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Stephen Fishbach's Survivor Blog: A Game of Mistakes
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Brian Smith
Nov 30, 2015, 9:43:28 PM11/30/15
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Stephen Fishbach's Survivor Blog: A Game of Mistakes
By Stephen Fishbach @stephenfishbach 11/30/2015 AT 11:00 AM EST
Stephen Fishbach was the runner-up on Survivor: Tocantins and has been
blogging about Survivor strategy for PEOPLE since 2009. This season, he has
been blogging about his experiences in Cambodia as a competitor on Survivor:
Second Chance. Follow Stephen on Twitter @stephenfishbach.
"If it's a move that sends you home, at least you went out trying to make a
move." –Ciera Eastin, Survivor: Blood vs. Water
"This game involves creating a lot of dynamic structures, and then working
within those structures to advance yourself as best as you can." –Stephen
Fishbach, Survivor: Tocantins
So what's it like getting voted out of Survivor?
I've heard people say different things. The death of their dream. Their
heart stops like a snuffed flame.
For me, it was great fun. Before I ever went on Survivor, the one thing I
wanted was a framed shot of Jeff Probst snuffing my torch. Luckily, I never
got that iconic Survivor experience from Tocantins. This time I'll get my
photo.
I was a longshot to win Second Chance, and I'm proud of the game I played:
aggressive and emotionally open. More than anything, I didn't want to coast
into the finals as a goat. Instead, I was eliminated as a threat. Other than
the million bucks, what more could I ask for?
So thank you once again to everybody who voted me in. As the saying goes, I
got to have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity twice.
But I'm getting way ahead of myself.
Here Comes the Rain Again
As we went to vote out Wiglesworth, I knew that her elimination would
disrupt our fragile alliance structure. However, I thought that I could move
fast enough to pick up the pieces. I'd do damage control with Tasha and
Kimmi while ratifying new treaties with the Three Witches.
But that Tribal Council, the monsoon hit. Solid sheets of rain destroyed our
camp. Our one-time fire pit became a water-filled hole. Frigid gusts blew
through the open face of our shelter, soaking us to the bone as we clung
huddling together. In three days, I literally did not sleep one minute and
ate a combined total of two olives and a handful of dried rice.
Rain itself isn't so miserable if you can occasionally get dry or warm. In
Tocantins, it rained more days than in Cambodia – but not as ferociously,
and it would stop, giving us the chance to build a fire, get dry, cook food.
The Cambodian monsoon didn't end for days. I even bet Spencer that the rain
would never stop before the season ended. Granted, that was unlikely, but
the stakes were all of Spencer's life savings against one McDonalds value
meal. (Spencer obviously won that bet.)
Because of the terrible conditions, I got viciously ill. I think it was a
combination of malnourishment and dehydration. It was pouring so badly, we
ran out of water, and nobody would make the long hike to the well to fill up
our canteens. I had to leave the shelter 17 times in one night to be sick.
Because I didn't want the monsoon soaking my clothes – which were just "wet"
and not "waterlogged" – I stripped down each time I left the shelter and
folded my clothes up so I could find them in the pitch black night when I
returned.
I worried my body was collapsing. Meanwhile, my BFFs back at camp suspected
me of subterfuge. They speculated that my advantage – or as I was calling
it, my "disadvantage" – was actually a secret shelter stocked with food to
which I was sneaking off. That's the danger of an unknown advantage –
people's imaginations can conjure anything. To my own discredit, I hadn't
come up with a good solution for what to tell the tribe about my new
superpower.
The rain didn't just deplete our energy and ruin our higher functions. It
also made any strategic hustling impossible. As Ciera said, "I can't get out
and have one-on-one conversations because we're all stuck inside the
shelter." I couldn't do any of the damage control I needed or craft any of
my new alliances. My game speed was rendered useless – especially because it
was painful to even walk on my injured monster feet.
By the time of that first immunity challenge, my brain had effectively shut
down. There was no question that I would choose a renewed shelter over the
thrill of losing another ball-balancing challenge to Joe. A warm fire and a
roof were not just creature comforts – they were the baseline human
necessities that I needed to play a strategic game.
Fire, shelter, cookies and coffee. Let Joe have his immunity, I had
chocolate and caffeine! I finally felt renewed and tried to put a plan in
place to take out Ciera, who I knew had been targeting me and who also was
supposedly targeting Spencer. Ciera was dangerous because she was strategic,
crafty and had the votes of Wentworth and Abi locked up. I was also
frustrated with her because I had been working hard to keep her in the game
as an ally, yet kept on hearing that she was throwing my name around as an
enemy.
