Gina's Thread

Hey y'all.
Okay first of all, I know what all of you are thinking: What the hell did Gina do to deserve to win the title? Well, while I definitely didn't play the most agressive of games, I was definitely strategizing throughout the games entirety, and even though you can look at my number of posts and compare them to most of the other players and think "Was she even playing?" and "Did she even care?" I can guarantee you that both of these things are true.

You may certainly be inclined tonight to give your final jury vote to Patty, as she won 3 (right) immunity challenges, had multiple hidden immunity idols, and played an alright social game, sticking with her true alliance til the end. But here's what makes us different:

I knew right off the bat, looking at my fellow Maraamu tribe mates, that I was in a game with a lot of BIG personalities, a lot of STRONG players mind you, but a LOT of personalities. So my original plan was to contribute to challenges, but not enough where I would make myself a threat in the eyes of Rotu come merge, make ONE alliance with one STRONG physical player so that the target would always be on them instead of me. In the beginning, this person was Sarah, I love you girl, but I could tell you would be a force to be reckoned with from the beginning, and I knew that if I rolled with you, I would be safe.

That was the first stage of the game. It got MUCH trickier for me once the tribes merged, yes we had numbers, but we also had a traitor, who helped to vote out my number one ally, and I had to regroup. I put a small target on myself right off the bat by winning the first merged immunity challenge, which truly showed where people stood within the tribe, and once people realized I wasn't a target, I became a target, leading me to carry out the actions that got me sitting here now
1) convincing Patty to play not ONE but TWO of her immunity idols to save me (and one of the times the idol truly saved me!). If I had been talking with Patty since the beginning, I wouldn't consider this a big deal, but literally the first words that Patty and I exchanged were after Sarah had been voted out. I latched onto her, gained her trust, and got her to trust me all the way to the end. She may have been the brawn, but she certainly wouldn't have been here had I not gotten her to play her idols on me.
2) Voting Peter out in the final 4. i KNEW that Patty would win in a tie breaker, and I knew that if the final three were John myself and Patty, that no matter what happened, I would be in the final 2. If I had voted out Patty at the f4, not only would I had lost respect from the jury for voting out my main alliance, but I also would have had an INFINITELY smaller chance of even making it to the end.

Those are just a couple of my best strategical plays throughout the game. I got here by positioning myself behind targets, and staying small, playing dumb, while staying present, and aware. I considered each move I made carefully, and am proud that I played a loyal game. I'm excited to answer your guys's questions, and I'm expecting brutality, but bring it on!

Hi Gina. So, I think you played a good game and all, but I think Patty played a much better one. So, all I want you to do is tell me why she shouldn't win and you should.

Hey Gina! Way to go girl! You made the finals. I know people will want to say you floated or whatever but to me that's just sour grapes. You made it further than anyone else in the game, so good for you. I did know that you were playing a bit under the radar on purpose. While that strategy might have been wise for me to use, I just couldn't. I think players should do everything they can to help the tribe win, especially in early stages of needing tribal immunity. Anyway, please explain exactly what you said/did to convince Patty to use her idols on you? Thanks and best of luck!

Alright Sarah! Thanks so much for those words, I'm really proud to have gotten this far, but you, and every player this season was a contributing factor of that, as well as a little bit of luck

As far as doing everything to help the tribe win, I do agree with you in that regard. However, I feel that I had such a good read on the skill sets of both tribes, based on performances in the first couple tribal immunity challenges, that even if I had not existed, Maraamu still would have dominated. I did contribute an appropriate (obvi I could have more) amount to the challenges, but I was thinking long-term always, such that since I already knew our tribe was so strong, I didn't want to be A)the 8th cook in the kitchen, if you get what I mean, but also B) I wanted to manage Rotu's perception of my challenge abilities before the merge, so that in the event that someone had flipped, I wouldn't be targeted.

Now onto Patty's immunity gifts: After you were voted out, things were crazy, and we all knew that everyone had immunity idols. My strategy with my idol was to hold onto it for as long a possible obviously, and once I learned that patty had the shadow immunity, and I felt like may be in trouble in the TC where Tammy was voted out (which I was), I approached Patty, and told her that I thought that it was likely that Rotu+Peter would probably vote for who the thought would be least likely for her to play the idol on, which I argued that at the time would have been me. Aside from a purely strategic perspective, I developed a rapport with Patty, and pushed girl power all the way.

