Regardless of his catch phrases, after 41 Seasons, Jeff Probst sure has found the fountain of youth (e.g., Botox)…
Isn’t the right play for the Safe/Risk game at this point to just flat-out saying you are playing “Risk” no matter what? Especially in a situation where the other players are from a different tribe. You have now put them in a situation where they have two choices and one is clearly better than the other (keep your vote, lose your vote).
Even more so in this episode, where only one player had the immediate threat of TC (so maybe the other one has less incentive to “punish”). And then triply so since Evvie knew Xander didn’t have a vote, and that she very likely wouldn’t be a target.
It’s actually a bit different from the typical prisoner’s dilemma, because there is no real reward for cooperation, nor is there a punishment if you pick “Safe” and the other player picks “Risk”. It depends a bit on how you value the Extra Vote vs. Losing Your Vote, but most of the time I think stating your intent to play “Risk” is a dominant strategy.
It’s actually more of a game of Chicken, where both players should state they are playing Risk and hope the other one will back down.
I’m actually a bit disappointed that the decision made when being sent to the island was the same this week. I was expecting it to change to keep the players off guard.
Or similar but different enough to make the succeeding visitors doubt what the first ones told them.
Tiff’s insanity was over the top, but it does make a little bit of sense if the women didn’t fully trust that Xander was truthful about not having a vote. But didn’t Evvie actually read the immunity idol clue that Xander received? I think she did, so there was no reason not to trust that Xander had no vote. They should have just voted out Xander, even if Tiff voted for Voce the worst case would be 2-1-1.
And if Xander did have an idol to play, the worst would be that the revote would be for either Tiff or Voce, and they had the votes to get Voce 2-1. Bonus in this case is flushing an idol.
Yes, Evvie actually read the idol clue. But Tiff wasn’t buying it, or at least was pretending she didn’t understand it to get the vote to go the way she wanted.
Doing a split would have made perfect sense, but I think what really happened was Evvie (and co.) re-evaluated which player would be more useful to them going forward. Not in challenges, but strategically. A Xander that can’t vote but might someday have an idol and an extra vote seems like a more useful person to have around than Voce with a vote and no idol, particularly if you expect to be down in the numbers.
I was thinking the opposite. He’s a player who will soon be powerful but is vulnerable right now. Best to get him out now.
IMO, Xander was extremely stupid in sharing knowledge of his advantages with anyone, let alone almost everyone.
[Boston Rob]
Oh, you have two advantages, and are dumb enough not to keep your mouth shut? And you are particularly vulnerable right now? Here, let me cut your throat while I can.
[/Boston Rob]
Yes, that makes sense too. And clearly that’s what Evvie thought initially. I honestly could see it going either way. There is a world in which his advantages save a minority group that has Evvie in it.
Absolutely yes. I will never understand why people share so much information.
Once, when Jeff said that, one of our favorite contestants, Courtney Yates, gave the thumbs up sign and said, “You do that Jeffery”. Hilarious. My wife and I still do it all most every time we hear him say that.
I don’t see Xander making it past next week. They won’t win the challenge and with Voce gone, Xander’s neck is squarely in the guillotine.
I agree. I’d like to think everyone will get fed up with Tiffany and get rid of her instead, but two episodes in she’s already looking like a take-to-the-end goat.
A few seasons back there was a tribe that went all the way down to one member before merging. I can smell that happening again.
Do you have a clip of that? I totally forgot that.
I like it when it is just one vote and he looks like he’s about to say, “I’ll go tally the…vote.”
Sadly no, and I’ve looked on YouTube. One of these days I’ll rewatch her seasons and find it. She was so quirky.
If you want to call 31 seasons “a few”. That was the awesome Stephenie LaGrossa on the Ulong tribe, back in season 10.
The beware advantage seemed more like a huge disadvantage. I don’t know if production expected all of the idols to be found faster, or if they just want to make future survivors think twice about looking for hidden advantages.
Voting out Voce didn’t make sense. Evvie going with the girl-alliance and voting out Xander first, Voce 2nd is a sound plan. Voting out Tiffany as a loose cannon would also be a fine option. Voting out Voce first makes no sense, and has a chance of backfiring on Evvie.
If Evvie is going to blindside the Evvie-Xander-Voce alliance, it doesn’t make sense to start with Voce. She read the clue and knows Xander is a sitting duck this week. She also knows Xander will have a lot of power if the other two tribes find their idols. Not only will Xander be completely safe in that case, he could also vote out Evvie with his extra vote if he wants to with a 3-2 between two of the three women. Even without the extra vote at best it’ll be a 2-2 tie.
Evvie was in a great position before, but voting out Voce is like placing your own head on an executioners block and leaving it up to the other two tribes whether Xander will have an axe or not in the next tribal.
It reminded my of that lady a few seasons back who just could not understand the plan to split the vote. she was laying out sticks and leaves to mark who everyone was voting for.
What Xander should have done at the challenge, imho, was to loudly say, “Jeff, these new special idols are great!” As a way of spurring the other tribes to look for theirs. I bet Tony would have.
I also think it should only require two people to find them. 3 is asking a lot.
And promptly got voted out for being “too smart”.
Edit: oops, I was thinking of the contestant who was explaining the split with sticks.
Carry on.
If Xander had the idol he would have also had a vote so there would not have been a revote. Tiffany would have just gone home.
I guess that’s what happens when you get old. That doesn’t seem like 15-plus years ago. Yet sometimes I can barely remember what happened yesterday. 
Is anyone else solving the rebus puzzles and playing the “game within the game”? I’m very proud of myself for figuring it out. 