Survivor Post #4

Tournament #4 Mookie $10 deepstack

I played my normal game. 42 runners. A few suckouts and running good at the right times and next thing I know, I am heads up with Numbono almost tied in chips. That means that we got immunity for Team Donkey again, so Team fish would be voting out another player. I chopped with Numb and then played out for $20 more. He won. But I didn’t care. We avoided the vote again and that was all that mattered.

The vote from Team Fish came for Hoyazo. Now this one really surprised me. Why vote off your best player at this point? I know we voted off Numb and he could be argued as our best player, but we weren’t hemorrhaging at the time. They had a legitimate shot of keeping another player or two in the game vs Team Donkey if they keep Hoy. We voted the very first tournament and felt confident in the rest of the team’s abilities. As a matter of fact, it hasn’t cost us yet that we voted out Numb and he did cripple us the first game by taking out everyone on Team Donkey (except for my dumb ass).

Anyway, It’s obvious they have an alliance over there, to not only vote out Hoy, but they probably had to change their votes quickly after Dawn Summers won immunity playing in her first tournament of the series. She was surely next to go.

The next day Hoyazo opened up the possibilities on his blog that alliances exist. We all know they do but to put it in writing made it seem so much more true. And the worst part of his post is that he identified me and Jordan two strong candidates to take the whole thing down. Maybe paranoia set in too quickly from my “rice only” diet (JK), but I felt like this threw a huge target on our backs.

Jordan didn’t sweat it, but I wanted to start working other alliance possibilities right away to keep our options open. I also wondered what would keep from Goat turning on us now and voting us out next. He could keep Heff and Kat to himself, and pick up Muhc and Brain and Jordan and I would be gone. We had to start conversations going so we could cross align.

I shot this email off to Jordan:

…if we stay as we are now you have to really downplay our alliance (me and you). That way if goat ever decides that I need to go he will tell you. Then we can flip the tables. Make him believe I will vote as you say but I am just a pawn. 

I will surely hear if they start throwing your name around because no one will know we are tight. I'll keep some communication going with others even if it is non voting related. 

Jordan agreed to downplay our alliance. I’ve watched enough survivors to know that rarely do the leaders make it to final 3 or 4. Someone figures out they will get all the votes so they turn on them. Some floater emerges as a new leader and then wins it. I’m planning to be that floater.

Goat sent out this email and then we were off to tourney #5:

Presume it's the same plan that we've had the last three weeks.

1) Brain, Muchtim as secondary.

2) Be friggin' awesome, so it doesn't matter anyway.


Go Team Donkey!

Tournament #5 Multi Entry $5

I play on a laptop, so I’m not real big on multi tabling. I may play 3 tourneys on occasion but really 2 at a time is my comfort level. So to give Team Donkey every opportunity, I fired up 4 entries. I definitely donked off lots of chips. I raised in some bad spots and called in worse spots. I ended up going out 14^th leaving 4 Team Fish players still in and 4 Team Donkey players. But once again, Team Donkey came out on top as Heffmike and Goat outlasted SmBoatDrinks to get us immunity.

Dawn Summers was voted out (obvious vote since she missed most of the tournaments) and Team Fish was down to 4.

Before the tourney ended, I got an email from Muhctim as a reply to an email I sent him a couple of days earlier to see if I could feel out who he wanted to vote for but got no information at all. It went like this:

What's up muchtim? Just wanted to touch base with you about Sunday night? Who are you planning on voting for if we have to vote?

Jamyhawk

He responded:

I hope we don't have to--I may flip coins, lol--I actually don't know--what's your take?

I replied:

I just hope your coin doesn't fall on me. Who officially was out first tonight?

He simply replied: Brain.

I read from this that I may have been the next vote from him. Is he really playing this game or not? Should I be worried he is working another alliance and didn’t want to tell me much? Maybe it was nothing. But I don’t like to be uncertain.

Also, I decided to follow up on something that I saw VJ do during the tournament. She put in the chat box that she tried to email Goat but hadn’t gotten a response. I don’t remember if I was sitting at that table or not, but I knew immediately she was still trying to set up another alliance.

I chatted with Goat a bit and he told me that VJ was contacting him and he knew that I had talked to her. I was shocked Jordan had told him.. I told him I had talked to her and I think we can get her votes after the merge. I asked him to follow up with me and I would do the same if anything came of it. I was growing suspicious of Goat but Jordan rallied for my support of him. Jordan said he had a conversation with Goat solidifying our final 3 alliance. He said that Goat agreed that either Jordan or Goat would win the votes if they were up against me final 2, so it made sense to take me to final three and then the two of them could fight it out who got to take me. ßlucky me…

This was actually perfect for me. I had two people set up to want to protect me to the final 2. If there was a flip with 4 or 5 left, hopefully I would be kept with that thought that I couldn’t win the votes at the final tribal council so you want to take me to the end. Actually, I LOVE IT!

Now I had to stay calm, things were going well as far as I could tell. I wanted to start some more sub alliances, but I knew if I was doing too much, it would look bad on me. I just had to trust that Goat and Jordan would stay loyal to me and that VJ would stay open as a possible final 2 alliance still.

After hearing VJ contacted Goat, I sent her this email:

You shouldn't be offering to align with so many different people. It puts your loyalty into question.

VeryJosie:

Not THAT many people!  I'm just waiting for a confirmation in stone that I have an alliance with SOMEONE from Team Donk.

Do I have that from you?  Tell me I do, and I will stop my quest.  I really need SOMETHING.