As we left for Tribal Council, I thought everything was in place. Thus, in
what is undoubtedly my biggest blunder of the entire season that eventually
cost me the game, I didn't take the advantage with me to Tribal Council.
Why on earth wouldn't I take an advantage to Tribal? It's idiotic in
retrospect, but I had my sleep-deprived reasons at the time. The plan was
set, and I had buried my advantage far away from camp because I didn't want
one of my tribemates "accidentally" finding it. However, because my feet
were swollen and injured, it would take me a half hour to retrieve it. I
thought if the tribe saw me hobbling off to dig up my advantage that would
trigger people's paranoia. The game was moving so fast, they had more than
enough time to blindside me.
Moreover, everyone is paranoid at Tribal Council. It's easy to get anxious
and assume your ticket is up. I was paranoid of my own paranoia. I didn't
want to misplay the advantage if I was perfectly safe.
I'm still kicking myself. If I had my advantage, I could have played it
then, perhaps saved myself without Jeremy's help and then not been such a
threat for the next boot. You can see how it works: a dozen little
micro-decisions go into every calculation. Every choice you make has
unforeseen consequences.
On the trip over to Tribal, small inconsistencies from my conversations
throughout the day kept echoing in my head. A stray remark Wentworth had
dropped. Something that Ciera said. They didn't quite make sense.
Before I left for Cambodia, Rob Cesternino and Tyson Apostol had warned me
that one of my biggest challenges in the game would be that I had never been
voted out. When you're voted off Survivor, you can see the clues add up in
retrospect, the weird little moments throughout the day. I wasn't sensitive
to those warnings because I had never experienced them.
Walking over to Tribal, I realized that I had just seen those little
inconsistencies and there was nothing I could do to prevent them. As we
walked into Tribal holding our torches, I looked frantically over at Jeremy
because I knew I was done.
He just winked back.
The first episode's Fishy goes to Jeremy. He saved my life in the game, and
proved there could be trust in a season that seemed faithless. He didn't
just prove loyalty to me: he showed it to everybody. As he whispered to
Spencer, "I would do the same for you." The move also built up his résumé,
showing that he was not afraid to take charge in a difficult situation and
put everything on the line.
Of course, we didn't know that he had a second idol in his pocket!
Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow
Coming back to camp after the crazy Tribal Council, I was confounded. How on
earth had Spencer and Tasha chosen to vote against me? An entire strategic
plan had emerged, been debated, been executed and been foiled, and I had
known nothing about it. It's incredible how much the game can change when
you're away even for a few minutes, if people want to keep you in the dark.
I was struggling to piece together what had happened while I was sick. I
knew I had to do massive damage control.
I wrote earlier this season that I had consciously chosen to keep my
relationships with people strategic. I thought that making emotional bonds
would only hurt me in the finals, when people could feel personally
betrayed. But I wondered now if my failure to build those bonds had made me
a target. Maybe people didn't trust me precisely because they didn't feel
connected with me. I resolved to try to fix things by reinforcing the human
bonds with the people whose votes I needed most.
I had a perfect opportunity when I won that reward. I was thrilled to win
such an iconic Survivor challenge, especially after a season filled with
challenge flubs. But of course, winning a reward is incredibly dangerous. No
matter whom you take with you, the people left behind are pissed. Take your
allies, and your enemies grumble. Take your enemies, and your allies start
to wonder what's so great about you. There is literally no right decision.
I had to take Jeremy. He had never been on an award, and he had just saved
me with his idol. If I had left him behind, his loyalty toward me would have
dimmed. He was even miffed that I picked him second instead of first!
I picked Tasha because she seemed like a vital swing vote with whom I had
once been close. We had left Tasha out of the Wigles blindside, and I needed
to repair that rift. I didn't take Kimmi because I completely trusted her
and thought she could keep an eye on camp. I left Spencer behind because I
trusted him too and thought that his highly rational game decisions wouldn't
be based on a food reward. I clearly was mistaken.
As for the rest of them – of course I wasn't going to pick Keith or
Wentworth or Joe or Abi. Would people who had been my adversaries all game
long suddenly be my allies because of a steak?
I also worked to reinforce my bond with Spencer, especially because I didn't
take him on reward. We had consciously stayed away from each other
throughout the game because people were suspicious of our working together.
Spencer explained that he had voted against me the night Ciera went home
because he had heard I was targeting him. We had heart-to-hearts where we
discussed our personal and in-game relationships, and resolved to work
together closely moving forward.
