gotten a pretty good paycheck for coming in 3^rd, as I believe the prize for that is least $75,000 or so. And in NaOnka’s case, had she not quit she probably would have been asked back for a 2^nd second as well. But now instead of that they’re just going to be remembered as the two useless quitters who wasted an opportunity that most people would have killed for. Needless to say, it’s hard to imagine what they were thinking.)

24. Jeff Varner gives up in the Episode 7 immunity challenge in Australia, even though he knows that Ogakor knows he has a past vote against him and that he’ll likely be voted out as a result.

23. Jane Bright votes for Sash instead of Holly.
(Even after Jeff goes so far as to actually suggest that Jane, Fabio and Dan form a counter-alliance against Sash, Chase and Holly, and even after Jane herself suggests that they all vote for Holly since Sash and Chase will be playing immunity idols, and despite knowing that she has no chance of surviving that tribal council unless she, Fabio and Dan do in fact all vote for Holly, Jane nevertheless decides to abandon that plan and instead cast a pointless, non-counting vote against Sash. It wound up not mattering since Fabio and Dan didn’t vote for Holly anyway, but why would she not at least attempt to save herself when she knows she has a chance? I mean, had Fabio and Dan actually voted for Holly, then Jane would have basically eliminated herself with her vote again Sash. What kind of sense does that make? And plus, since so many people had immunity, had there been a 3-3 tie they have presumably used the fire-starting tiebreaker, which Jane would have won easily.)

22. After reaching the Final 7, Caryn Groedel rejects a spot in a proposed 4 person female alliance and instead chooses to become the 6th member of an alliance of 6.
(And to make it even stupider, one of the 4 females (Steph) was an obvious Final 4 boot if she didn't win immunity, and the other 2 females (Katie and Jenn) were probably the only people left in the game that Caryn could potentially beat in a jury vote. Instead of this, she chooses to maintain an alliance with Tom, who she can’t beat a jury vote, can’t beat in challenges and who probably doesn’t intend to take her to the Final 2.)

21. Stacy Kimball, who's secretly voting against Yau-Man and who knows that she'll be going home if Yau-Man gets suspicious and uses his idol, announces that she thinks there's going to be a split vote.
(I don't understand how she goes from doing such a good job pretending to be resigned to her fate when she's talking to Earl, to saying something so stupid at Tribal Council. It's really like there's something about Tribal Council that makes people's IQs magically drop. Also: Honorable mention to Dreamz for his own comments at this TC.)

20. John Fincher changes his vote from Natalie to Laura to avoid the purple rock tie-breaker and gives up Galu’s numbers advantage.
(Had he stuck to his original vote there would have been only a 1-in-7 chance that he would have been eliminated and a 3-in-7 chance that Galu could have gained back the numbers advantage. Plus there was 1-in-7 chance that Russell would have been eliminated. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me. But instead he chooses to put his faith in Russell and vote off Laura, thereby dooming himself and every other member of Galu.)

19. Ken Hoang believes Corinne and Bob’s story about them having an immunity idol (seemingly without even asking to see it) and responds by creating a risky and unnecessary split vote between Matty and Corinne. Crystal Cox somehow goes along with the plan despite suspecting that the idol was a fake.
(Ken could have definitely won the game and this is where he blew it for himself. Had he just voted off Matty, as he seems to have originally intended to do, Sugar would have almost certainly used her idol to vote off Corinne instead of Crystal. Then Ken, Crystal and Susie could have voted off Bob and Sugar. But instead he tells Crystal to vote for Corinne so they can “flush out the idol”, apparently thinking she’d play the idol and Matty would still be voted off since he would have the 2^nd highest number of votes. The first problem with this plan is that he’s relying on an idol being played when he has no good reason to believe that the idol even exists. But what makes this even stupider is that splitting the vote doesn’t make it any more likely that Corinne will play the idol, so the split vote doesn’t actually serve any purpose. And if no idol is played it leaves him in a horrible situation with Matty staying and Matty and Sugar knowing that he voted for Matty. This situation not surprisingly leads to Matty and Sugar turning against him and voting Crystal and him out of the game.)

18. Alex Bell tells Rob than he plans on voting for him when they reach the Final 4.
(Everyone keeps telling me to move this higher, so here you go!)

17. Ami Cusack and Leann Slaby tell Scout that they’re kicking her out of their alliance and then target Eliza instead of just voting out Chris.
(Hence causing the formation of a counter-alliance which then proceeds to vote them out.)

16. Stephenie LaGrossa and Rafe Judkins allow Danni to win the immunity advantage at the auction reward, then let her convince them to vote out Judd over Lydia, and then don't include Cindy in the vote.
(Hence, they not only allow their biggest threat to stay in the game, but they also manage to turn 2 of their biggest allies against them. And for Steph, she basically throws away any chance she had at winning the jury vote.)

