Episode 10: Merge!

[liam]

Woo! I made the merge!

So, the hope is that Bree is with us, but who knows! I should probably talk to her...

Also, Starr needs to learn some subtlety. If you ask me how the game has been treating me, and what I think of the challenge, in the first 10 things you say to me, I'm going to give you flaky answers.

I considered playing the double agent role this round. I ultimately decided against it because sometimes people like to shoot the double agent. It's like, I wouldn't mind pulling a Boston Rob and voting off Bree if I was confident it would work. I figure the other side might do the same thing. My plan is to not give them a reason to vote for me.

[liam]

Just sent this to my tribe:

Hey everyone.

I figured I'd remind everyone that if you hit the little ghost image at the bottom of the puzzle, you can see what the puzzle is supposed to look like. I personally find it helps if you right click, highlight everything, then move all the pieces off the image before you start.

Also, since only first and last place matter, I figure we could work together on the smiting part of the challenge. When I checked earlier, Knox was the target with the lowest karma, so I've been smiting him. If we drive Knox's karma really low, Chad should win the second round, and he can eliminate the fan. Right now, Ben is the fan's target with the most karma. We could also exalt him, to make Zac lose the second round. Since only first and last place matter, I think this should work.

Note that this only works if Zac actually makes the second round, so don't put him as first on your elimination list.

Finally, Bree seems the most likely to flip of the fans, so if one of the fans has to get immunity, she seems like the best choice.

This is an important challenge, and who knows if the fans have an idol or how many. The more who are vulnerable, the harder it is for them to guess who we're going to vote for.

Sorry for making the Knox/Ben decision without everyone. This just seems like a case where having everyone on the same page quickly is the most important thing, so I just made an arbitrary decision.

If you guys have any other ideas, I'd love to hear them. If any of us wins immunity, I'll be happy, and if we all survive the vote, I'll be thrilled. Good luck everyone.

[liam]

My tribe sucks at challenges, I pointed out that Mark got eliminated first by Thiago in the challenge.

Mark is apparently totally down with voting whoever. Not sure if I trust him, but I believe him when he says the Farrago 5 have an alliance that Chad accidentally told him about. Shit is about to get crazy.

Also, I might do a long post about the Kansas City Shuffle at some point.

[liam]

"It's a blindfold kick back type of a game
Called the Kansas City Shuffle
Whereas you look left and they fall right
Into the Kansas City Shuffle.
It's a they think you think they don't know type of Kansas city hustle
Where you take your time, wait your turn and hang them up and out to dry"


Well, having killed much time reading the TV Tropes page on The Kansas City Shuffle, I feel now is a perfect time to bring it up.

Basically, what the Kansas City Shuffle is, is when you're trying to pull a con game on someone, they know you're pulling a con game on them, they think they've got it figured out, but in trying to prevent the con, they actually allow you to pull off the real con.

For example: You tell your business rival that you have insider information that a business is going to flop. They think you're trying to trick you, so they invest heavily in the business.

In reality, you've set up a new fake finance firm that took all the money they sent to invest, knowing that they would never believe you about the failing business.

What does this have to do with Survivor? The entire game is a con game. There's only one winner, so everybody is trying to screw everyone else over to a certain degree. The thing is, everybody knows this too, so somebody is probably going to fall prey to the Kansas City Shuffle.

Specifically, I was thinking about idols. Let's say I tell you, "we're voting for Zac". You think, alright they're trying to trick us, so they aren't voting for Zac. In reality, we all vote for Zac when you play the idol on someone else.

I'm not saying we're voting for Zac, btw, this is just an example.

So, we've got a game where everybody is looking out for themselves, trying to trick everyone else in to helping them, and somebody is going to lose this round. To quote Lucky Number Slevin... "You can't have a 'Kansas City Shuffle' without a body".

[liam]

So I've decided Mark is full of shit.

Here's what I think is going on behind the scenes.

1. Chad tells Farrago to stick together, in an attempt to flip one of the fans.
2. I tell Mark he should flip because he's on the outs with his alliance.
3. Mark talks to one of the Farrago folks and they swap information.
4. Mark tries to convince me that Chad accidentally sent him a copy/paste with this info
5. Gloria wants to keep her immunity idol and isn't happy that we aren't voting Bree.
6. Gloria knows that I know about her idol, and is going to be pushing to get rid of me because of that.
7. The fans think Gloria is trying to play them, so they agree but vote for someone else.

Final tally:
6 votes Carly
5 votes Mark
1 vote Liam

That's my prediction, let's see if it plays out.

[liam]

I'm so glad this round is almost over. Even if it goes to a tie, at least we'll know. I just got worn out by it, being that most of my tribe didn't participate in the challenge, which we proceeded to lose, then Mark trying to counter flip me and trying to figure out what was actually going down.