Survivor: Cook Islands – Why Adam Lost by David Bloomberg -- 12/18/2006 Once Jonathan jumped from the Raros back to the Aitus, did Adam even have a chance? Frankly, no. What, then, could he have done differently before that point to change the outcome? Why did Adam lose? Much of this article can be a straight copy of the same column I wrote for Parvati on Friday, just changing the name “Parvati” to “Adam.” But rather than do it the completely lazy way, let’s look to see if there are any differences at all. Let’s determine why Adam lost. Like Parvati and every other player of the season (other than Yul, of course), we will investigate this by looking back at What Cook Island Survivors Should Have Learned. Let’s get to it. The first rule tells players they need to scheme and plot. Unfortunately, I’m not sure Adam ever really got that. Still, he did manage to be the last Raro standing, so he deserves at least some credit for that, I suppose. Even so, it wasn’t so much due to his scheming skills. Before the mutiny, Adam believed he and Nate controlled Raro. After the mutiny, this belief continued. And indeed, they voted out one supposed ally after another, all the while ignoring Jonathan. Obviously, that was a decision that came back to haunt them. Part of this was due to arrogance. He, Nate, Candice, and Parvati were going to the final four in their minds, so he didn’t need to do too much thinking. As I noted in “Why Parvati Lost,” with a couple minor name changes: Instead of his foursome plus Jonathan, it became the Aitu foursome plus Jonathan. Whoops! That marked the beginning of the end for Adam. Once Jonathan switched sides, the Pagonging began, with just a short interruption to get rid of Jonathan himself. Adam did try a few last-minute plots, but none of them went anywhere. He even hoped to pull immunity from Yul, although Adam would still get sent home. But it was too little, too late by then. Adam had no more allies and no hopes to create a new one. He had painted himself into a corner by only aligning with Nate, Candice, and Parvati. Nobody else wanted to listen to him. Ironically, he would have had a better chance if Jonathan had still been around (and he hadn’t called Jonathan a bunch of nasty names), because Jonathan would have looked at where his best chance was in the game, and he might have found it with Adam. Given that we don’t think Adam schemed and plotted enough, how did he do in terms of the second rule? Well, we can say he certainly didn’t scheme and plot too much. But did he backstab too early? Yup. Just ask Jenny. And did he fail to keep his scheming secret? Yup. Again, just ask Jenny! Jenny figured out that Adam would not turn on Candice – his scheming was out in the open. Jenny saw this as a threatening situation and wanted to terminate it. But instead, Adam got it into his head that Jenny needed to go first. So he stabbed her in the back. But by doing so, he allowed Jonathan to stick around and stab Adam and the other Raros in the back. Whoops! That was just poor planning on Adam’s part, and the incorrect belief that Jonathan could never go back to those he betrayed once. As various Raros were voted off since that point, several of them have said voting off Jenny instead of Jonathan was their biggest mistake, and I don’t think I can disagree. Adam led that vote. The third rule tells players to be flexible. Adam… wasn’t. He, like Parvati and other Raros before them, failed to follow a key point highlighted by this rule: “You can’t simply tie yourself to one alliance and hope that it survives.” But that’s just what Adam did. He tied himself first to the original Raros and then to the new and improved Raros with Nate added in. He never appeared to consider making any backup alliances among the Aitus – why should he bother when he controlled the game, right? So as I said for Parvati just a few short days ago, when Jonathan flipped, Adam was dead in the water. Adam suffered from the same problems in the fourth rule as many of his allies did. From “Why Nate Lost”: “I think the main reason Nate didn’t really seek out a back-up alliance is the emotional attachment he had to his main alliance. … Nate didn’t want to backstab his friends, and as such he bears some responsibility for what happened to him.” Replace “Nate” with “Adam” this time and we have the same point. Of course, there is the added part for Adam that he had coupled up with Candice and also played snuggle-bunny with Parvati. I think he was having a good ol’ times with the young ladies, and there was no way he was going to do anything to vote them out. Indeed, we have to remember that the reason he turned on loyal Jenny was that Jenny was afraid Candice had horned her way into the alliance. She was right – and that caused Adam to make a move that certainly helped kill the Raros. Fifth