The second time was different. Peter and John were splitting their votes between hunter and me. for idol insurance obvi. Me and patty were debating whether or not John would use the idol on himself or on Peter. I had a small feeling that Hunter would vote against me, as he said that he wanted to "make john and peter think that we weren't together" or something....so i had to do something about that. After me and Patty agreed on voting Peter, and it being the last round to play any idols, it honestly didn't take much convincing to get her to play it on me. The way I had played the game up to that point (non-threatening), I knew that Patty would rather keep me safe, I let her think that I was in her back pocket, when at that point, I was considering if it would be beneficial to keep her past the f4. Another interesting thing about that vote was that although I voted for Peter, I felt in the back of my mind that John would give the idol to him....but I didn't want to tell anyone. At that point Hunter was a threat, and I knew he was going to get voted out, which to be honest, I was more than ok with. By voting for Peter, I not only helped seal a HUGE threats fate, I maintained the trust with Patty.

Basically, whenever I felt even the teensiest bit unsafe, is when I turned on my game, and while it was as much Patty's decision to play her idols on me, there is NO doubt that I had a HUGE influence on her decisions. So the way I see it, while Patty won four immunity challenges throughout the game, I won one immunity challenge, but I also won over Patty, to the point where she wanted me around enough to save me, which I'm going to count (for all intents and purposes) as WINNING two immunity idol in and of themselves.

There's something to be said for a player who has had three (including mine) idols played on themselves throughout the game, don't you think?

Well John, you hit the nail exactly on the head, and thank you for recognizing and appreciating my style of gameplay. My biggest concern about playing in that way was the come the final two, no one will had known anything that I had done, because about 99% of my game was pretty behind the scenes. I always had a plan B and I always had my bases mostly covered.

As far as your feelings on Patty go, I still maintain that she is my fairy godmother, and am so happy that I couldn't be against a more worthy opponent. She played her game quite well, but I also played her quite well.

I have nothing bad to say about Patty, except maybe she may have a hot temper at times, but overall, I saw myself as the boss, and her as more of my bodyguard.

Gina, you were a HUGE floater, you were not very active in decision making, and you didn't really win anything that changed the game any.

Lets be honest for a second....

You, myself and patty were working to get Peter and or John out, and Patricia was going to give me the idol (unless she lied to me, which she claims she never did) and I told her to give it to you. You were 100% aware that I was voting you, even after I said I wanted to vote John.

Why after you made it this far, do u feel like you need to still lie?

And

Rate each jury member to a dictator in history... As well as patty.

OK FIRST let's define what a floater really is

Floater-noun-A player who floats from alliance to alliance, and who has no real loyalty.

If this is how you define a floater, then I am definitely not one.

OR

Floater-noun- A player who does absolutely nothing throughout the game.

Again, by neither of these criteria do I think that you can qualify me as a floater. I stayed loyal to my main alliances, I made strategic moves that got me this far, I won/earned/used/played/whatever THREE immunity idols, including one challenge....I'm sorry but just because I didn't go out of my way to intimidate everyone with my challenge skills (and trust me, I could have), doesn't mean that I was just laying in a meadow picking flowers, weaving them into daisy chains and frolicking in the distance.

Now, yes we were still working together, but once the final five came, and John still had his idol, I had a bad feeling that it would either be you or I to take the fall..that's it

Hunter, I feel no need to lie at this point in the game, that part of it is over for me. But I don't understand what you think that I'm lying about. Simply because you may have been unaware of things that I was doing without your knowledge, doesn't mean that I wasn't doing them. I understand that you have your own view of what went down, and I never said that you didn't tell Patty to give me the idol, but that was only after you had already specifically asked her for it, then you changed your mind. Once I saw that you had asked for the idol to be played on you, your reasoning being that I already had one of patty's idols, I told patty that I needed it more, because yes, i was 100% aware that you were voting for me (did i say anywhere that I didn't know that?) but I was also aware that John was planning to vote for me too. and two votes in the final five is risky, so all I did was tell patty just that, and BAM-idol for me =] Once I knew that John and Peter were planning to split the votes between you and I, I was talking to John and a little bit of Peter, trying to feel out the vote. Me and Patty really wanted you to vote for John, so that way, whichever of them didn't have the idol played, would have gone, pending a possible tie, but it was YOU who chose to break our alliance and vote for me in such a crucial vote. so please don't insinuate that I was being disloyal to either you or Patty, or that I did not have an active role in decision making, because I certainly did. We all did. The three of us all contributed to the decision making towards the end and it wasn't just one person. My "active" decisions were to A) Stick with Maraamu til the end B) Throw challenges C) Idol playage D) voting out peter instead of patty at the f4 (which i think was the most important voting decision of the season for me) and finally E) I decided not to get in the line of fire, but rather, let the rest of my alliance make more of the noise, and lay low.

You don't need a MASTER PLAN or to be a COMP BEAST to win survivor, you just have to make sure that it's not you who goes at tribal council, and on about three occasions, I managed to position myself out of having my torch snuffed.

I'm a bit unclear as your final question....you want me to assigne each jury member a dictator in history?....like a fascist/totalitarian/communist dictator....or can it extend beyond that into

Sven- he is like hitler becuase....

Monica - she reminds me of...

And so on.