Episode 13 - Keep the T's, Vote the M's

To Exile: Yau-man

Immunity: Boo

Voted Out: Stacey

Hidden Immunity: Yau-man - each vote for Yau-man didn't count.

Votes:
Boo, Cassandra, Dre & Stacey voted Yau-man
Earl & Yau-man voted Stacey

Who's Left: Boo, Cassandra, Dre, Earl & Yau-man

HC's Take:

You had to know these guys couldn't keep a secret!

I'm going to back track for a bit here, but I will get to this episode soon enough.

Something I usually do, but neglected to do this time around, is divide each of the players into one of four groups right after the merge. I didn't do it this time because things were so volatile for the first couple of boots after the merge, that it would have been a lot of guess work, and then there didn't seem much of a point once things had shaken down.

But there is a point now that I will be getting to. The four categories are...

Nash Type (N-players): The dominant duo in the game.
Dominant Type (D-players): Those that fill out the dominant alliance (to a max of four in the dominant alliance).
Tertiary Type (T-players): Those in league with the dominant alliance but not actually in that top three or four.
Minority Type (M-players): Everyone else.

Here is how it broke down right after the merge.

N-players: Earl & Yau-man
D-players: Cassandra & Michelle
T-players: Boo & Stacey
M-players: Alex, Dre, Edguardo & Mookie

This essentially defines the Survivor social totem, and the final jury vote is all about social stature in the game. But it isn't quite that simple. M-players have a fantastic success rate if they get into the final two. In fact, every M-player who has made it to the final jury vote has won: Vecepia, Chris, & Danni. D-players and T-players, by comparison, have an abysmal success rate. (Tom from Survivor-Palua is the only winner from these two groups, and he is an example or a rare breed I call a T-leader. There are no T-leaders in this game.)

So let's look at who's left.

N-players: Earl & Yau-man
D-player: Cassandra
T-player: Boo
M-player: Dre

Now Dre has done the interesting thing of moving himself up to a D-player, and may even be an N-player by the end, but I'll leave him in his original category to illustrate my point. M-players can win, D-players and T-players can't. Earl and Yau-man need to be think about who they want with them in that final jury vote. That player is not Dre! I know what your saying: Everyone hates Dre and he stabbed his own people. That may all be true, and I'm not saying that if it were a choice between Earl and Dre that I would be putting my money on Dre. What I am saying is, if I were Earl, I would rather have the jury choosing between me and Stacey, me and Cassandra. I would even feel more confident between Earl and Yau-man than I would between Earl and Dre. Dre is a wild card that Earl doesn't need.

Last episode I put out the argument that if keeping Dre around keeps Cassandra loyal then it may just be worth the risk. It is obvious from this vote that Cassandra's loyalty is not there (and hats off to her for it). The reason for keeping Dre is gone, and Earl and Yau-man even had the opportunity to remove him without the help of anyone else in this episode by simply putting their two votes his way instead of on Stacey.

Boom! bye-bye Dre. Cassandra may be mad, but what's she gonna do? Ride third to Stacey and Boo? No way! Getting rid of Dre stabilizes the structure of this game and when you add to it that Dre has a far better chance of actually winning this thing then Stacey, Boo, Cassandra, and perhaps even Yau-man, it clearly makes Dre the right choice for Earl and Yau-man to send walking.

What I think may be happening, though, is that Earl feels he's hedging his bets with Dre. Dre sees he, Cassandra and Earl in the final three, and Earl likely knows this. As well, Earl probably sees Yau-man as his biggest threat in the final jury vote and perhaps, secretly, wouldn't mind seeing Yau-man go as long as it appears Earl was trying to save him. As a jury member, Yau-man would almost certainly vote Earl to win.

Clever, but not necessarily smart. Earl would beat Yau-man in a final vote anyway and Dre represents nothing but potential grief. Earl stands a good chance to win either way, but I believe his odds are better if he had played this more straight up and sent Dre out of here.

HC

PS: I just want to add, though I disagree with some of the play, what I am really enjoying seeing are these folks actually out there treating this like a game. No guilt trips or grumbling. Just move and counter-move. I don't even think I've heard once any discussion of who "deserves" to go to the end (actually, something like that may have come out of Mookie's mouth). Each player left is simply doing what they think is in their own best interest and not begrudging the others for doing the same.

How refreshing is that!