is to pretend to be nice. I think Adam did fine in following this rule (as noted above, he was a little too nice to a couple of the ladies). It was certainly not the cause of him being voted out. Frankly, the same is true of the sixth rule, which says not to be a threat. Amusingly, little petite Parvati was voted out before Adam because she was considered more of a threat than he was. He might have been big and brawny, but that also meant he was more affected by the lack of food. That allowed him one more day in the game, but there was nothing he could do to make good use of it. The seventh rule says not to be lazy. What we saw of the Raros, they all pretty much blew this one, which helped cause Jonathan to turn his back on them. He didn’t want that group to win, which made his decision easier. It’s hard to say if he would have stood by them if they had been a harder-working bunch, but it certainly couldn’t have hurt. After that point, though, it really didn’t matter. It seems a bit silly to even ask the next question, which is whether the Aitus did the right thing in getting rid of Adam. Of course, in a case like this we have the benefit of hindsight. Yul obviously did the right thing. Other than that, it’s hard to say. If Ozzy and Sundra had joined Adam, they could have voted out Becky or at least gotten rid of the immunity idol. Either would have drastically changed the outcome of the game and maybe given Ozzy the win (I don’t think either Becky or Sundra could have won in the final three format, as they would have always had a stronger player with them). But hindsight is 20/20. In the end, Adam was simply the last of the Raros. He was voted out for the same reason as the others – because he was not in the Aitu four. His biggest mistake was in worrying about Candice instead of Jenny, and thus sending Jenny packing before Jonathan. That set the stage for everything that would happen right up to the finale. Adam allowed his emotions to interfere with his decision-making and backstabbed too soon, in addition to not having a backup plan. That is why Adam lost.

“I Stayed True to Myself” – An Interview with Survivor: Cook Islands’ Sundra by David Bloomberg -- 12/18/2006 Sundra came into Survivor with very little knowledge of the game, but she made it to the final four. What went wrong in the fire-making challenge? Why didn’t she try to break up Becky and Yul? Who did she vote for, and why? She answers all these questions and more in this RealityNewsOnline interview. Sundra didn’t quite go down in a blaze of glory – unless the blaze was Becky’s fire, but at least she can laugh about it. What did happen there? And what went on behind the scenes for the rest of the game? Read on to find out! RealityNewsOnline: What was your strategy coming into the game? Sundra: My strategy was to basically keep my eyes open and assess the situation. I don’t believe in saying I’m going to do this and that. I’m going to be a hard worker and not let them see me sweat or show any weaknesses or put a target on myself. I’ll be an active member, do what I have to do, get acquainted with the right people, and work my ass off. I’m not going to be the leader. That was basically what I set out to do and I did that so I’m very proud. RNO: What went wrong with the fire-making challenge? Sundra: (laughs) Becky and I had practiced making fire at camp and we had successfully done it at camp. Maybe it was nerves and different materials. I couldn’t believe it. I had been making fire. Nerves, the wind behind me, different materials – any combination. Honestly, I was sitting there striking the flint and matches. I couldn’t believe it. It felt like a cruel joke of the gods. What are you going to do? I was just happy to be there with Becky because we had grown so close. Our alliance had been as close as you saw. At the end of the day, you just have to realize it’s a game and that’s how it happens. RNO: If you had made it to the final three, what would your main arguments have been? Sundra: I would have just had to present myself and say I didn’t find the hidden idol, I wasn’t the physical phenomenon that was Ozzy, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t an active member in how things turned out the way they did. What a lot of people fail to realize is that Yul is not this puppetmaster – I was really annoyed at that term because it seems very manipulative and contrived to present a false picture. Becky, Yul, and myself discussed everything. Yul never ever said this is what we’re going to do, he always came to Becky and me and we all spoke about it together. Unfortunately they didn’t present that in the show. There are many ways to win Survivor. If it was about physical strength, they’d get a bunch of physical animals to duke it out and we’d call it Olympics 2. Just because my agenda wasn’t