Why We Split the Vote
When Joe lost immunity, I finally had the shot I had been waiting for. I had
been positioning myself to take out Joe since the beginning – partially
because I knew he was a threat who wanted me out, and partially too because
I thought I could get "credit" for Joe's head and prove to the jury that I
had realized my second-chance story. I figured everybody else would want him
gone too.
The big danger was if Joe had an idol. I knew I was likely Joe's target, so
my neck was on the line. Joe had been searching everywhere for weeks. He had
probably looked in every tree on that beach. Everyone assumed he had found
one.
Moreover, Joe was acting extremely relaxed after losing the immunity. Rather
than scrambling all over the beach, searching for idols or building
last-minute alliances, he was hanging out by the shelter. This was not the
behavior of a man about to go home.
So I decided to use my advantage. That way, with Jeremy, Kimmi, Tasha and
Spencer, along with my stolen vote, I would have six votes – enough to split
between Abi and Joe. I thought there was a chance Keith, Wentworth and Abi
would vote along with me to take out the golden boy. But even if they
didn't, the worst that they could do would be to tie the vote – and on a
revote, I could take out Joe or Abi.
Shortly before Tribal Council, however, Jeremy told me that something seemed
off with Spencer. I dismissed it. Jeremy had been paranoid recently, and I
trusted Spencer entirely. It wouldn't make sense for him to team up with
erratic Abi and Keith against his longtime allies me, Jeremy and Tasha.
Plus, with our five, I thought he had a fantastic position in the game, with
an alliance of people who were rational and all of whom he could beat in
challenges. Why go with Joe and Keith, the biggest physical threats in the
game?
I have to give Spencer the Fishy for the second episode. He masterminded the
plan to get me out, and perfectly convinced me of his loyalty.
In this deleted scene (https://youtu.be/duhPX1M8jKU), Spencer explains that
on the one hand, Joe kept beating him in the immunities – and on the other,
I beat him out for the advantage and the reward. I think Spencer's choice
came down to his own self-conception. Was he a physical player who wanted to
remove Joe or a cerebral player who wanted me out? But of course we know the
answer. Spencer was introduced to America on Survivor: Cagayan as a Brain,
and that designation has defined him.
I also imagine that Spencer was worried about the strategic guy running
around the beach with a mysterious advantage in his pocket. Was he having
flashbacks to Cagayan? Spencer likely targeted me for the same reasons that
I was targeting Joe. It gives him a résumé, and fulfills some of his
unfinished business from his first season.
That said, with only six votes left in the game, I am surprised that Spencer
took out someone he could beat for immunities or at the final tribal. Why
not eliminate Joe now and take me out later? Or if he were going to make a
move on my alliance, why not vote for Jeremy, the biggest threat of all?
Even as I was sitting at Tribal Council, waiting for Spencer to vote, I
noticed that it was taking him an awfully long time to write down "Joe" on
the parchment. The thought crossed my mind: Could something be up? If I
flipped both my votes to Abi, she'd be gone. But I didn't want to waste a
shot at Joe – maybe I really was too fixated – and I just didn't believe
that Spencer would flip.
Clearly I was wrong, and that error in judgment cost me the game. I have to
give Spencer credit. He played me perfectly.
I'm also giving Joe a Fishy for this second episode. Everybody assumed Joe
would be gone the moment he lost immunity. I sure assumed it! Joe managed to
make deep bonds that carried him through his moment of vulnerability. That
was one of the tests of his Second Chance success, and he met it.
Summing Up
Survivor is a game of mistakes. So what did I do wrong? Obviously, a lot.
Everybody does a lot wrong, and everybody does a lot right, and the best you
can do is minimize your mistakes, maximize your successes and hope for a
little luck. I should have played the advantage the first chance I got, just
to burn it and remove the target. I shouldn't have trusted Spencer as much
as I did. I shouldn't have split the vote. For the rest, there are so many
circumstances that unspool out of every decision, it's impossible to try to
second-guess a million tiny choices.
Should we have split the vote on the Savage blindside? That would have saved
Savage, but I could easily have been gone next. Should I have tried to save
Monica? Maybe, but she could have flipped faster than Wigles. It's just
impossible to know.
I've always said that everybody on Survivor is the hero of their own story.
Everyone is hustling around, crafting alliances, making second-by-second
strategic calculations that they think will win them the game.
When you're voted out, you become a character in someone else's story. It's
hard for anybody to see that transition take place, which is why people's
exit interviews are so often clouded by personal bias.
I'm sure I've made a lot of mistakes in my chronicle of the season thus far.
I've tried to be objective when I could.
But this is just one person's version of events – one perspective out of 20.
I'm grateful to all of you for reading.
