AO Survivor II: Final Episode

[J.T.]

Originally Posted by the mole

Question to be determined empirically (no pain, no gain): How long will it take J.T. to pound in response to this post?

(I was working)....

[J.T.]

Originally Posted by urysohn

[golf whisper in British accent]
oooh, and the reigning winner comes out with some tough questions for our finalists. One cannot help but read into the questions a bit and see some stinging rebuke for what she seems to see as "soft play". Let's see how, or if, our competitors reply. Will they come out swinging or write off the JT-bloc as not large enough to be pandered to?
[/qwiba]

[Traina]

I'll take a stab at it.

I don't think I backstabbed anyone. The only explicit alliance I had was with Jables and thing and this was created even before the game started.
From the start though I kinda sucked as an alliancee. I was the one who chose the numbers for the 3 of us so hopefully we would each end up on 3 different teams. Somehow, I messed up and thing and I ended up on the same team and Jables was off on his own.

had a rough time of it, and for a while I didn't think thing or I would even make it to the individual challenges.Surprisingly, we did.

The re-forming of the teams changed the dynamics, particularly as I felt like the underdog in Foxy's Angels. I wasn't part of any explicit new alliance, but I was able to fall in and vote with the majority.

Once it became an individual game, I had to switch focus and try to save my own skin. Particularly as I knew I was going to be away for 2 weeks.
Hence giving Leela my proxy seemed to be the best option.

Along the way, I did talk to Leela and udj a little bit about strategy and alliances, but we never made any type of promises. So I don't feel like I ever made a promise I had no intention of keeping.
At the very end, Leela was aware that I wouldn't take her to the Final 3...she was way too strong! Udj didn't know if I would take him to the Final 2 or not, particularly as I had to decide immediately following the final challenge.
Well, anyway, I chose woohoo and here we are!

[Traina]

Also wanted to add, I took part in every challenge that I was physically around for, I think. (Not sure about #7 immunity, but I was definitely away for #8 and #9).

[Keef]

Originally Posted by lipman

2nd vote was again easy because we got to select a memeber off of another team. Snakes had 6 people while the other two teams had 4 (IIRC), so we debated on who to pick, but the fact that Judge Dredd = Lawfish scared most of the team, so he was eliminated.

Did you guys ever discuss picking someone from my original team, ? (I was really sweating it after you guys won the right to choose someone from another team to go to TC). If you had've done that, would've been down to 3, your NutJugglers would've been steady at 4 and then SoaP would have 6. Was your thinking that it would be wiser to diminish the bigger team's numbers than to more or less cripple another team?

[lipman]

Originally Posted by Keef

Did you guys ever discuss picking someone from my original team, ? (I was really sweating it after you guys won the right to choose someone from another team to go to TC). If you had've done that, would've been down to 3, your NutJugglers would've been steady at 4 and then SoaP would have 6. Was your thinking that it would be wiser to diminish the bigger team's numbers than to more or less cripple another team?

No. Pretty early on in the discussions we targeted SoaP. I know that JP said that having fewer people wasn't a significant disadvantage, but just having 6 people to cover all the challenges was enough to get us to want to pick one of them.

[Gandalf]

Originally Posted by Keef

Was your thinking that it would be wiser to diminish the bigger team's numbers than to more or less cripple another team?

No one knows, except the Jeffs, but dropping a team to size 3 (or to half the size of the largest team) might have caused a reorganization. The reorganization triggers were predetermined; that condition might have been one.

[Leela]

I don't feel like I was backstabbed by anyone. We made a mistake in greatly underestimating Traina's ability to win immunity challenges. And I'm a little disappointed that wooHoo wasn't able to help out with the Round 13 Immunity challenge (after which I was voted out).