that obvious doesn’t mean I didn’t have one. I was not a lazy person, I was always doing something. I also was smart. I realized I am not the best spear fisher, and I realized I could go out and spend my time and energy spear fishing or I can let Ozzy do it and rest and gut and clean and cook when he comes back, because it’s a team effort. You don’t help your team by being all things and trying to prove your point. I would have presented that to the jury. I would have said, “Those of you who know me know I’m a hard worker and a smart woman. My game was just different.” What kind of game do you respect? That was the one thing that was one of my goals – do what I have to do best because I know I’m not the most phys threat. I didn’t have the idol to work with. So I worked with what I had. RNO: Do you think you would have been more successful than Becky? Sundra: I think it would have been an equal argument, because so many people saw us as similar. It was just a different approach. I knew Yul offered Becky the hidden immunity idol – I would have been surprised if he didn’t. That wasn’t a shock. I think people are impressed by how Yul is and how physically overwhelming Ozzy is. I think it would have been a similar argument. Because those two ways of playing are more visible and people tend to gravitate to them more. But it’s outwit, outplay, outlast however it is you do it. I would have hoped people would have been able to see that and not just go for the obvious. RNO: Knowing how tight Yul and Becky were, did you consider trying to break them up before the final four? Sundra: No, I didn’t. My goal in this game – you kind of have to know what your battles are. They had a long-standing relationship. It would have been stupid and slimy to try to break them up. It wouldn’t have worked. For me to break them up it would have required some part of scheming that I was not going to do. Every move that I made in the game, I needed to be able to look at myself in the mirror. Some things are worth more than money. I wanted to be able to feel proud of how I did it. RNO: Why did you decide against going with Adam’s plan to get rid of Yul’s immunity idol? Sundra: For basically the same reasons. It was a stupid plan, in my opinion. When you got a good thing going, why? I know he was on the way out, and he wanted to have that last bit of glory. But no, we went through so much in the mutiny, that really solidified us. That was the defining moment of my Survivor experience. To say you had to be there really applies. Yul and Becky are people I consider friends for life. That, to me, is more than anything. RNO: Who did you vote for and why? Sundra: I voted for Yul. Because nothing against Ozzy, I love Ozzy, but Yul and I had a closer bond from our early days before the merge. And there were a lot of times Yul and I spent alone that they never showed. We had a great bond a great friendship. I got to know Yul the person and his heart is huge. I don’t know anybody else who has as big a heart as that man does. We have similar values and similar ambitions and concerns. Yul’s a little bit older than Ozzy, and there’s an appreciation that Yul doesn’t take lightly. Yul’s the type of person where I know he will make it benefit a lot of people. I know that as much as I know my name. There couldn’t have been a more deserving person. RNO: If you could go back in time, what would you do differently? Sundra: The only thing I would ever do differently is at the beginning when I started the game, I would have believed in myself a little bit more. I was very much very green. I knew nothing about the game. I came on the show a little overweight, very unsure of myself, but I prayed for the distraction that came in the form of Survivor. I was really intimidated a bit by people who had watched the game from day one, knew the different contestants, it kind of blew me away. But I said I’m not going to let anybody know I’m scared. I didn’t even like coconut going into the game, and now I’m addicted. That’s the only thing I would have done – there is nothing else I would have changed. I stayed true to myself the whole time, which was really important to me. RNO: Is there anything else you’d like to tell us about your time on Survivor? Sundra: I have yet to find the right words to describe my experience. It would do a disservice to even try to explain it. I wish they had shown a little bit more of our interactions with each other. It wasn’t just all seriousness, just sitting there contemplating and scheming. We joked and laughed and there were private times I had with Becky and Yul that really formed the foundation of a friendship that blooms every day. I wish they had shown that a little bit more, but I think I’m one of the luckiest girls ever to have the opportunity to play that game. RNO: Thanks, Sundra!

