Survivor Poker

So the game wages on, and somehow after four tournaments, I am still alive and well on Donkey Island. And this, despite my team being required to make an elimination vote in two out of the first three events of the series.

The fact of the matter is that -- and this is not a complaint, in that I know the teams were put together randomly out of the 16 people who signed up for the game on a first come, first served basis -- but these teams are not fair, in the sense of equally dividing up blonkament skills. If you wanted to count up how many total blogger tournament wins each team has over all-time history, you would see what I mean. I mean, sure, I have won 4 google blonkaments myself and this makes the teams seem equally balanced at first glance, but in truth we probably have just 3 or 4 total blonkament wins outside of myself on our entire team put together. And our team includes a bunch of people like iiatg, Al, Riggs and Dawn who simply do not play a lot of blonkaments, period. There is simply not a lot of blogger tournament experience on Team Fish on Donkey Island, and it shows as we play out the series. Whereas, if you look at Team Donkey, you've got guys like Jordan, and Heff, and Numb, guys who have won between them probably 20 blogger tournaments right there in their day, maybe more even. And again, that advantage in experience really shows as we play these games -- in the first event that I won, I had no other Team Fish teammates left in the final 7 spots in first Goat tournament. In the first Dank tournament of Donkey Island, the last five Survivor Poker players were famously all from Team Donkey. And now in Event #3, it was once again a number of Team Donkeys left when Al, our last Team Fish representative on the day, busted well before the top spot. Team Fish is just not executing well enough on anything resembling a consistent basis to avoid these elimination votes, and our team is slowly decimating itself as a result.

But the most annoying part about the team split in my view is that some members of Team Fish continue not showing up to the tournaments at all, or coming in late and missing out on opportunities to help the team out. I mean, it's not enough that all of the blogger tournament win experience is on the other team? We also have to have 2-3 teammates not showing up for each tournament? So, we're facing a significant experiential disadvantage, and the team's response to deal with that is to only give ourselves 4 or 5 chances to outlast Team Donkey every week while Team Donkey has two or three more entrants than us in addition to more historical success in these games?

Unlike Team Donkey, who almost every week is faced with possibly having to vote someone off of their team who gives them a real shot to win team immunity, Team Fish has had it pretty easy so far when it comes to having to cannibalize ourselves with elimination votes. First it was Riggs, who has yet to show up to a single tournament out of the three that have been played, and then Al went next after missing the 2nd tournament, despite Al being our longest-lasting participant on Sunday night. I pretty much know who I will vote for next as well, as we still have some people who aren't showing up for all the games.

I imagine that real Survivor isn't like this, in that there probably is no option for people to just "not show up" for the challenges on Vanuatu like we can have happen here on Donkey Island. But in Survivor Poker, showing up for the games and playing your best to give your team the best chance to avoid an elimination vote is basically all you can do to show your team your worth. We've never done a team-based blogger tournament series before, but one thing that is coming out of it so far is that you can really screw your team -- not just yourself -- by not showing up here during the "team play" portion of the game, which will still persist for the next three tournaments of Survivor Poker.

If some people weren't showing up for the challenges in real Survivor, and their team kept losing as a result, I can only assume that would lead to them getting voted off pretty quick myself, but never having watched the show I cannot say for sure. What I can say, however, is that in Survivor Poker on Donkey Island, if you're not showing up for all the games, in my mind you are easy fodder for a vote-off. I mean, do I want to be sitting here next week with just myself and two other players showing up, trying to outlast 6 or 7 other Team Donkey donkeys to try to avoid getting voted off myself? Give me a choice, and I'll choose the people I know will be there on both Wednesday and Sunday over any perceived skill or experience differential in blogger tournaments in general.

What Team Fish lacks in experience, we make up for in heart. We've got some good players left that I am confident are waiting to make some noise over these next three blogger tournaments while "team play" is still in effect. I do not expect to be voting another team member out this Wednesday night after the Dank has come and gone.

GOoooooooo FISH!!!