Source:
http://www.people.com/article/survivor-cambodia-second-chance-stephen-fishbach-blog-ciera-eastin-exit
Brian
By Stephen Fishbach @stephenfishbach 11/30/2015 AT 11:00 AM EST
Stephen Fishbach was the runner-up on Survivor: Tocantins and has been
blogging about Survivor strategy for PEOPLE since 2009. This season, he has
been blogging about his experiences in Cambodia as a competitor on Survivor:
Second Chance. Follow Stephen on Twitter @stephenfishbach.
"If it's a move that sends you home, at least you went out trying to make a
move." –Ciera Eastin, Survivor: Blood vs. Water
"This game involves creating a lot of dynamic structures, and then working
within those structures to advance yourself as best as you can." –Stephen
Fishbach, Survivor: Tocantins
So what's it like getting voted out of Survivor?
I've heard people say different things. The death of their dream. Their
heart stops like a snuffed flame.
For me, it was great fun. Before I ever went on Survivor, the one thing I
wanted was a framed shot of Jeff Probst snuffing my torch. Luckily, I never
got that iconic Survivor experience from Tocantins. This time I'll get my
photo.
I was a longshot to win Second Chance, and I'm proud of the game I played:
aggressive and emotionally open. More than anything, I didn't want to coast
into the finals as a goat. Instead, I was eliminated as a threat. Other than
the million bucks, what more could I ask for?
So thank you once again to everybody who voted me in. As the saying goes, I
got to have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity twice.
But I'm getting way ahead of myself.
Here Comes the Rain Again
As we went to vote out Wiglesworth, I knew that her elimination would
disrupt our fragile alliance structure. However, I thought that I could move
fast enough to pick up the pieces. I'd do damage control with Tasha and
Kimmi while ratifying new treaties with the Three Witches.
But that Tribal Council, the monsoon hit. Solid sheets of rain destroyed our
camp. Our one-time fire pit became a water-filled hole. Frigid gusts blew
through the open face of our shelter, soaking us to the bone as we clung
huddling together. In three days, I literally did not sleep one minute and
ate a combined total of two olives and a handful of dried rice.
Rain itself isn't so miserable if you can occasionally get dry or warm. In
Tocantins, it rained more days than in Cambodia – but not as ferociously,
and it would stop, giving us the chance to build a fire, get dry, cook food.
The Cambodian monsoon didn't end for days. I even bet Spencer that the rain
would never stop before the season ended. Granted, that was unlikely, but
the stakes were all of Spencer's life savings against one McDonalds value
meal. (Spencer obviously won that bet.)
Because of the terrible conditions, I got viciously ill. I think it was a
combination of malnourishment and dehydration. It was pouring so badly, we
ran out of water, and nobody would make the long hike to the well to fill up
our canteens. I had to leave the shelter 17 times in one night to be sick.
Because I didn't want the monsoon soaking my clothes – which were just "wet"
and not "waterlogged" – I stripped down each time I left the shelter and
folded my clothes up so I could find them in the pitch black night when I
returned.
I worried my body was collapsing. Meanwhile, my BFFs back at camp suspected
me of subterfuge. They speculated that my advantage – or as I was calling
it, my "disadvantage" – was actually a secret shelter stocked with food to
which I was sneaking off. That's the danger of an unknown advantage –
people's imaginations can conjure anything. To my own discredit, I hadn't
come up with a good solution for what to tell the tribe about my new
superpower.
The rain didn't just deplete our energy and ruin our higher functions. It
also made any strategic hustling impossible. As Ciera said, "I can't get out
and have one-on-one conversations because we're all stuck inside the
shelter." I couldn't do any of the damage control I needed or craft any of
my new alliances. My game speed was rendered useless – especially because it
was painful to even walk on my injured monster feet.
By the time of that first immunity challenge, my brain had effectively shut
down. There was no question that I would choose a renewed shelter over the
thrill of losing another ball-balancing challenge to Joe. A warm fire and a
roof were not just creature comforts – they were the baseline human
necessities that I needed to play a strategic game.
Fire, shelter, cookies and coffee. Let Joe have his immunity, I had
chocolate and caffeine! I finally felt renewed and tried to put a plan in
place to take out Ciera, who I knew had been targeting me and who also was
supposedly targeting Spencer. Ciera was dangerous because she was strategic,
crafty and had the votes of Wentworth and Abi locked up. I was also
frustrated with her because I had been working hard to keep her in the game
as an ally, yet kept on hearing that she was throwing my name around as an
enemy.
As we left for Tribal Council, I thought everything was in place. Thus, in
what is undoubtedly my biggest blunder of the entire season that eventually
cost me the game, I didn't take the advantage with me to Tribal Council.
