Hi Dave!
Sorry it took so long, work was a madhouse.
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| I feel like you had you super awesome tight F5 alliance and you didn't really reach out to other players outside of it. I might be wrong. |
Well, no offense but you kinda are. :p
Before merge I talked to a LOT of people, even people who werent around much like Mangie and Anthony. I also had a really good friendship with Sierra from day one of the game, and I was talking to her the entire time even after the Aras vote when she was clearly not with me as an ally any more. I also had an alliance with Aras for a long time, because we got along really well, and I had some really good talks with Becky too. Plus I did try to talk to Charlie a bit, but like he said we were pretty much always on opposite sides and gunning for each other so it was awkward as all get out - but I did still try!
So I did reach out to other people and talk to them. I didnt talk to you much, thats true, but thats partly because of time zones and partly because Id been told by tons of people that you were gunning for me for a long time without ever having even been on a team with me. Id have loved to talk to you, but when we merged it was pretty obvious that I wasnt going to be able to strategize with you, and if I had come to you to try and be all friendly it would of just seemed fake and like I was trying to suck up for your vote, and thats not really how I roll.
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| TBH, I don't think you are ASS-worthy player because you're kinda vanilla. |
And thats exactly what I wanted people to think. After all, you yourself said that I was always seen as the number 2 threat, and alot of people have said that I was someone that was a target a lot of the time, so I had to make moves and be a lot sneakier and a lot less visible to try and get that target away from me. Yeah, I didnt make a lot of waves and cause a lot of drama, but I didnt make a lot of enemies either, and that's a huge part of what got me here.
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Questions:
1. Convince me that your game is better than Katie's. What were you better at than Katie? |
Alright, well, I dont wanna talk trash about Katie or downplay her game, cause that's not how I roll, so Im going to try not to do that.
I was better at challenges, for sure.
I was also better at putting strategy above selfishness, if that makes sense. I never cared about whether a plan was mine or someone else's, I only cared about whether the plan would help us to win. Katie didn't do that. She has talked about not wanting to listen to my plans because she wanted to do her own thing, and that nearly cost us the game a few times. She didn't listen to my idol plan at the final seven, and we nearly lost David. She didn't listen to me at the final five, and she would have had to go against Shane in a tiebreaker if the hosts hadn't fooled us with early Rites of Passage. Sure, things turned out okay in the end, but only because of luck or other people's mistakes, and it could totally have come back to bite us, and almost did a few times. If someone runs across the freeway and dodges traffic without getting hit, sure, they made it, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't have been smarter to use the crosswalk.
I also think I was better connected with the alliance, at least at first. There were a couple of times at the merge where Katie talked to me about feeling like she was on the outs, because me and Shane and David and Erinn had a chat group that she wasn't in, and sometimes we would be having a chat and I would have to fill her in on what was going on.
And I guess I was better at trusting my allies? I was totally open with Erinn and Katie about everything I was doing, but Katie decided to keep her idols secret from me. Im not sure why that was, because I think it would have made the whole merge a lot less stressful for us and we wouldn't have wasted time taking out people like Angie and Aras when we could have gone for threats like Charlie and Dave.
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| 2. If you could, would you choose Erinn over Katie to go with you to F2? |
I already said this in Erinn's question, but yep I would! I like Katie a lot and I was totally loyal to her, but I clicked with Erinn a lot better. She was epicly deserving plus she and I were both huge threats so it would have been nice to go up against her and see which of us would have won.
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| 3. Did you not care about jury votes? Your jury management was kinda poor. |
How so?
TBH I dont really know what I should of done differently. I was social with everybody except you and Penner, and that was because the two of you had been working to vote me out when you werent even on my team. I also never screwed around with people and lied to them unless I had to do it to survive, and the only time that was different was at final seven, and I have already explained to Charlie what happened there and how it wasn't supposed to be like that.
I guess I could have been a bit more social with people, but tbh I think that that would have been really fake. I had allies that I wasn't going to turn on, and so why would I go up to someone and try to make friends with them and then vote them off? It's pretty fake to be nice to someone just so they'll vote for you, and I think that'd be worse jury management, to be honest.
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| 4. Who is the person you hated/disliked the most? |
Jenn, for sure. She said some AWFUL things to Sierra and I couldnt believe that anybody would be THAT mean over a silly online game.
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| 5. I'm trying to become a better player, and this was my 4th or 5th ORG ever, so tell me, what part of my game should I improve, what are my weaknesses? |
Well, Im not an expert or anything, and I only know your game based on what I heard from other people, but as someone who was against you here is what I'd say.
I think that you came on really strong right from the get go, both strategically and in challenges, and thats a really hard strategy to pull off long term, especially in a cast this big where people have a lot more time to make plans against people who are threats. Even though Charlie was a monster in the challenges, people were still always looking at you as a target because you came off SO strong, and thats because you were right out in front as a threat the whole time.
Sometimes its better to hang back a bit and downplay your skill so that people don't see you as as much of a threat - as an example, I told everybody I googled a list for the first challenge, but that was a lie. I knew people were already saying I was a huge threat, and I didn't want people to think that I was too smart based on that challenge, so I pretended that Id taken an easy way out. I also didnt answer some of the questions on the survey the way I thought majority would, because I didnt want people to think, "Oh, Kim thinks she's in control of the game," and come against me.
Beyond that, Id say that its not a good idea to make deals that are going to instantly be proven fake. You told me you would get people not to vote me in the round that Charlie left, but I found out from Aras that it was a ploy, and then I got three votes. That move told me instantly that there was no way I could ever trust you, and burned a bridge that you could have potentially used later.
In general I have always found that its better to tell the truth whenever possible, and limit yourself to little lies when it isn't. That strategy is a LOT harder to do, and it takes a lot of finesse, but it helps you establish credibility. Most people have a one-lie limit: you get caught in one lie, and they never have a reason to believe anything you say again. Nobody wants to work with a liar. But if you're known for telling the truth, then when your back is against the wall and you need people to believe you, there's a much better chance that they will.
But beyond that I think you played a pretty good game, especially for being so new. You were strong in the challenges and it seems like you had a good alliance going, if things had been a bit different and Jenn hadn't disappeared I think you could definitely have wound up in the finals. But that's just my perspective. I would say what could be really helpful would be to read your allies' confessionals after the game and see what they really thought of you, that will tell you a LOT about how you're coming across to people. Heck I'm learning the same thing at this TC.
Thanks for all your questions Dave! Hopefully that showed a bit more about me and where I'm comin from, but let me know if theres anything else you wanna know!
