Previously on Survivor Hamilton: Old Meets New
After Kyle was voted out on Jordan’s surprise Hidden Immunity Idol play, our 7 remaining castaways competed for Immunity, with Graham coming out on top for his 2nd straight challenge. Now, with two alliances of 3 and Bryan in the middle, how would our players decide to proceed? It’s a tricky one for everyone – not just for this vote, but in having to deal with the resulting makeup of the Final 6.

Tribal Council tonight will ultimately be the most important one yet in determining who sits in the Final 2 at the end. With two alliances of 3 (Chris, James, Jon and April, Graham, Jordan) and Bryan sitting in the middle, each player would need to decide whether their alliance took control NOW or waited until next week when it may be too late. The gist is that if one or both alliances vote out Bryan now, they are staring down the barrel of a potential 3-3 tied vote in the Final 6. If that tie remains deadlocked, we will certainly be going to “rock” – meaning one of the not voted for players will randomly be sent to the Jury. Add in the fact that one player likely has a Hidden Immunity Idol, then it’s likely the alliance WITHOUT the idol is twice as likely to lose a member on rocks.

Bryan knows this outcome all too well, as it was a random draw that sent him to the Jury last time around in Fire & Ice. In that game, there were two alliances that would never flip on eachother, and with Idols in play, Bryan was faced with 1 in 4 odds of being eliminated. Cut to today, 2 years later still without being formally voted out of Survivor Hamilton, and Bryan seems to be the one player capable of avoiding that situation. Each alliance – The Bastards and The Family – will need to decide whether to take their chances on a potential 3-3 tie, or keep Bryan close and take their shot now. But that was easier said than done, as stated earlier because of a potential Idol play, but also because Bryan was completely capable of playing both sides now that Kyle was voted out.

Of course Graham wouldn’t be voted out tonight, but he was the only one that could be sure of that. The rest of the players would need to hope upon hope that their plan was the final one. The challenge here is that multiple players had good connections on “both sides” and so keeping plans a complete secret was next to impossible. To make a plan work, you’d need a majority, but to have a majority you’d need to tell your plan to one of the players that could potentially flip on you. Add in the Idols and Rewards that had been won over the past couple weeks, and your guess is as good as mine what tonight’s outcome will be. But let’s find out shall we?

Below I’ll read the votes, but before I do that we first need to see if any player will be using a Hidden Immunity Idol…

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YES! Chris puts up his hand that he’ll be using an Idol to protect himself.

Any votes cast against Chris will not count.

Or will they?

Graham, with his fresh individual Immunity necklace around his neck stands up and announces that he’ll be using the advantage that he won in the Top 8 Tournament of Champions with is…

An Idol Nullifier!

And when submitting his vote, Graham correctly predicted that Chris would use a Hidden Immunity Idol today, so the Idol Nullifier will cancel out Chris’ Idol. Which means any votes cast for Chris WILL count.

Let’s read the votes…

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First Vote:

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Second Vote:

That’s 2 votes for Bryan.

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Third Vote:

That’s 3 votes for Bryan. 

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Fourth Vote:

That’s 3 votes for Bryan, and 1 vote for Chris. 

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Fifth Vote:

That’s 3 votes for Bryan, and 2 votes for Chris. 

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Sixth Vote:

We’re tied, with 3 votes for Bryan, 1 vote for Chris, and 1 vote left. 

But before I read the last vote, there’s another advantage that was played today…

Someone used this “Steal A Vote” advantage to steal another player’s vote, thereby casting 2 votes themselves. The player’s vote that was stolen was Chris’, meaning not only does his Hidden Immunity Idol not count, but his vote doesn’t count either. Ouch.

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Seventh Vote:

By a vote of 4-3. the 24th player voted out of Survivor Hamilton: Old Meets New and the 8th member of our Jury is Chris! 

I will say, WHAT AN EPISODE! If each of our episodes was ranked on IMDB I’m sure that with all the advantages played, and everything it took to get Chris out of the game, this would be our highest rated episode of the season – and we’ve had some corkers. While Chris certainly didn’t win as many challenges as he’d like, and though he won the ones he did with help, he still played an excellent strategic game. His knowledge of the Survivor TV show coupled with his many relationships throughout the cast made Chris one of our most dynamic players, and led to many excellent Chris-centric votes. Despite how involved he was all game long, up until tonight he had only had one vote cast against him, showing that his social game could be stacked up against hist strategic one. I’m sad to see Chris going to the Jury so close to the end, but I’m proud that it took an Idol Nullifier AND Vote Steal to make it happen. Great job buddy.

And now we have our Top 6. Will it be as simple as James and Jon heading out the door next, or will our players continue to mix it up and subvert expectations? I sure hope so! It’s been making excellent quarantine “television”. Check out Chris’ episode of PLAYED! with Meg & Mike below:

Enjoy the long weekend fellow Canadians!

MH

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