Why on earth wouldn't I take an advantage to Tribal? It's idiotic in
retrospect, but I had my sleep-deprived reasons at the time. The plan was
set, and I had buried my advantage far away from camp because I didn't want
one of my tribemates "accidentally" finding it. However, because my feet
were swollen and injured, it would take me a half hour to retrieve it. I
thought if the tribe saw me hobbling off to dig up my advantage that would
trigger people's paranoia. The game was moving so fast, they had more than
enough time to blindside me.
Moreover, everyone is paranoid at Tribal Council. It's easy to get anxious
and assume your ticket is up. I was paranoid of my own paranoia. I didn't
want to misplay the advantage if I was perfectly safe.
I'm still kicking myself. If I had my advantage, I could have played it
then, perhaps saved myself without Jeremy's help and then not been such a
threat for the next boot. You can see how it works: a dozen little
micro-decisions go into every calculation. Every choice you make has
unforeseen consequences.
On the trip over to Tribal, small inconsistencies from my conversations
throughout the day kept echoing in my head. A stray remark Wentworth had
dropped. Something that Ciera said. They didn't quite make sense.
Before I left for Cambodia, Rob Cesternino and Tyson Apostol had warned me
that one of my biggest challenges in the game would be that I had never been
voted out. When you're voted off Survivor, you can see the clues add up in
retrospect, the weird little moments throughout the day. I wasn't sensitive
to those warnings because I had never experienced them.
Walking over to Tribal, I realized that I had just seen those little
inconsistencies and there was nothing I could do to prevent them. As we
walked into Tribal holding our torches, I looked frantically over at Jeremy
because I knew I was done.
He just winked back.
The first episode's Fishy goes to Jeremy. He saved my life in the game, and
proved there could be trust in a season that seemed faithless. He didn't
just prove loyalty to me: he showed it to everybody. As he whispered to
Spencer, "I would do the same for you." The move also built up his résumé,
showing that he was not afraid to take charge in a difficult situation and
put everything on the line.
Of course, we didn't know that he had a second idol in his pocket!
Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow
Coming back to camp after the crazy Tribal Council, I was confounded. How on
earth had Spencer and Tasha chosen to vote against me? An entire strategic
plan had emerged, been debated, been executed and been foiled, and I had
known nothing about it. It's incredible how much the game can change when
you're away even for a few minutes, if people want to keep you in the dark.
I was struggling to piece together what had happened while I was sick. I
knew I had to do massive damage control.
I wrote earlier this season that I had consciously chosen to keep my
relationships with people strategic. I thought that making emotional bonds
would only hurt me in the finals, when people could feel personally
betrayed. But I wondered now if my failure to build those bonds had made me
a target. Maybe people didn't trust me precisely because they didn't feel
connected with me. I resolved to try to fix things by reinforcing the human
bonds with the people whose votes I needed most.
I had a perfect opportunity when I won that reward. I was thrilled to win
such an iconic Survivor challenge, especially after a season filled with
challenge flubs. But of course, winning a reward is incredibly dangerous. No
matter whom you take with you, the people left behind are pissed. Take your
allies, and your enemies grumble. Take your enemies, and your allies start
to wonder what's so great about you. There is literally no right decision.
I had to take Jeremy. He had never been on an award, and he had just saved
me with his idol. If I had left him behind, his loyalty toward me would have
dimmed. He was even miffed that I picked him second instead of first!
I picked Tasha because she seemed like a vital swing vote with whom I had
once been close. We had left Tasha out of the Wigles blindside, and I needed
to repair that rift. I didn't take Kimmi because I completely trusted her
and thought she could keep an eye on camp. I left Spencer behind because I
trusted him too and thought that his highly rational game decisions wouldn't
be based on a food reward. I clearly was mistaken.
As for the rest of them – of course I wasn't going to pick Keith or
Wentworth or Joe or Abi. Would people who had been my adversaries all game
long suddenly be my allies because of a steak?
I also worked to reinforce my bond with Spencer, especially because I didn't
take him on reward. We had consciously stayed away from each other
throughout the game because people were suspicious of our working together.
Spencer explained that he had voted against me the night Ciera went home
because he had heard I was targeting him. We had heart-to-hearts where we
discussed our personal and in-game relationships, and resolved to work
together closely moving forward.
Why We Split the Vote
When Joe lost immunity, I finally had the shot I had been waiting for. I had
been positioning myself to take out Joe since the beginning – partially
because I knew he was a threat who wanted me out, and partially too because
I thought I could get "credit" for Joe's head and prove to the jury that I
had realized my second-chance story. I figured everybody else would want him
gone too.
