Big Brother 6: Why Kaysar Lost

Kaysar went from the seat of power to the seat next to Julie Chen in just one week. What caused such a dramatic turnaround? Was there anything he could have done to prevent it? Why did Kaysar lose?

The statements in the first paragraph and in the article summary may look familiar – they are identical to those I made just last week, except I replaced “Eric” with “Kaysar.” Indeed, while their personalities were different, their reasons for leaving were very similar. Both were HOH just the week before they were evicted. Both were nominated by the partner of the person they sent to the chopping block the previous week. Both were up against somebody they didn’t feel they could or should campaign against.

But there are differences as well. Part of Eric’s problems stemmed from his outburst and other behavior – was Kaysar’s loss attributable to such things as well? The only way to find out is to look back at What Big Brother 6 Houseguests Should Have Learned to see what Kaysar did right and where he went wrong.

Kaysar understood from the very beginning that the first and most important rule is to scheme and plot. In fact, he was the first person who appeared to recognize that the winners of the first food competition were likely making an alliance on the surfboard. He kept talking about creating a counter-alliance, and eventually he entered into a final four agreement with Eric, James, and secret partner Michael. I’m not sure that he was necessarily looking for a “final four” alliance, but that’s what Eric offered, and he accepted. He followed the portion of this rule that says, “The key is to find some way to create alliances that will keep you around until you can figure out your full strategy later.” And indeed, his alliance did help him when he was nominated for eviction. Later, the person who nominated him, Rachel, even became a solid part of his reconfigured anti-Eric alliance.

After the first week, things came apart with the so-called final four alliance. While Michael went psycho, Kaysar tried to calm things down and get his partner to focus on the game. It didn’t work, but it did show that Kaysar really knew how to play.

His skills at scheming really came out when he became HOH. He knew that James and Sarah were lying when they claimed not to be partners. So he nominated James and Maggie, both of whom were tight with Eric. When James and Sarah came clean, Kaysar went for the kill. He used Eric’s partnership with Maggie to bring James and Sarah to his side. He used his knowledge of Howie and Rachel’s partnership to do the same. Suddenly, Kaysar was the head of a six-person alliance. They worked together to freeze Ivette and Maggie out of the Veto competition, got James off the block, and put Eric on. It was appropriate that the Veto competition took place on a chess board, because that was checkmate for Kaysar, and Eric was gone.

Unfortunately, it put Kaysar into exactly the same position that Eric had held the week before. He was viewed by the remaining members of Eric’s alliance as scheming and plotting too much. After all, he broke his promise to Eric by nominating him. He also failed to keep his scheming secret – everybody knew who stood where in the alliances.

What was worse is that he failed a specific part of the second rule that Eric had also failed: “if any alliances do get out in the open, do not let it be known that you are the decision-maker.” Everybody in the house knew that Kaysar was the leader of his alliance, which made him a good target.

Kaysar also fell to the couples provision of the rule. While he did not have secret partner Michael anymore, he had a strong bond with Janelle, and they were viewed as being as tight as any partner team. As the rule notes, “open partnerships … are just begging to be split up, especially in a game where each week two people are nominated. What’s the best way to split a couple? Nominate ‘em both!” So when James was Vetoed off the block, it made perfect sense for Maggie to put up Janelle. It pretty much prevented Kaysar from doing any serious lobbying to stick around, which he could have done against just about anybody else (well, he could have done it against Janelle too, but we’ll get to that later).