Survivor: Pearl Islands – Advice for the Remaining 10

Warning: This article contains potential spoiler information and speculation. If you do not wish to know that information, do not view the bottom section of the second page of this article.

Ten Survivors remain in the game, and it's time for the traditional merge. Of course, anybody who assumes something in this game might be in for a surprise – in every other edition there were surprises in the game and people who relied too heavily on assumptions have gotten burned (just ask Silas and Shii-Ann). If they merge now, they will go in even and the game is up for grabs. So where do people stand in the game? What should they do to win it? What is the advice for the remaining ten?

Morgan. You managed to make it to this point on an equal playing field (member-wise) with Drake. This gives you a fighting chance if you merge now. If you don't merge, most of you are safe from the next vote (barring stupidity). If you merge, you need unity to try and gain the upper hand on Drake. You'll be in a position similar to that of the Ogakor tribe of Survivor 2, rebounding from being savagely beaten in challenges by Kucha, but emerging as political victors.

Darrah. You have the most precarious position on the Morgan tribe, as you are an outsider of the alliance. If a merge happens, your best bet is to become a "floater" – a person not part of any alliance (except maybe your fellow outcast Jon), who can bargain with either of the other two alliances to whittle away their numbers. The key to this strategy is to bounce back and forth to decimate their numbers and keep yourself off the chopping block. It's a potentially lucrative strategy as long as you can maintain a balance between the two alliances, keeping them in a position where each of them still needs your vote or risk alienation themselves. There is also precedent for this being a winning strategy – just ask Jun from Big Brother 4.

Andrew. While your performance at the reward challenge was less than stellar (you missed the target twice), you made up for it in the immunity challenge. Well done. The key task if you merge is to try to keep Darrah under the control of the Morgan tribe. If you can do that, and if Jon is a loose cannon who rips apart Drake, you can start sniping away at the Drake tribe. As leader, it's up to you to carry out the implementation of mid-game strategy for your tribe.

Ryan O. Good job on the challenges. While you didn't carry quite the burden Andrew did, you held up and contributed to the win. Otherwise, you face no more or less problems than most of the other Survivors remaining in the game. You need to stick close to your allies and seize any opportunity to help fracture the Drake tribe into a total collapse.

Tijuana. Outside of the general challenges faced by almost every other player, you have the added chore of trying to bolster up Osten again. I might be wrong, but it seems like Ryan O. and Andrew are a pair, complemented by you an Osten as a pair in the tangled web of Morgan politics. It's looking a bit far ahead, but you probably need him toward the end-game (assuming you make it that far) in order to stay alive in the game. Good luck!

Osten. Obviously there was a reason you fell first in the immunity challenge. I rather suspect the reason you fell first and Christa carried an equal load is due to the effect of starvation on your tribe (compared to the well-fed Drake tribe). However, given your history and the preview glimpse, I can't help but wonder if your willpower is one of the problems you're suffering from. You need to pick yourself up and, if you merge, life might get better. With Rupert around, you'll have more food, and with that more energy. Hopefully, that will get you out of your funk and get your mind and spirit back in the game.

Drake. I'll ease up a bit, since I think it is clear that you all realize now just how stupid tossing that immunity challenge was. You went from a position to Pagong Morgan to a situation where you might merge even. What you can't afford to do is alienate one of your members, namely Jon. Nothing spells disaster as much as a civil war within a tribe (just ask Samburu from the Africa edition of the show). Alienation of a member leads them to seek alternatives to their current plight.

Jon. Congratulations. You've managed to piss off both tribes to the point where there is little chance of you winning the game. If you don't merge, you're next on the Drake target list. If you do, you're in a position similar to Darrah. You have two choices – either keep on working with Drake to try to decimate Morgan, then work to cut out the Drake threats (like Rupert) once you whittle down the Morgan numbers sufficiently, or you can adopt the floater position I've suggested above for Darrah. Indeed, if the two of you work together, you can become the swing votes the alliances need to pick off members. If you can successfully swing back and forth to chop down both alliances, you can survive long enough to become a power. Two people from the Amazon version of the show highlight this maneuver; Rob, who formed winning coalitions every step of the way because it was in everybody's (in that group) interest to vote that way (you may have noted that every time he wrote down a name, that person was voted out), and Christy, who controlled the winning vote and refused to commit to either side, but found herself being the person voted out. The key to your survival is to put the alliances in an untenable position regarding your votes – a position where they can't live without your vote, even though they know you're selling out everybody.