Playing from the Middle

This Week in Bold Strategy #5

Welcome back to This Week in BS, where we break down highlights of Bold Strategy from Survivor, Survivor Australia, Big Brother Canada, and whatever the hell I want.

As always, scroll to the shows you watch and skip the ones you don’t. Or read everything and see how consuming seven hours of competitive reality TV programming a week affects your personal relationships, your career, and the rest of your life.

Big Brother Canada 11

🩴 Playing The Middle and Timing A Flip

Last year I played the middle of the BBCAN house. This is not an easy position to be in, and one that Daniel, Kuzie, and Anika found themselves managing this past week. It wasn’t an obvious decision to evict Rob or Renee. Evicting Renee would have been a slightly better move, and I’ll break down both sides.

The structure of this house is fluid. There are no big alliances while there are little voting blocks including the DKA group, as I’ll call them (plus Zach and Ty / Claudia, Shanaya, and Renee / Jonathan and Claudia / Claudia and Ty / Ty and Kuzie / Ty and Santina / Dan and Zach / lots more). The DKA group held all the power this week. They could have flipped the house and kept Rob. The beauty of this move would be that Rob stays in the house with clear targets in Zach and Ty who would also be firing back at him. DKA wouldn’t have gotten a lot of blame even though they were ultimately responsible for the flip. Santina and Jonathan, Zach’s former close allies, and Vanessa, who publicly called out Zach, would seem far more guilty. People perceive Daniel and Anika as easily-manipulated pieces and for them and Kuzie to do what seems like “going with the house” and keeping Rob, well it would be hard to blame them. They could have continued to play the middle and would have likely had decision-making power in the coming weeks too.

The advantage of getting out Rob, which they did, is that there is one fewer strong physical player in a house of many strong physical players. Now, for DKA to execute on this the most effectively, they should have solidified their group. Why not align with Zach, Ty, and Dan in a larger alliance where DKA aren’t the biggest perceived threats? The house is coming for Zach anyway so he’s a good person to keep around as a threat ahead of you. I’m not sure any kind of alliance building happened - it probably didn’t - so the move screams playing safe. I don’t think this is a game-ending move for DKA, either decision was fine, however I do think that they’ll have the opportunity to flip things again and at some point, you have to strike. If you’re in the middle and the wrong person wins power, you might find yourself on the block as a so-called (wrongly defined) floater that’s an “easy” nom. You’ve got to make a power move before it gets to the point in the game where the wrong HOH will take out the middle group.

Keeping Roberto would have been the more fun move. I mean who doesn’t like drama? Although not everyone plays for fun like this writer. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and when the decision isn’t obvious, fun can be the factor that closes the deal. May as well enjoy the experience while you’re there and acknowledge the existential fact that whether you’re winning the whole shebang or being evicted next, each second brings you closer to exiting the house. That’s BB philosophy for ya. Ultimately, when you don’t have a clear decision in Big Brother, you have to make any decision and lay the groundwork for your survival next week. We’ll see how well they did that in the coming rounds of play.

💩 The Pawn Stink

Whatever Dan said about nominating Renee, it was a lie. Once you touch the block you smell so hard of block it’s disgusting. Seriously, it’s a very tough position to be in as an early-game pawn. Renee has been on the block twice, originally as the Deadlast nominee, and now she’s an easy person to put up every week, especially when she goes around calling herself a block-star. If she can make it through to jury, though, she becomes someone who people might want to drag to the end… when she’ll have the underdog narrative. It’s a complicated game where your strengths become your weaknesses and your weaknesses become your strengths. How do you get the block stink off? Ya need a win, and based on these first couple of weeks, that’s going to be tough for her.

Survivor 44

🏝 The Point of the Journey

Let me continue to add to how stupid that journey was. You don’t give the castaways a choice. You give them idols that feel unearned. You send them to new tribes basically forcing them to play their new idols. And WE DON’T SEE THESE PEOPLE INTERACTING AT ALL.

We got a confessional from Jaime saying that she was excited to see Josh and Carson and then shit-all of them interacting. Do these people understand this show they’re creating? It’s about the people, not the idols. It’s about them and their interactions. Jaime tells us that these interactions matter and then we don’t get to see the interactions at all. A good set-up should have a payoff and call me old school but I much prefer to see humans interacting than fighting for bracelets to protect themselves.

🟣 Taking the Purple Power Back

Speaking of humans interacting, what an interesting move by the greatest human, Carolyn. She turned on her original purple Tikas and went with the new guy in Josh. Look, if someone is willing to play an idol on you, that’s about as much trust as you can earn in Survivor. That means that instead of the 100% (barring a nullifier) chance that they’ll survive the round, they’ll leave themselves open and give you the 100% chance of safety. If someone is willing to do that, I don’t blame you for flipping to them. Let me contradict the previous paragraph and say that this was actually a decent outcome for this idol because it played into the weird dynamics at Tika and helped tell a human story.

Good for Carolyn. Not the person I would have pegged as the pre-merge strategist and I’m here for it. This Tika group is totally dysfunctional and without Carson in the mix to settle things down and reassure everyone - with his own interests in mind, of course - they imploded. As much as I’d like it, I have my doubts about the original Tikas (Yam Yam, Carolyn, Carson) remaining together at the merge.

Survivor Australia: Heroes V Villains

😐 Playing Boring versus Playing Exciting

Matt and Liz going to the final three with George and Gerry is A) boring and B) likely game-winning for one of them. I don’t think the lifeguard played the game to get on a future season of BB Australia VIP or Celebrity Apprentice Australia. He’s in it for the money. It’s not the fun move and it’s not a bad move either.

Can you blame them for voting out Nina? She actually stuck with the heroes (excluding Hayley), she has lots of friends on the jury, and she’s well-liked. The jury is also basically made up of people who already voted out Gerry weeks ago.

Nothing against George or Gerry but if you’re reading this you could probably beat them in an Australian Survivor final immunity challenge (not saying I could but you could). This next immunity challenge could be for all the marbles: Liz vs. Matt to see who gets to vote out the other one. If one of them makes the mistake of voting out George at 4, it just makes the game more complicated for them to take out the other physical threat. It’s boring but may as well keep King G until the final three and guarantee your spot in the finale because he’s incompetent at challenges.

Some people are ok with playing boring. Like I mentioned earlier, I’m not. Rather make the most of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and have fun with it versus playing it safe and potentially still losing.

🌴 New Survivor Pod

Check out this cool new Survivor podcast produced by Zale Mednick, former on-island Survivor doctor / current superfan. He hosts a succinct after show each week that breaks down tribals, analyzes strategy, and weighs in on the general state of the game. It’s a great weekly listen for a quick analysis of the decisions made each episode from a really smart guy.

🕊 Tweet of the Week

My take: depends on the player although I’d go Big Brother. You’re playing an individual game from the start without any group immunities so I think you’re conditioned to play a more dynamic game. Survivor tribes help make strategy and numbers a bit more obvious in the early game. I also think BB strategy is far more complex given the many, many ways to win - and yes, I’m biased.

Until next time,

Kevin 🐍

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