Survivor: Cook Islands – Why Becky Lost by David Bloomberg -- 12/20/2006 Becky came into the game knowing she needed an early ally, and she found one in Yul. But while that alliance took her all the way to the end, did it also prevent her from winning? What could she have done differently if she wanted to claim the million-dollar prize for herself? Why did Becky lose? Becky has found a place for herself in Survivor history, though one she probably did not want – she was the first finalist ever to receive zero votes. Yes, it’s a bit different because she was also in the first threesome to face the jury, but still – ouch. Let’s push through the pain, though, and determine what went wrong. Why did Becky lose? Throughout the season of Survivor: Cook Islands, we saw Becky as the second in command to Yul – though some have said she was an equal partner. But when it came time for the first three-way vote in Survivor history, she was third by a long shot. How can we explain these results? Let’s take a look back at What Cook Island Survivors Should Have Learned, to see what we can dig up. Becky appears to have come into Survivor with a pretty good understanding of what she needed to do in the game, and this includes following the first rule by scheming and plotting. The rule specifically notes, “From the very beginning, you have to start making alliances and cementing relationships.” And in her interview with me, Becky said, “I also knew the importance of finding people who you trusted. With 20 people, I knew I had to find some allies right away.” That alliance with Yul lasted the entire 39 days, and they never once considered turning on each other. They did, however, turn on others as necessary and plot a course all the way to the finals. While Yul won, he has continually given support to Becky as one of his partners in the game. For example, in his interview with me, Yul discussed the voting out of Nate and noted that when he found out how there was the possibility of Ozzy and Nate starting to form an alliance, he “ran back to Becky” to talk about it. Similarly, Becky talked to me about how, before the mutiny, she and Candice “would strategize and go back to our respective male partners,” even though that wasn’t necessarily shown very much on TV. She added, “I was behind the scenes making the necessary alliances to stay in the game.” The problem may have been that she was too much behind the scenes and the jury didn’t know about it. As Adam told me in my interview with him, at the time he did indeed consider Yul the puppetmaster, but upon watching the show and seeing some things he hadn’t known about, he realized that Becky did have input he hadn’t realized. But if Adam didn’t know about that input until later, then certainly most of the rest of the jury didn’t either. Candice might have, given that she conspired with Becky earlier in the game, but that’s about it. Yul was the public face of the alliance – for good or for ill – and Becky was stuck in the background even as she followed the first rule. Obviously, then, Becky certainly followed the second rule. She didn’t scheme and plot too much, she didn’t backstab too soon, and she certainly kept her scheming secret! As we just noted, perhaps a bit too secret. With that in mind, we can move on to the third rule, which tells players to be flexible. Many times this season, I have quoted the portion of this rule that says, “you can’t simply tie yourself to one alliance and hope that it survives.” And here I am repeating it again. The U.S. accounts for 5% of the world's population, yet consumes 25% of its energy supply. False True Yes, it’s great that Becky had such a tight alliance with Yul. She has a friend for life now. But we’ve said it in previous seasons – Survivor is a game and we treat it as such in these columns. So that means I have to criticize her game play here. As I said earlier, Becky never even considered turning on Yul. That’s great in an ally, but if she wanted to win herself, she needed to realize that she could never do it against Yul. At some point, she had to break that bond if she had any chance of winning. But when I talked to her, she said she never even considered it. Mind you, she gave some good reasons, saying they both represented the same things and, “Turning on him would have been like turning on your family.” But as I noted, this is a column about strategy in getting to the win – or not – so we cannot leave these stones unturned. It wouldn’t have been easy, both emotionally and in actually doing it, since he had the hidden immunity idol, but Becky’s only chance to win was to abandon Yul somewhere along the line and step up to claim his role as the brains against Ozzy’s brawn. As it happens, this leads us directly into the fourth rule, about not letting emotions control you. I just quoted an important point from Becky a couple paragraphs ago – turning on Yul would have been like turning on family. And Becky has said that Yul’s friendship is worth more than money. However, this rule specifically says of the other players, “treat them as pawns in a game, not as potential friends for life.” As much as we might admire Becky’s sentiments, we cannot ignore that she broke this rule utterly and completely. Also, I have to talk about Becky’s refusal to take the hidden immunity idol from Yul. I’m not convinced it was the right thing to do. Yes, the jury could have interpreted that as her riding on Yul’s coattails into the jury. But instead she competed in a fire-making challenge that didn’t really make her look any better! If she had taken the idol from Yul, she might have been able to make the argument of, “Look, I had him in the palm of my hands so much that he even gave up immunity for me! That proves I’ve been the master behind-the-scenes manipulator.” Would it have worked? At that point, I doubt it. But considering the outcome, it couldn’t have hurt her. The fifth rule tells players to pretend to be