Here's the story of my alliances. Right before Judge Dredd was stolen from Snakes, he asked me to join an alliance with him and udjw828. After JD was stolen and voted out, udjw828 and I continued our alliance. We didn't need to use it because Snakes never went to tribal council and teams were reformed shortly after that. Udjw828 and I did not communicate while we were on separate teams. After teams disbanded, he asked if we want to continue our alliance and told me that he had picked up wooHoo while on his other team. He suggested that we add the rest of Foxy's Angels to our voting block so that we would have 6 members. I approached the Angels. Kaia and Traina agreed to vote with us and we never heard back from silverfox.

We voted everyone else off except silverfox. Then the voting block fell apart one round soon than I expected. After that, I continued my alliance with udjw828 and wooHoo. I expected us to be the final 3, but as I said earlier, I underestimated Traina.

Lipman, I think you got duped by someone. The voting block wasn't driven by an alliance between the girls. It was driven by an alliance between me and udjw828.

[4sigma]

Great questions, J.T. Inquiring minds want to know!

Speaking of the infamous kidnapping of Judge Dredd, I'd be interested to hear from the various teams about how Nutjuggler's was permitted to capture those bobblehead dolls. Was there any sort of agreement with rimshot to allow them to do so, assuming that they were going to take down someone from SoaP?

[wooHoo]

Originally Posted by Jeff Probst

I'll seed this with a couple generic questions that are NOT intended to convey any insider knowledge I have, but rather would be questions I'd direct at any finalists.

- Can you give me one reason why should I vote for your opponent?
- Do you have any regrets over how you played the game?
- This is not a fair game. In this game, players have incentive to vote off players who are perceived as most likely to win challenges or garner votes. In a fair world, who would have won this game?

Two views on the same question...
Traina -- in the last two tribal councils, you were in position to cast a unilateral decisive vote. In other words, of the final four contestants, you were able to select your opponent for these finals. Why did you pick wooHoo?

wooHoo -- Your presence here in the finals might appear to be an indication that you were perceived as the lesser threat. Would this be an accurate assessment, or did Traina misjudge?

I may not exactly answer all of the Jeff's questions but here is my feelings on how I played the game.

I participated in as many challenges as I could. Given the time difference, work commitments and softball, I made the choice to put AO survivor in a lower priority than work and some social engagements. I decided that if I had a softball game, I was going to go to it rather than participate in a challenge. Those are decisions I made that I really thought would hurt me in the game. however, I have made it to the final tribal council.

During the coarse of the game, the original SOAP team stuck together. Most of us were never in any danger. We debated strategy and worked as a team. Our biggest failure was in the black market when we lost Judge.

I did not take an alpha type role in any of my teams. The lay back and wait philosophy served me well. Perhaps I was just being brought along in all my alliances because people thought I was weak.

However, by the time we got to individual stage of the game, a middle and end game alliance was put in place that was never tested until Traina kept winning immunity. Hats off to her - she played a great game.

I did my best to help out all my teammates and do not feel I had to stab anyone in the back or play unfair. (I did once tell UA that I would join his "one-off alliance" when I had a brain fart)

The simple fact is, I did my best in the challenges, did not win any individual reward or individual immunity but I am still here. (I did however get Law some books from the bookstore).

Let me say first a big thank you to the Jeff's for running this thing. It was very impressive and sometimes I felt that I was not able to participate as much as I wish (I really did consider doing some of the 2AM challenges but the past few weeks have been very busy for me.)



I do not know if my alliance would have held to the very end. I do know that I did my best considering my circumstances.

- 1. Can you give me one reason why should I vote for your opponent?
2- Do you have any regrets over how you played the game?
3- This is not a fair game. In this game, players have incentive to vote off players who are perceived as most likely to win challenges or garner votes. In a fair world, who would have won this game?

1. Vote for Traina because she won more than her share of challenges. If that is what you think the sole survivor is then that is reason to vote for her. I played more of a poker tournament strategy. Build up a decent size stack (with SOAP), and do not take major risks. I never had the chip lead, but I have made the heads-up.
2. My only regret is not being able to participate more. I wish I could have but life got in the way.
3. In a fair world, Law would have won the game. We didn't protect him but he would have been a force to be reckoned with.

With that, I say, please send me any questions- either here or by PM. I will do my best to answer them tonight.