Why Edgardo Lost
Survivor: Fiji – Why Edgardo Lost by David Bloomberg -- 04/26/2007 Edgardo used to be one of the controllers of his tribe. Just a few minutes before Tribal Council, it seemed that he was safe, at least for now. So what went wrong? How did he end up having his torch snuffed? Why did Edgardo lose? For much of the game so far, Edgardo seemed to be in a prime spot. He was in a tight alliance that was controlling the game, while he did not seem to be the one in charge, and should therefore have been less likely to be targeted. But Edgardo’s alliance was double-crossed and then the double-crosser was also crossed, with Edgardo taking the fall. How could things have gone better for Edgardo? What might he have done to prevent this outcome? Why did Edgardo lose? The vote leading up to Edgardo’s game demise was rather chaotic, but we can bring order to the chaos by looking back at What Fiji Survivors Should Have Learned and going through step-by-step to get some satisfactory answers. As always, the first and most important rule is to scheme and plot. Edgardo knew this well, as he told me in my interview with him that his strategy was to form an alliance with somebody he trusted and to stay in the background so it looked like the other person was making the decisions. While it is the second rule that specifically note, “do not let it be known that you are the decision-maker,” it’s appropriate to mention it here as well, because that was all part of Edgardo’s plan. Edgardo paired up with Alex and formed a good team. While still on Moto, they also brought in several other loyal people, including Lisi and (they thought) Boo and Stacy. When the tribes were mixed up and both Alex and Edgardo ended up on Ravu, they once again set to making new allies. And again it worked for the time being. But once the merge hit, they found themselves in a minority. Yes, they had Mookie and supposedly Dreamz. Yes, they supposedly still had Stacy too. But none of these people were particularly trustworthy at this point. More importantly, their previous allies – Lisi and Stacy, in particular – had managed to alienate Dreamz and Cassandra, ensuring it would be difficult to make solid plans with them. Edgardo and Alex did the best with the scraps he had left. They had Mookie – at least for now. They thought they could hold on to Dreamz for at least one vote. They knew Stacy had become a lost cause. So their best hope was the sneaky plan of using Dreamz as a mole and finding out who needed to have the hidden immunity idol. Well, that would have been their best hope if Dreamz hadn’t turned out to be a double-agent who wasn’t even trusted fully by the people whose team he really wanted to be on! Basically, Edgardo had the right idea in terms of scheming, but he just didn’t do enough of it. We’ll get to that more in discussing the third rule. But first, the second rule, which says not to scheme and plot too much, to keep your scheming secret, and not to backstab too soon. Let’s go in backwards order. First, it could be argued that voting out Lisi was, as Edgardo told me, a mistake. Keeping her around would have meant having somebody loyal (and it would have also been more likely that Stacy would have stuck with them). However, Lisi was also, in Edgardo’s words, “unstable.” At that point, she had gone bonkers. She wanted to go, then she didn’t, then she did, etc. I don’t think they had any choice but to vote her out. As for keeping their scheming secret, Edgardo certainly didn’t do a very good job of that, though it wasn’t all his fault. He and Alex told Mookie not to say anything to Dreamz about the hidden immunity idol. But Mookie opened his mouth. They trusted (well, at least they hoped) Dreamz would not divulge this information to the other alliance. That didn’t go their way either. But even without all the secret-spilling, it was obvious that Edgardo and Alex and Mookie were together. There was no doubt in anybody’s mind because they didn’t really do anything to cover it up. Finally, did Edgardo scheme and plot too much? I don’t think so. That wasn’t really an issue here. With that, we arrive at the third rule, where I already mentioned we’d further discuss some of what Edgardo could have done differently. This rule tells players to be flexible and has a particularly-important part of it boldfaced in big print: You cannot simply tie yourself to one alliance and hope that it survives. That, however, is precisely what Edgardo did. He bound himself to Alex and never considered that if everybody else was potentially jumping ship, he might need to start swimming on his own too. He already knew that Stacy was a lost cause. And he suspected that Dreamz was as well. But apparently, he didn’t expect Dreamz to move as quickly as he did. I’m not sure why he wouldn’t, especially given that they were targeting Cassandra, Dreamz’ main tie to the other group. In hindsight, it all seems so obvious. But even at the time, Edgardo told me, “Me and Alex had Dreamz measured up from the beginning. We knew he was a rat.” So if that was truly the case, Edgardo really should have moved in a different direction to ensure that he could stick around in the game. The fourth rule tells players not to let their emotions control them. This, however, was not an issue with Edgardo. The same is true of the fifth, which says to pretend to be nice. Yes, Dreamz and Cassandra were alienated from the main Moto alliance, but Lisi and Stacy were the culprits there, and while both Alex and Edgardo tried to make things