Survivor: One World Roundtable Predictions Update, Episode 7 – Curses!

Every season, the writers at RNO attempt to assess the chances of the latest Survivor cast. Our mission, should we decide to accept it: Predict the pre-jury boots, finalists, and ultimately, the winner.

So how did we fare in regards to Jonas? Suffice it to say this one is a bit tricky. We were charged to select eight players to miss the jury, but only six players did. Therefore, anyone who picks Jonas and the person ousted next to miss the jury will still get credit for a correct pick, but if there’s a tie at the end, the point will go to whomever had the seventh and eights evictees in the jury. This week, four of us had Jonas getting an early exit. Only one of us had seated him in the jury, while three poor souls had him as a finalist. With that, let’s take a look at the latest standings, with comments to follow:

As is the tradition, let’s start from the bottom. Chris has watched his season go from bad to worse to complete disaster. After starting the season at 2-0, he has lost five straight, and this week he becomes the first writer to lose all three finalists, as he had picked Jonas picked to finish third. Chris, if I remember correctly, Colton knocked out the other two people you picked to go to the end.

Well, at least I can't blame Colton for knocking out this finalist. Maybe I can blame Kim instead. Naw, she's too pretty. She can get away with anything. (Call me, Kim!)

Seriously, once again I pick someone to go far, and he or she is eliminated because he or she is too dangerous. Colton might have disliked Bill personally, but others seemed to recognize that his personality could prove problematic to their own chances of winning down the road. Colton saw that Monica was dangerous after a merge and took her out. And now everybody loves Jonas ... And that's exactly why he has to go.

Walking the line in Roundtable is tough -- you have to pick people you think are competent enough to get themselves to the end, but are able to fly under-the-radar to that point and not draw attention to how competent they really are. I'll often try the strategy of picking three competent people and hoping at least one of them will show up in the finals, but it just didn't work out that way this time.

Seventh place Sarah’s week wasn’t much better. Not only did she lose her second finalist with Jonas’s demise, she lost her winner as well. Sarah, care to lament your fate?

When I picked Jonas to win, I said that it was based on the type of player I wanted him to be, and he did turn out to be that type of player: unassuming, but strategic and self-aware. I'm genuinely sorry to see him go because I would have loved to see how he handled himself towards the endgame. I feel like he got shafted by the tribal swap and then by how the reward challenge split the tribe, and I'll be sulking over that for a while. Turns out that the sane, quiet guy in a group of misfits does stand out as the biggest threat.

That may well be yet another indication of how unpredictable this season has been. Between tribes going to Tribal Council when they didn’t need to, one of the game’s more strategic (if obnoxious) players being evacuated, and some of the strongest players being ousted early, this season has been unusual in more ways than one.

In sixth place is David, who gets a point despite pegging Jonas for a pre-jury boot, and thus he becomes the only writer with a winning record. Unfortunately, two of his previous losses were finalists, with one being his winner.

Tied for third place are Jenn, Jeffrey, and William, who all got a point. However, it should be noted that William was the only writer out of the eight of us to forecast accurately Jonas’ jury spot. How do you feel about this William?

I'm both happy and sad at this result. I'm happy because in my original thought process, I knew he was on the bubble for the jury, and I had just enough confidence to put him through. In an ideal world a guy like Jonas would win, but I just had this nagging feeling that the ideal would not come to pass this time out. Following that last point, the reason I'm sad is because this is an indicator of how disappointing this season is becoming. As I moaned last week, at this rate we're looking at Kim as our winner. Could this have been a more wasted season?