nice. Despite what the editing showed us of Becky’s behavior towards Jonathan just before he was voted out, this really was not an issue. We didn’t see anything to indicate any players thought ill of Becky. Just as the jurors gave credit to Yul for his game play, similarly, whatever the Raros thought about being voted out, those negative feelings were also aimed squarely at Yul. Sixth is not to be too much of a threat. Considering that the jury didn’t really give Becky any credit for her game play, it’s safe to say they didn’t feel threatened by it either. And as far as challenges, it’s difficult to be considered a threat when you’re playing against the likes of Ozzy and Yul (and Adam and Jonathan and…). Besides, Becky knew enough coming into the game that, as she told me, she didn’t want to show her strength in the beginning and risk putting a target on her back. As far as the seventh rule, it neither helped nor hurt Becky. She was not lazy, but she was not a key food provider either. I do think the fire-making challenge hurt her because it implied she hadn’t learned a thing in the game, thus supporting the conclusion that she’d been carried, but considering that some jurors hadn’t gutted a fish almost the whole time they’d been there, I don’t really think it mattered much. So now we arrive at the jury phase of the game. Becky found herself in a place where nobody had ever been before – among a final three making jury arguments. This was, frankly, bad luck for her. If it had been a standard final two, Becky would have had a chance. Specifically, there would have been one more immunity challenge. If Ozzy had won that the way he won so many others, then he could have gotten rid of Yul (and would have done so if he were smart), whose immunity idol would have expired by that point. That would have left Becky standing as the only strategic player left. Could she have beaten Ozzy? Maybe, maybe not. We’ll never know. But she certainly would have had a better chance. What is the name of Ed Begley, Jr.'s all natural cleaning product? Begley's Best™ Natures Cleanse Ed's Clean Earth Basically, she would have had that chance because, in that hypothetical situation, Ozzy would have done for her what she wouldn’t do for herself – split her apart from Yul. With Yul still in the game, she remained hidden in his shadow. While she was part of the Aitu conglomerate, Yul was the face of it and she had a lot to do to prove herself in front of the jury. She knew she had to do it, and I think she tried, but it’s difficult to convince people that what they believe they saw over 39 days was not really what they saw. And that is the key. Becky chose to play the game a certain way. She was loyal to Yul – loyal to a fault. After it was over, she said she him winning was pretty much as good as winning herself. And in her eyes that may well be true. But when it comes to looking at why Becky didn’t win herself, we can see that her loyalty was the overriding cause. If she did want to win, Becky needed to, at some point, step outside of the partnership with Yul and demonstrate that she was indeed a player herself. She needed to make public moves, not just have private discussions. And yes, she needed to turn on Yul. She may be perfectly happy that she didn’t do any of these things, but in the end, they are the reasons that explain why Becky lost.

Survivor: Cook Islands – Why Ozzy Lost by David Bloomberg -- 12/20/2006 Ozzy came within a single vote of winning a million dollars. How did he come close? Was it by following strategic rules or using other abilities? Why did he fall short? Why did Ozzy lose? Ozzy was oh-so-close to winning a million dollars. Instead he has to settle for $100,000 and a new car. Still not bad. But why didn’t he get that one more vote? Why did Ozzy lose? Ozzy did a lot of things right. He won a ton of challenges and kept himself around by sheer force of will. But in the end it came down to brains (Yul) vs. brawn (Ozzy). When we look back at What Cook Island Survivors Should Have Learned, the focus is definitely on the former. Let’s see what Ozzy did right in that regard – and what he didn’t. The first rule was one that Yul certainly understood, but the question is whether Ozzy did as well. It says players need to scheme and plot in order to survive. In fact, part of it looks like it was written for Ozzy, as it notes, “hunting and fishing are likely not very big issues; instead, the real survival skills necessary here are more along the lines of something you might learn from Renaissance schemer Niccolo Machiavelli than anything you can get out of a survival book.” Ozzy was definitely in the “survival book” camp. And we can’t exactly hold it against him! However, he did not seem to go out of his way to make alliances – rather, they came to him. It’s not a bad plan, but one that relies on others to make it work. In his interview with me, Ozzy said his strategy was to be the top provider and make people think twice about voting him off. And to skip ahead to the seventh rule, that is a good thing. But there is a reason “providing food wins allies” is the seventh rule and “scheme and plot” is the first. Yes, food is good, but providers have been voted off before and will be voted off again. The only certain way to stick around is to have a trusted alliance. Ozzy himself realized this after it was all said and done. He told me, “I probably screwed up a bit in my strategy in that I didn’t do enough politicking and did too much fishing.” I think Ozzy’s analysis of himself is dead-on accurate. Given a choice between spending more time on the first rule or the seventh, the first is definitely the way to go. But you might ask, “How did Ozzy make it so far if you’re saying he wasn’t good at this, David?” Ah, because he found himself in an alliance through very little political effort of his own. Recall that before the mutiny, Ozzy was considered an outsider on the Aitu tribe. They were already