The big danger was if Joe had an idol. I knew I was likely Joe's target, so
my neck was on the line. Joe had been searching everywhere for weeks. He had
probably looked in every tree on that beach. Everyone assumed he had found
one.
Moreover, Joe was acting extremely relaxed after losing the immunity. Rather
than scrambling all over the beach, searching for idols or building
last-minute alliances, he was hanging out by the shelter. This was not the
behavior of a man about to go home.
So I decided to use my advantage. That way, with Jeremy, Kimmi, Tasha and
Spencer, along with my stolen vote, I would have six votes – enough to split
between Abi and Joe. I thought there was a chance Keith, Wentworth and Abi
would vote along with me to take out the golden boy. But even if they
didn't, the worst that they could do would be to tie the vote – and on a
revote, I could take out Joe or Abi.
Shortly before Tribal Council, however, Jeremy told me that something seemed
off with Spencer. I dismissed it. Jeremy had been paranoid recently, and I
trusted Spencer entirely. It wouldn't make sense for him to team up with
erratic Abi and Keith against his longtime allies me, Jeremy and Tasha.
Plus, with our five, I thought he had a fantastic position in the game, with
an alliance of people who were rational and all of whom he could beat in
challenges. Why go with Joe and Keith, the biggest physical threats in the
game?
I have to give Spencer the Fishy for the second episode. He masterminded the
plan to get me out, and perfectly convinced me of his loyalty.
In this deleted scene (https://youtu.be/duhPX1M8jKU), Spencer explains that
on the one hand, Joe kept beating him in the immunities – and on the other,
I beat him out for the advantage and the reward. I think Spencer's choice
came down to his own self-conception. Was he a physical player who wanted to
remove Joe or a cerebral player who wanted me out? But of course we know the
answer. Spencer was introduced to America on Survivor: Cagayan as a Brain,
and that designation has defined him.
I also imagine that Spencer was worried about the strategic guy running
around the beach with a mysterious advantage in his pocket. Was he having
flashbacks to Cagayan? Spencer likely targeted me for the same reasons that
I was targeting Joe. It gives him a résumé, and fulfills some of his
unfinished business from his first season.
That said, with only six votes left in the game, I am surprised that Spencer
took out someone he could beat for immunities or at the final tribal. Why
not eliminate Joe now and take me out later? Or if he were going to make a
move on my alliance, why not vote for Jeremy, the biggest threat of all?
Even as I was sitting at Tribal Council, waiting for Spencer to vote, I
noticed that it was taking him an awfully long time to write down "Joe" on
the parchment. The thought crossed my mind: Could something be up? If I
flipped both my votes to Abi, she'd be gone. But I didn't want to waste a
shot at Joe – maybe I really was too fixated – and I just didn't believe
that Spencer would flip.
Clearly I was wrong, and that error in judgment cost me the game. I have to
give Spencer credit. He played me perfectly.
I'm also giving Joe a Fishy for this second episode. Everybody assumed Joe
would be gone the moment he lost immunity. I sure assumed it! Joe managed to
make deep bonds that carried him through his moment of vulnerability. That
was one of the tests of his Second Chance success, and he met it.
Summing Up
Survivor is a game of mistakes. So what did I do wrong? Obviously, a lot.
Everybody does a lot wrong, and everybody does a lot right, and the best you
can do is minimize your mistakes, maximize your successes and hope for a
little luck. I should have played the advantage the first chance I got, just
to burn it and remove the target. I shouldn't have trusted Spencer as much
as I did. I shouldn't have split the vote. For the rest, there are so many
circumstances that unspool out of every decision, it's impossible to try to
second-guess a million tiny choices.
Should we have split the vote on the Savage blindside? That would have saved
Savage, but I could easily have been gone next. Should I have tried to save
Monica? Maybe, but she could have flipped faster than Wigles. It's just
impossible to know.
I've always said that everybody on Survivor is the hero of their own story.
Everyone is hustling around, crafting alliances, making second-by-second
strategic calculations that they think will win them the game.
When you're voted out, you become a character in someone else's story. It's
hard for anybody to see that transition take place, which is why people's
exit interviews are so often clouded by personal bias.
I'm sure I've made a lot of mistakes in my chronicle of the season thus far.
I've tried to be objective when I could.
But this is just one person's version of events – one perspective out of 20.
I'm grateful to all of you for reading.