better, they didn’t quite succeed. Still, that wasn’t really their fault, even though Edgardo paid the price in part because of it. Sixth is not to be too much of a threat. If anybody is a challenge threat these days, it seems to be Yau-Man. Who’d have predicted that coming into the show?! But seriously, while Edgardo certainly looked like he could be a stud in the challenges, that had nothing to do with his ouster. He was, however, a threat in that he was on an opposite alliance trying to vote out somebody from the main alliance. Ironically, though, he was the least of the threats on that alliance, because either Mookie or Alex was thought to be using the hidden immunity idol – nobody said anything about Edgardo, which made him the safest one to target. The seventh rule says not to be lazy. From what we saw, Edgardo certainly was not, and it played absolutely no role in the vote that sent him packing. Did the rest of the tribe do the right thing in voting Edgardo off? The eighth rule says that at this stage in the game, players should be voting off the strong who are outside their alliance. That could have applied to any of Mookie, Alex, or Edgardo. But as already noted, Mookie and Alex were thought to be possibly playing the idol, making Edgardo the best bet. It’s difficult to say what the specific motivation of some of these players might be. Dreamz, we know. Fine. But Boo and Stacy? I can only presume they are playing it vote by vote, hoping to bounce around and move forward using an “anybody but me” strategy, because they have to know they are not part of the core Earl-alliance. If that’s what they’re doing, then this likely was a good move on their part, because they weren’t a part of the core Horsemen alliance either. In general, Edgardo was a decent player with a good idea of what he needed to do – up to a point. But he forgot that key boldfaced statement like so many others have in recent seasons. He latched on to Alex and wanted to ride that alliance to the end. Meanwhile, Dreamz, Stacy, and Boo realized that their future might lie in making other plans. Maybe they won’t all make it to the final three, but they’re still around and he isn’t. Edgardo needed to do more scheming and plotting outside his core alliance. Yes, there were some things he could not control – like Mookie’s big mouth – but there were others that he could have done something about. He could have foreseen Dreamz’ defection (well, apparently he did, he just didn’t act on it quickly enough). He could have made alternate plans to try to either ensure Stacy and Boo would stick with him or jump to their side. But he didn’t. He had a game plan going into the game and he stuck with it rather single-mindedly throughout rather than being flexible. That is why Edgardo lost.
Survivor: Fiji – Why Edgardo Lost by David Bloomberg -- 04/26/2007 Edgardo used to be one of the controllers of his tribe. Just a few minutes before Tribal Council, it seemed that he was safe, at least for now. So what went wrong? How did he end up having his torch snuffed? Why did Edgardo lose? For much of the game so far, Edgardo seemed to be in a prime spot. He was in a tight alliance that was controlling the game, while he did not seem to be the one in charge, and should therefore have been less likely to be targeted. But Edgardo’s alliance was double-crossed and then the double-crosser was also crossed, with Edgardo taking the fall. How could things have gone better for Edgardo? What might he have done to prevent this outcome? Why did Edgardo lose? The vote leading up to Edgardo’s game demise was rather chaotic, but we can bring order to the chaos by looking back at What Fiji Survivors Should Have Learned and going through step-by-step to get some satisfactory answers. As always, the first and most important rule is to scheme and plot. Edgardo knew this well, as he told me in my interview with him that his strategy was to form an alliance with somebody he trusted and to stay in the background so it looked like the other person was making the decisions. While it is the second rule that specifically note, “do not let it be known that you are the decision-maker,” it’s appropriate to mention it here as well, because that was all part of Edgardo’s plan. Edgardo paired up with Alex and formed a good team. While still on Moto, they also brought in several other loyal people, including Lisi and (they thought) Boo and Stacy. When the tribes were mixed up and both Alex and Edgardo ended up on Ravu, they once again set to making new allies. And again it worked for the time being. But once the merge hit, they found themselves in a minority. Yes, they had Mookie and supposedly Dreamz. Yes, they supposedly still had Stacy too. But none of these people were particularly trustworthy at this point. More importantly, their previous allies – Lisi and Stacy, in particular – had managed to alienate Dreamz and Cassandra, ensuring it would be difficult to make solid plans with them. Edgardo and Alex did the best with the scraps he had left. They had Mookie – at least for now. They thought they could hold on to Dreamz for at least one vote. They knew Stacy had become a lost cause. So their best hope was the sneaky plan of using Dreamz as a mole and finding out who needed to have the hidden immunity idol. Well, that would have been their best hope if Dreamz hadn’t turned out to be a double-agent who wasn’t even trusted fully by the people whose team he really wanted to be on! Basically, Edgardo had the right idea in terms of scheming, but he