starting to worry about him post-merge and had already thought about getting rid of him. The mutiny solidified his position on the Aitu alliance – again, not really through his own scheming actions. And then his own string of immunity wins brought it home, all while the others in his alliance thought again about voting him out if ever he didn’t wear the immunity necklace. When Yul has been going through his post-win interviews, he has frequently talked about the group making decisions. But I don’t think “the group” included Ozzy in this regard. In my interview with Sundra, she specifically said, “Becky, Yul, and myself discussed everything.” Note who is missing from that list. She continued in the same vein with, “Yul never ever said this is what we’re going to do, he always came to Becky and me and we all spoke about it together.” Again, her and Becky. Not Ozzy. Similarly, Yul discussed, in my interview with him, how he pulled the wool over Ozzy’s eyes by having Jonathan pretend the only way he would flip was if they voted out Nate. This took out a potential threat because Nate and Ozzy had at least the beginnings of a possible alliance. And Yul also spoke of how he competed hard in challenges until he saw that Ozzy had them in the bag, and then let up a bit (though he admitted Ozzy would have beaten him in most or all of them anyway!). The point is that Ozzy was never really as much a part of the inner circle as the other three. I’m not saying he was totally out of the loop or had no say in matters, but he wasn’t quite as hardcore as the other three. He had a purpose – to win challenges so the Raros wouldn’t. But he was not really the schemer. So, after all that discussion, I think it’s safe to say Ozzy was okay with the second rule, which says not to scheme and plot too much. And he certainly didn’t backstab too soon, given that he never stabbed anybody in the back! So we’re good on that front. The third rule says to be flexible. Ozzy really did not succeed on this front, as he did what the rule advises against and tied himself to a single alliance. Yes, Yul did the same thing, but as I explain in Why Yul Won, the difference is that Yul was the one guiding the alliance while Ozzy was just tagging along. No matter what plan one of the Raros approached Ozzy with, he never went along with it. Maybe he simply figured he could win immunity all the way to the jury and they would respect him for that enough to give him the million. It almost worked, after all! So it is somewhat difficult to criticize him too much for not breaking ranks. Indeed, if he had gone along with one of Adam’s or Parvati’s or Candice’s schemes and he did still make the final three, he likely would have been facing a jury of mostly Raros (and thus likely to vote for their own) and Aitus he’d double-crossed (and thus less likely to vote for him). So in this rare case, I’m going to say sticking with the alliance was the right thing to do. Certainly, Ozzy didn’t have any problems with the fourth rule, which says not to allow emotions to control you. While he played with his heart and soul, he didn’t let that heart interfere. A perfect example is the aforementioned situation with Nate. It was pretty obvious that Ozzy and Nate were becoming friendly. But when Ozzy found out that (supposedly) the only way to get Jonathan to flip was by voting out Nate, that’s just what he did. He did not allow friendship to get in the way of the game. The fifth rule advises contestants to pretend to be nice. Here, Ozzy didn’t have anything to worry about. He seems to be a nice enough guy and didn’t have to put on a special game face. The votes he did get are good indicators of this fact. Of course, the sixth rule was shot to heck by Ozzy. It says not to be too much of a threat. Do I really need to explain how much of a challenge threat Ozzy was?! But here’s the thing – it didn’t matter. Because Ozzy never lost immunity when it counted, this rule had nothing to do with his loss! We’ve already discussed the seventh rule in conjunction with the first, so there’s no need to retread that ground. So how did Ozzy do in the jury phase? Well, as we’ve already noted, he only lost by one vote, so he didn’t do too bad. But there were a couple votes he expected to get and didn’t. For example, there was Adam, who would have voted for Ozzy, but had made a promise to Yul. What was that promise? He agreed to vote for Yul in the end if Yul got rid of Jonathan before him. Yul did exactly that, even though, as all the Aitu four have said, it was a group decision to rid the game of Jonathan. But that is one of the keys here. Yul took credit for what the group as a whole did. Occasionally that meant taking blame as well, but in this case, it got Yul a definite vote. Even to this day, Adam refuses to believe that it was truly a group decision. As he told me in my interview with him, “Yul ran the show. … I still don’t think Ozzy or Sundra really had any input.” By not playing the social game – both earlier and then leading up to the jury – Ozzy left out a key component. Ozzy played so much of Survivor well. He was a challenge phenomenon. He caught more food than anybody. And the alliance he was in made it all the way to the final four. But as I noted earlier, Ozzy himself admitted to his one fatal flaw – emphasizing survival skills over Survivor skills. I said in Why Yul Won, “Scheming and plotting might not win every edition, but it still remains the most important aspect of the game. Winning challenges, as Ozzy did, certainly is another important aspect that can get a person to the finals, but it is somewhat risky because one false move and that player could be gone. Or, as in this case, they might be questioned as to what they did other than challenges.” That is the situation where Ozzy found himself. His skill in certain aspects of the game cannot be denied. But the one missing link in his game was also the most important. That is why Ozzy lost.