Source:
http://www.people.com/article/survivor-cambodia-second-chance-stephen-fishbach-blog-ciera-eastin-exit
Brian
nitram
Dec 1, 2015, 9:45:22 AM12/1/15
to
>On Mon, 30 Nov 2015 19:43:34 -0700, "Brian Smith" <dcg_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Stephen Fishbach's Survivor Blog: A Game of Mistakes
>
>By Stephen Fishbach @stephenfishbach 11/30/2015 AT 11:00 AM EST
>
[SNIP]
>Stephen Fishbach's Survivor Blog: A Game of Mistakes
>
>By Stephen Fishbach @stephenfishbach 11/30/2015 AT 11:00 AM EST
>
>
>As we left for Tribal Council, I thought everything was in place. Thus, in
>what is undoubtedly my biggest blunder of the entire season that eventually
>cost me the game, I didn't take the advantage with me to Tribal Council.
>
>Why on earth wouldn't I take an advantage to Tribal? It's idiotic in
>retrospect, but I had my sleep-deprived reasons at the time. The plan was
>set, and I had buried my advantage far away from camp because I didn't want
>one of my tribemates "accidentally" finding it. However, because my feet
>were swollen and injured, it would take me a half hour to retrieve it. I
>thought if the tribe saw me hobbling off to dig up my advantage that would
>trigger people's paranoia. The game was moving so fast, they had more than
>enough time to blindside me.
>
>Moreover, everyone is paranoid at Tribal Council. It's easy to get anxious
>and assume your ticket is up. I was paranoid of my own paranoia. I didn't
>want to misplay the advantage if I was perfectly safe.
>
>I'm still kicking myself. If I had my advantage, I could have played it
>then, perhaps saved myself without Jeremy's help and then not been such a
>threat for the next boot. You can see how it works: a dozen little
>micro-decisions go into every calculation. Every choice you make has
>unforeseen consequences.
>
he had to have the piece of paper that says he has an advantage in
order to use it?????
the powers that be knew what his advantage was, Stephen stood up and
said he wanted to use it, Jeff explained it, and I saw no exchange of
paper!
what gives?
nit
shawn
Dec 1, 2015, 10:59:28 AM12/1/15
to
On Tue, 01 Dec 2015 09:45:21 -0500, nitram <memyself&i...@nowhere.com>
wrote:
Maybe he's confused himself or he's trying to come up with a reason he
didn't play his advantage during the Ciera TC. I'm not so sure that
playing his advantage there would have saved him but it would have
kept Jeremy with two idols as I don't think he would have played the
idol after Fishbach used his advantage.
wrote:
didn't play his advantage during the Ciera TC. I'm not so sure that
playing his advantage there would have saved him but it would have
kept Jeremy with two idols as I don't think he would have played the
idol after Fishbach used his advantage.
Brian Smith
Dec 1, 2015, 3:52:17 PM12/1/15
to
"shawn" wrote in message news:7sgr5btktkt94f8eb...@4ax.com...
As Stephen said, he thought if he had played his advantage during the TC
where Ciera got booted that he would have been seen as a less of a threat.
That very well could be true as the Abi and KW might have put Joe back up to
the top of their list of people to take out.
As for not having the advantage with him that confused me as well. Do you
remember if Dan passed anything to Jeff last season when he played his? I
don't but it's possible that they just didn't show it. Hopefully someone
asks him to explain this because it does sound odd.
--
Brian
where Ciera got booted that he would have been seen as a less of a threat.
That very well could be true as the Abi and KW might have put Joe back up to
the top of their list of people to take out.
As for not having the advantage with him that confused me as well. Do you
remember if Dan passed anything to Jeff last season when he played his? I
don't but it's possible that they just didn't show it. Hopefully someone
asks him to explain this because it does sound odd.
--
Brian
Larry
Dec 2, 2015, 6:35:25 PM12/2/15
to
>Stephen Fishbach's Survivor Blog: A Game of Mistakes
>
>By Stephen Fishbach @stephenfishbach 11/30/2015 AT 11:00 AM EST
[snip]
>
>By Stephen Fishbach @stephenfishbach 11/30/2015 AT 11:00 AM EST
>combination of malnourishment and dehydration. It was pouring so badly, we
>ran out of water, and nobody would make the long hike to the well to fill up
>our canteens.
[snip]
>ran out of water, and nobody would make the long hike to the well to fill up
>our canteens.
>Source:
>http://www.people.com/article/survivor-cambodia-second-chance-stephen-fishbach-blog-ciera-eastin-exit
>
>Brian
Say what? How do you run out of water in a rainstorm???
BTW, thanks for posting these Brian.