just didn’t do enough of it. We’ll get to that more in discussing the third rule. But first, the second rule, which says not to scheme and plot too much, to keep your scheming secret, and not to backstab too soon. Let’s go in backwards order. First, it could be argued that voting out Lisi was, as Edgardo told me, a mistake. Keeping her around would have meant having somebody loyal (and it would have also been more likely that Stacy would have stuck with them). However, Lisi was also, in Edgardo’s words, “unstable.” At that point, she had gone bonkers. She wanted to go, then she didn’t, then she did, etc. I don’t think they had any choice but to vote her out. As for keeping their scheming secret, Edgardo certainly didn’t do a very good job of that, though it wasn’t all his fault. He and Alex told Mookie not to say anything to Dreamz about the hidden immunity idol. But Mookie opened his mouth. They trusted (well, at least they hoped) Dreamz would not divulge this information to the other alliance. That didn’t go their way either. But even without all the secret-spilling, it was obvious that Edgardo and Alex and Mookie were together. There was no doubt in anybody’s mind because they didn’t really do anything to cover it up. Finally, did Edgardo scheme and plot too much? I don’t think so. That wasn’t really an issue here. With that, we arrive at the third rule, where I already mentioned we’d further discuss some of what Edgardo could have done differently. This rule tells players to be flexible and has a particularly-important part of it boldfaced in big print: You cannot simply tie yourself to one alliance and hope that it survives. That, however, is precisely what Edgardo did. He bound himself to Alex and never considered that if everybody else was potentially jumping ship, he might need to start swimming on his own too. He already knew that Stacy was a lost cause. And he suspected that Dreamz was as well. But apparently, he didn’t expect Dreamz to move as quickly as he did. I’m not sure why he wouldn’t, especially given that they were targeting Cassandra, Dreamz’ main tie to the other group. In hindsight, it all seems so obvious. But even at the time, Edgardo told me, “Me and Alex had Dreamz measured up from the beginning. We knew he was a rat.” So if that was truly the case, Edgardo really should have moved in a different direction to ensure that he could stick around in the game. The fourth rule tells players not to let their emotions control them. This, however, was not an issue with Edgardo. The same is true of the fifth, which says to pretend to be nice. Yes, Dreamz and Cassandra were alienated from the main Moto alliance, but Lisi and Stacy were the culprits there, and while both Alex and Edgardo tried to make things better, they didn’t quite succeed. Still, that wasn’t really their fault, even though Edgardo paid the price in part because of it. Sixth is not to be too much of a threat. If anybody is a challenge threat these days, it seems to be Yau-Man. Who’d have predicted that coming into the show?! But seriously, while Edgardo certainly looked like he could be a stud in the challenges, that had nothing to do with his ouster. He was, however, a threat in that he was on an opposite alliance trying to vote out somebody from the main alliance. Ironically, though, he was the least of the threats on that alliance, because either Mookie or Alex was thought to be using the hidden immunity idol – nobody said anything about Edgardo, which made him the safest one to target. The seventh rule says not to be lazy. From what we saw, Edgardo certainly was not, and it played absolutely no role in the vote that sent him packing. Did the rest of the tribe do the right thing in voting Edgardo off? The eighth rule says that at this stage in the game, players should be voting off the strong who are outside their alliance. That could have applied to any of Mookie, Alex, or Edgardo. But as already noted, Mookie and Alex were thought to be possibly playing the idol, making Edgardo the best bet. It’s difficult to say what the specific motivation of some of these players might be. Dreamz, we know. Fine. But Boo and Stacy? I can only presume they are playing it vote by vote, hoping to bounce around and move forward using an “anybody but me” strategy, because they have to know they are not part of the core Earl-alliance. If that’s what they’re doing, then this likely was a good move on their part, because they weren’t a part of the core Horsemen alliance either. In general, Edgardo was a decent player with a good idea of what he needed to do – up to a point. But he forgot that key boldfaced statement like so many others have in recent seasons. He latched on to Alex and wanted to ride that alliance to the end. Meanwhile, Dreamz, Stacy, and Boo realized that their future might lie in making other plans. Maybe they won’t all make it to the final three, but they’re still around and he isn’t. Edgardo needed to do more scheming and plotting outside his core alliance. Yes, there were some things he could not control – like Mookie’s big mouth – but there were others that he could have done something about. He could have foreseen Dreamz’ defection (well, apparently he did, he just didn’t act on it quickly enough). He could have made alternate plans to try to either ensure Stacy and Boo would stick with him or jump to their side. But he didn’t. He had a game plan going into the game and he stuck with it rather single-mindedly throughout rather than being flexible. That is why Edgardo lost.