Survivor: Cook Islands – Why Yul Won by David Bloomberg -- 12/18/2006 Yul certainly seemed like the pre-show favorite, and he lived up to it. But how did he do it? How did he keep a foursome together while not appearing to receive blame for their votes? What did he do better than everybody else? Why did Yul win? We usually build up to the winner’s article by doing all the losers first. But this time, I think it’s appropriate to jump over the other Aitus and cut to the chase for Yul. We’ll have time to address the others soon enough. With that in mind, what did Yul do right? Did he do anything wrong? Why did Yul win? Throughout a season, we spend most of our time looking at those who have been voted off, and only one column examining why a person won. Along the way, certain people did certain things right, but we hope that by the end of it, the right person took home the million-dollar prize. I think that’s certainly the case here, as we’ll see by looking at What Cook Island Survivors Should Have Learned. Yul came into Survivor thinking he could play with complete honesty and integrity. He’s not the first to believe it, but the difference is that he quickly realized it couldn’t be done, while others were voted out still clinging to this idea. I would have to say that Yul does rank high among winners who managed to scheme and plot without making it seem like he was the villain. The first rule emphasizes just how important this is, and Yul’s win shows it. As much as Yul denies being the Godfather or the puppetmaster, the fact is that he did pull a heck of a lot of strings. Even when decisions were apparently made by consensus, he often took advantage of them himself. For example, we have the voting off of Jonathan. According to Yul himself, this was a group decision made by the Aitu four. They knew they didn’t want to keep Jonathan around very long. But Yul used this in two different ways. First, he had his own private reasons for wanting Jonathan out – Jonathan was the only one, Yul believed, who could have mounted an anti-Yul attack and perhaps succeeded. Second, Adam told Yul that he would vote for him at the end if he voted Jonathan out first. Yul certainly didn’t tell Adam, “Well, it’s a group decision”! He took advantage of it and earned Adam’s vote – a key to winning. Ironically, when he was preparing to vote Adam out and it wasn’t clear if he or Parvati would go first, he used the “group decision” excuse to say he wasn’t sure he could stop it because that’s what the women wanted – and then he stopped it! Another time Yul played in such a manner was the decision of who to target when Jonathan flipped over to the Aitus. Yul saw that Ozzy had formed the beginning of an alliance with Nate, and was afraid that could turn into a threatening situation. So he convinced Jonathan to say the voting out of Nate was a condition for him coming over – he put Ozzy into a bind where he had to go along with it, or so it seemed. These are only two of the situations we know about now, and I’m sure there are more. The key point here is that even as Yul was telling his allies that they were all in it together, he was thinking of himself and the future, and planning his path to the million dollars. Although many of us watching the show second-guessed Yul and believed he had backstabbed Jonathan too early, Yul showed us otherwise. He knew Jonathan was more of a threat than the Raros, and was confident that his foursome would not break. He was right. The man knew what he was doing! Along those lines, I cannot find any facet of the second rule that caused Yul a problem. While his Aitu alliance was certainly out in the open, he kept his side scheming secret to the point that even Ozzy only found out about some of it at the reunion! And because Yul didn’t want to come off like a Jonathan-type villain, he kept his scheming to the minimum necessary to bring about his goals. The third rule tells players to be flexible. As we’ve seen, Yul was flexible in terms of seeking out ways to help himself without making it look like he was doing so. While this rule advises people not to just tie themselves to one alliance and hope it survives, I have to say that Yul made it work. I think the key is that Yul didn’t just “hope” the alliance survived, but worked at it. He ensured that everybody in the Aitu four was comfortable. He took all their thoughts into consideration, he didn’t just overrule people and direct them in what to do. He subtly manipulated the situations such that nobody wanted to jump ship, even though it might have been a better option for some of them. He essentially