Jamyhawk:

For us to have an alliance, we will need another Team Fish. I can get me and one other from Team Donk and then when the time comes we will have 4 strong. As I said, I can keep you in the game and then when the time is right, us 4 will turn the tables.

Who do you think you can get to come with you after the merge?

Very Josie:

You are committing to this for real?  If that's the case, I'll drop any other requests/offers made to team Donk members.

I can DEFINITELY get Boat.  We've had an ironclad alliance since before the first game of Donkey Island was played.

Who can you bring to the table?  My guess is Jordan - actually I HOPE it's Jordan.  Be honest with me and I promise AND i MEAN PROMISE I will not screw you over.  4 strong will get it done!

Jamyhawk:

Jordan it is.

She was excited. And quite frankly, so was I. Jordan and I had two others after the merge we could get votes from. If we needed to make a play to turn on Goat we had the foundation for it.

I didn’t mention our alliance to Goat with VJ so if she turns on us, Goat will hopefully hear it. And if she is campaigning to take out Goat, we will hear it from her. If things continued well with Goat, we could get VJ to vote off Brain and/or Muhc after the merge. One thing we have to watch out for would be for the 3 Fish (assuming Team Donkey wins event #6) to grab Brain and Muhc and offer to align. Their 5 votes vs our 5 would create a mess. Or worse, they may turn Heff or maybe even Goat and take out me and Jordan. You can never feel safe in this game, because that is the night you are going home.

Meanwhile, Jordan apologized for telling Goat about me initially talking to VJ, but he wanted us to stay tight with Goat and not give any impression we are going behind his back. His comments were: “I really think you, me and Goat need to work together as a 3-some for now, moreso than you and I doing our thing on the side (that will remain, but more for strategy talk for now). We need Goat to feel secure with us and we need him to be honest about how VJ acts going forward. We can even create this fake drama between you/me and Goat in VJ's eyes so either way she goes, we can use her vote (my guess is she's sticking with us).”

I then sent this email to Goat:

OK, after her email to you but before you responded, VJ asked if she could get a confirmation in stone for an alliance. She wants someone from Team Donk and she wants it to be me. I told her to get an alliance she would need to get another person on Team Fish locked into her. I didn't tell her who else we had aligned on our side but promised her we would keep her around after the merge if she committed to us now.

She said she has an IRONCLAD alliance with Boat and she will get him locked in. She wanted confirmation of who I could get so I told her Jordan. I didn't want to tell her anything about you so if she does try flipping on us, she will likely tell you. Or if she wants you voted out, she will tell us. And you hadn't told her yet about me and Jordan (that I know of).

Anyway, looks like you, Jordan and I are strong and now we have VJ after the merge if we need her. Jordan thought we could use her to vote out Brain and Muhc to insure they don't try to defect.

Have you heard back from VJ?

Jamyhawk

I spoke to Goat on IM after that and solidified our alliance. We agreed to stay with the Brain or Muhc vote post merge to prevent them from defecting. He said he had no contact with Brain yet, so didn’t see him as any threat. I forwarded the conversation to Jordan to keep him in the loop.

Tournament #6 The Mookie $10 Deepstack

The day of the tourney, I wanted to get a pulse on VJ again. We had this email chain:

You tell Boat all about our new alliance? He all good?

Who's on your radar tonight to vote out?

Very Josie:

Oh Yes.  Boat is definitely in and loves the idea.  He's down with it.  He asked if you wanted to include Xkm.  We can def get him if you want to be 5 strong.  I can't frigging wait - this is gonna be good.

We're gonna hit Turtle if we have to.

See ya tonight!

I told her to hold off on telling xkm and Jordan confirmed that with an email to her copying me. He also mentioned to warm up xkm in case we need him but not to mention who she is aligning with on Team Donkey yet.

Also, Heffmike posted this on his blog:

“Meanwhile I've finished 1st or 2nd three of the five tourneys. Luckbox, I know.

Alpha squirrel, I guess.”

Makes me think we need to keep him on radar. May need to go soon after the merge.

I couldn’t get further than 17^th in this tournament and VJ was determined to get the immunity for her team. In the end, Jordan posted strong but couldn’t beat the one two punch of VJ and Turtle. They finished first and second so Team Donkey had to vote.

Jordan texted me, time to vote. He said we need to vote Muhctim, let Goat and crew vote Brain and the mixed voting will send anyone off of our tracks that we have an alliance with Goat. And it would make us look better to VJ (we could tell her we are not following Goat’s orders). I had been playing at another location and was driving home, so everything was coming in texts which are hard to manage while driving.

All of a sudden the texts start flying in from Jordan. Quick little bursts:

First vote: Jordan

Wha?

Why me?

Muhc

Muhc

HaHa

Jordan

Uh oh

2-2

Jordan

Dude I may be out

Ha ha

Uh Oh

I’m out

Totally blindsided

I couldn’t believe it. And I felt left out in the cold suddenly. A sweeping vote with only Jordan and I in the dark and he is gone. Could have easily been me. I asked if he thought Goat did it and even in the end, he couldn’t see that he was stabbed that bad in the back. His reply: prob not. Prob kat, muc, brain and heff.

I suddenly felt super alone. The only person I trusted without abandon was now gone. I had no other really strong alliance. Well, I still had VJ. I had to contact her right away. Hold on to her tight and see what I could make happen. Goat obviously did not trust me enough to tell me what was going on so I was probably the next one going.