UCLAN
Dec 3, 2015, 12:37:11 AM12/3/15
to
Questor
Dec 3, 2015, 1:56:11 AM12/3/15
to
On Wed, 02 Dec 2015 15:35:18 -0800, Larry <Larry...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>On Mon, 30 Nov 2015 19:43:34 -0700, "Brian Smith"
><dcg_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>Stephen Fishbach's Survivor Blog: A Game of Mistakes
>>By Stephen Fishbach @stephenfishbach 11/30/2015 AT 11:00 AM EST
>[snip]
>>combination of malnourishment and dehydration. It was pouring so badly, we
>>ran out of water, and nobody would make the long hike to the well to fill up
>>our canteens.
>[snip]
>>Source:
>>http://www.people.com/article/survivor-cambodia-second-chance-stephen-fishbach-blog-ciera-eastin-exit
>>
>On Mon, 30 Nov 2015 19:43:34 -0700, "Brian Smith"
><dcg_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>Stephen Fishbach's Survivor Blog: A Game of Mistakes
>>By Stephen Fishbach @stephenfishbach 11/30/2015 AT 11:00 AM EST
>[snip]
>>combination of malnourishment and dehydration. It was pouring so badly, we
>>ran out of water, and nobody would make the long hike to the well to fill up
>>our canteens.
>[snip]
>>Source:
>>http://www.people.com/article/survivor-cambodia-second-chance-stephen-fishbach-blog-ciera-eastin-exit
>>
>Say what? How do you run out of water in a rainstorm???
They don't have anything with which to collect water in sufficent quantities
given the number of the people left in the tribe.
Larry
Dec 3, 2015, 2:01:40 PM12/3/15
to
downpour by a variety of methods. They also have the container they
use to transport water from the production supplied location.
Brian Smith
Dec 3, 2015, 3:02:22 PM12/3/15
to
"Larry" wrote in message news:05416b54db3voa4p7...@4ax.com...
Do we know if they were drinking the water from the well without boiling it
first? If they had to boil it that could explain why they ran out of water.
--
Brian
first? If they had to boil it that could explain why they ran out of water.
--
Brian
Questor
Dec 3, 2015, 8:24:30 PM12/3/15
to
On Thu, 03 Dec 2015 11:01:32 -0800, Larry <Larry...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>On Thu, 03 Dec 2015 06:57:06 GMT, use...@only.tnx (Questor) wrote:
>>On Wed, 02 Dec 2015 15:35:18 -0800, Larry <Larry...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>On Mon, 30 Nov 2015 19:43:34 -0700, "Brian Smith" <dcg_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>Stephen Fishbach's Survivor Blog: A Game of Mistakes
>On Thu, 03 Dec 2015 06:57:06 GMT, use...@only.tnx (Questor) wrote:
>>On Wed, 02 Dec 2015 15:35:18 -0800, Larry <Larry...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>On Mon, 30 Nov 2015 19:43:34 -0700, "Brian Smith" <dcg_...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>Stephen Fishbach's Survivor Blog: A Game of Mistakes
>>>>combination of malnourishment and dehydration. It was pouring so badly, we
>>>>ran out of water, and nobody would make the long hike to the well to fill up
>>>>our canteens.
>>>>ran out of water, and nobody would make the long hike to the well to fill up
>>>>our canteens.
>>>>Source:
>>>>http://www.people.com/article/survivor-cambodia-second-chance-stephen-fishbach-blog-ciera-eastin-exit
>>>>
>>>Say what? How do you run out of water in a rainstorm???
>>
>>They don't have anything with which to collect water in sufficent quantities
>>given the number of the people left in the tribe.
>
>They each have a canteen that can quickly and easily filled in a
>downpour by a variety of methods. They also have the container they
>use to transport water from the production supplied location.
AFAIK, they transport water from the "well" in their canteens. They do have
>>>>http://www.people.com/article/survivor-cambodia-second-chance-stephen-fishbach-blog-ciera-eastin-exit
>>>>
>>>Say what? How do you run out of water in a rainstorm???
>>
>>They don't have anything with which to collect water in sufficent quantities
>>given the number of the people left in the tribe.
>
>They each have a canteen that can quickly and easily filled in a
>downpour by a variety of methods. They also have the container they
>use to transport water from the production supplied location.
a cooking pot, but again, it isn't large enough to collect as much water as
they need.
Specifically, how do you suggest they can "quickly and easily" fill a canteen in
a downpour? They have no funnels, no plastic sheeting -- how can they collect
falling rain from several square feet *per person* -- because that's how much
it would take to supply their daily needs. Oh, and they want to do this while
sitting in the shelter, because otherwise they're getting soaked in the rain,
in which case they could have just made the trip to the well.
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