convinced the others that they didn’t need that flexibility. Fourth is to not allow emotions to control you. While Yul was certainly tied to his alliance, most of this seemed to be strategic in nature – though his bond with Becky went beyond that. However, it didn’t really come into play. The only time it could have affected the game was when he offered Becky the hidden immunity idol, but she refused it and went on to win the fire-making challenge anyway! In the end, his friendship with the others in the final three didn’t stop him from making the arguments he needed to make. That brings us to the fifth rule, which says players should pretend to be nice and keep their politics and controversial beliefs to themselves. It is a tribute to Yul that we have no idea what his politics or beliefs might be! As Probst said, Yul was like the U.N. All the other players recognized it – he was trying to play them and the jury, all while not saying anything that might offend. It got to the point that Candice would only accept a yes-or-no answer from him on her question, and even then he tried to supplement it! Yul was, frankly, a master at pretending to be nice – or maybe just actually being nice – and it helped him win over some of the jurors. Another area where he succeeded was in not being too much of a threat. This may seem odd since some players called him the Godfather or the puppetmaster, but it still holds true. As he told me in our interview, Yul allowed Jonathan to play the role of the overscheming villain. He allowed Ozzy to play the challenge threat role – though he admits he might not have been able to stop him anyway! Yul let himself fade into the woodwork behind the bigger personalities. When there was discussion among three of the Aitu four about getting rid of somebody before the finals, nothing we saw indicates any of it ever centered around targeting Yul. Part of that could simply be that he held the idol, but even when Adam suggested getting rid of the idol, it still didn’t happen. Watching the show – and even before it began – Yul seemed like the most obvious threat. But as it played out, he managed to keep that aspect of himself under wraps. The seventh rule says not to be lazy and that providing food wins allies. Yul certainly never came off as lazy, but he allowed food production to be taken care of by others – Ozzy and Jonathan. Therefore, it was neither a plus nor a minus for him. And now we get to the jury phase. Here we look at whether Yul set himself up well for this most important part of the game. I think we can safely answer that question with a “yes.” We’ve already discussed how Yul bought himself a key vote from Adam by making a deal to do what the Aitu four had already planned to do! And Yul admitted to shamelessly working the jury. And he really did. You could tell when he said certain things at Tribal Council that they were aimed at getting the jury on his side. He didn’t wait for final arguments – he subtly (or maybe not so much so) planted seeds as time went by. Then he helped those to grow in the final questioning. It didn’t convince everybody, but he got the votes he needed. Overall, Yul played a masterful game. But that’s not always enough to win it. The first rule closes by noting “that the best schemer does not always win.” Indeed, if this edition had followed the first 12 Survivor seasons and had a final two rather than a final three, Yul could have been in trouble. There would have been one more challenge. If Ozzy won it the way he won almost all the others, I cannot imagine he would have taken Yul to the final two. But as Yul himself said, there is certainly luck involved in the game. Yul saw that luck in getting sent to Exile Island at the right time to pick up the hidden immunity idol as well. But in all cases, Yul made the most of his luck, both good and bad. Scheming and plotting might not win every edition, but it still remains the most important aspect of the game. Winning challenges, as Ozzy did, certainly is another important aspect that can get a person to the finals, but it is somewhat risky because one false move and that player could be gone. Or, as in this case, they might be questioned as to what they did other than challenges. Yul played the “outwit” part of the game better than anybody else this season, and most people in the other 12 seasons as well. He did it without making too many enemies and without becoming the villain. He only won by one vote, but the votes he received were well-earned, and that was all he needed. Despite his protests to the contrary, Yul was indeed the puppetmaster. That is why Yul won.