15. The Mogo Morons boot Jerri instead of Amber.
(This is similar to the Samburu situation in Africa where they're given a gigantic gift from God, but fail to capitalize on it.)

14. Amanda Kimmel and Courtney Yates vote off Denise instead of Todd at Final 4.
(One of them would have definitely won had it not been for this mistake.)

13. Jason Siska, who knows he’ll probably be voted out if he doesn’t win immunity, gives up an immunity challenge that he appeared likely to win in exchange for promises from the other players that they won’t vote him out.
(He lucks out and survives that tribal council after the girls decide to target Ozzy and Ozzy fails to play his idol, but that doesn’t take anything away from the stupidity of what he did.)

12. After Brandon unfathomably votes for Kelly instead of Lex (see below) Kim Powers stamps out any remaining hope of success for the Samburus by insisting on voting for Brandon instead of Tom.
(If they had voted for Tom there would have been a tie and Tom would have been eliminated based on past votes. Lex also had past votes, but he was immune this ep.)

11. Lex Van Den Berghe and the rest of Boran decide to vote out Kelly Goldsmith, giving Samburu an opportunity to take control of the game.
(Which they, even more stupidly, fail to capitalize on.)

10. The Pagongs realize that Tagi has an alliance that intends to boot them one by one, but they still vote for one of their own members instead of targeting someone from Tagi.
(This is in reference to Episode 8, where Colleen, Gervase and Greg vote for Jenna and the Tagis and Jenna vote for Greg. It finally dawns on Pagong to vote for Rich in the next episode, but by then it's too late. Of course, in fairness to them, even if they voted for Rich in this episode they wouldn’t have had a majority unless they got Kelly or Sean to flip.)

9. Tyson changes his vote from Russell to Parvati.
(Had Tyson just stuck with Rob’s split vote plan, there would have been close to a 100% chance of either Russell or Parvati going home and close to a 0% chance of himself going home, but apparently those odds weren’t good enough for Tyson. Instead, he decided to change his vote to Parvati to try to make sure it was her that went home and not Russell. The problem with this is that if an idol is played by either of them, then it doesn’t matter which one of them gets the most votes, because the other person would be going home regardless. So giving Parv an extra vote only makes sense if Tyson doesn’t believe an idol is going to be played by either Russell or Parvati. But Tyson, according to his interviews after the show, knew that Russell had the idol and he claims that he even told Russell to play it. So presumably he was going into that tribal council with the belief that Russell would play the idol, and if he believed that then it makes no sense for him to do what he did because it put himself at risk and had no conceivable benefit.)

8. Brandon Quinton votes for Kelly instead of Lex.
(His tribe could have gained control of the game, but instead he decides to preserve his weak alliance with a member of the opposing tribe. Huh??)

7. Candice Woodcock votes with the Villains even though Sandra was willing to vote with the Heroes.
(Someone pointed out to me that this is almost an exact repeat of what Brandon did in Africa and it’s true. Just like in Africa, Candice’s tribe had an opportunity to take control of the game because someone on the other tribe wanted to flip, but just like Brandon she throws away this opportunity and votes against her own tribe just to preserve a weak alliance with a member of the other tribe. But in Candice’s case this move is even stupider because she also flipped on her original tribe in her previous season and in that season, just like in this one, she wound up getting voting out early as a result. And again, just like in Cook Islands, even if she had managed to make it to the end she would have blown her chances of winning a jury vote. Amazing!)

6. Kelly Wigglesworth leaves the Tagi alliance.
(Why the hell would anyone throw away a guaranteed Final 4 spot???)

5. Rafe Judkins "releases" Danni from her promise to take him to the Final 2.
(I don't think this is quite as stupid as what Ian did, but it's close...)

4. Stephenie LaGrossa and Rafe Judkins vote out Lydia over Danni.
(Because seriously, who wants a free ride to the Final 2?)

3. Erik Reichenbach is voted out after Cirie and Natalie convince him to give up the immunity necklace.
(Definitely a contender for the stupidest thing ever done, but I still give the edge to Ian and Colby since they were so close to actually winning the $1 million.)

2. Colby Donaldson takes Tina to the Final 2 instead of Keith.
(No longer the stupidest thing ever done, thanks Ian!)

1. Ian Rosenberger gives up in Palau’s final immunity challenge in return for Tom agreeing to NOT take him to the Final 2.
(Folks, we have a new #1!)

Anything I left out? Anything ranked too high or too low? Feel free to comment with your own suggestions and critiques, and I'll consider everything that's said for future updates. Until then, enjoy! : )