UNAIRED: Rachel Receives A Secret Advantage That Could Change Tribal | Survivor 47

[Brian Smith]

Found this clip thanks to a tweet from Rachel. This unaired scene clears
up somethings concerning the advantage.

This is Rachel's tweet.

Definitely prefer the way they chose to reveal this at tribal instead.
I’m a bit of a shell shocked zombie finding it after an entire day of
getting spun around by tuku 😵‍💫

https://x.com/rachelalamont/status/1852004469761859746

Sounds like she did find the scroll on her own. Also sounds like she
knew it would be too risky to use the "Block a Vote" advantage.

[Rick]

Post by Brian Smith
Found this clip thanks to a tweet from Rachel. This unaired scene clears
up somethings concerning the advantage.
http://youtu.be/B18aMztln_M
This is Rachel's tweet.
Definitely prefer the way they chose to reveal this at tribal instead.
I’m a bit of a shell shocked zombie finding it after an entire day of
getting spun around by tuku 😵‍💫
https://x.com/rachelalamont/status/1852004469761859746
Sounds like she did find the scroll on her own. Also sounds like she
knew it would be too risky to use the "Block a Vote" advantage.

Very interesting - but still doesn't answer my original question, which
is how the producers got it in her bag with no one seeing and how she
knew to look in her bag 20 minutes before TC to find it. The players
were presumably all at camp with their bags and a producer just casually
walks over and slips it in her bag?

I can only think of two possibilities. One is that they perhaps have a
a protocol that you have to bring your bag to confessional interviews,
though I'm not sure why that would be. During this process they might
have alerted her that there is something in her bag and they would have
told her to just tell the camera that she found it in her bag. The only
other thing I can think of would be that they periodically gather all
the players away from camp for no stated reason, in which case everyone
would be on alert to check their bags when they come back. And I guess
a variant of that is that they simply have a protocol that producers are
allowed to go through everyone's bag periodically to check for
contraband or rules violations.

[Brian Smith]

Post by Rick

Post by Brian Smith
Found this clip thanks to a tweet from Rachel. This unaired scene
clears up somethings concerning the advantage.
http://youtu.be/B18aMztln_M
This is Rachel's tweet.
Definitely prefer the way they chose to reveal this at tribal instead.
I’m a bit of a shell shocked zombie finding it after an entire day of
getting spun around by tuku 😵‍💫
https://x.com/rachelalamont/status/1852004469761859746
Sounds like she did find the scroll on her own. Also sounds like she
knew it would be too risky to use the "Block a Vote" advantage.

Very interesting - but still doesn't answer my original question, which
is how the producers got it in her bag with no one seeing and how she
knew to look in her bag 20 minutes before TC to find it.  The players
were presumably all at camp with their bags and a producer just casually
walks over and slips it in her bag?
I can only think of two possibilities.  One is that they perhaps have a
a protocol that you have to bring your bag to confessional interviews,
though I'm not sure why that would be.  During this process they might
have alerted her that there is something in her bag and they would have
told her to just tell the camera that she found it in her bag.  The only
other thing I can think of would be that they periodically gather all
the players away from camp for no stated reason, in which case everyone
would be on alert to check their bags when they come back.  And I guess
a variant of that is that they simply have a protocol that producers are
allowed to go through everyone's bag periodically to check for
contraband or rules violations.

I'm quite confident she found the scroll on her own. If you were leaving
for TC and knew you wouldn't be coming back to the same camp, wouldn't
you check your bag before leaving to make sure you had everything? In
Rachel's case there was also the distinct possibility she would be going
to Ponderosa.

As for how production got the scroll in her bag, I can see a few sneaky
possibilities. One would be a medical check. While she was distracted
someone could slip the scroll into her bag. It's also possible they
could do it with her present but not having a clue of what's going on.
For example, when setting up shots for a confessional they could have
people distract her while someone puts the scroll in her bag. It's also
possible that they do gather them all somewhere for whatever reason they
come up with. Whatever ever it was they did in this case, I'm sure it
wasn't telling her directly. I can't see them wasting money to edit a
fake scene and then posting it.

[Rick]

Post by Brian Smith

Post by Rick

Post by Brian Smith
Found this clip thanks to a tweet from Rachel. This unaired scene
clears up somethings concerning the advantage.
http://youtu.be/B18aMztln_M
This is Rachel's tweet.
Definitely prefer the way they chose to reveal this at tribal
instead. I’m a bit of a shell shocked zombie finding it after an
entire day of getting spun around by tuku 😵‍💫
https://x.com/rachelalamont/status/1852004469761859746
Sounds like she did find the scroll on her own. Also sounds like she
knew it would be too risky to use the "Block a Vote" advantage.

Very interesting - but still doesn't answer my original question,
which is how the producers got it in her bag with no one seeing and
how she knew to look in her bag 20 minutes before TC to find it.  The
players were presumably all at camp with their bags and a producer
just casually walks over and slips it in her bag?
I can only think of two possibilities.  One is that they perhaps have
a a protocol that you have to bring your bag to confessional
interviews, though I'm not sure why that would be.  During this
process they might have alerted her that there is something in her bag
and they would have told her to just tell the camera that she found it
in her bag.  The only other thing I can think of would be that they
periodically gather all the players away from camp for no stated
reason, in which case everyone would be on alert to check their bags
when they come back.  And I guess a variant of that is that they
simply have a protocol that producers are allowed to go through
everyone's bag periodically to check for contraband or rules violations.

I'm quite confident she found the scroll on her own. If you were leaving
for TC and knew you wouldn't be coming back to the same camp, wouldn't
you check your bag before leaving to make sure you had everything? In
Rachel's case there was also the distinct possibility she would be going
to Ponderosa.
As for how production got the scroll in her bag, I can see a few sneaky
possibilities. One would be a medical check. While she was distracted
someone could slip the scroll into her bag. It's also possible they
could do it with her present but not having a clue of what's going on.
For example, when setting up shots for a confessional they could have
people distract her while someone puts the scroll in her bag. It's also
possible that they do gather them all somewhere for whatever reason they
come up with. Whatever ever it was they did in this case, I'm sure it
wasn't telling her directly. I can't see them wasting money to edit a
fake scene and then posting it.

I'm not suggesting it was a fake scene. I think she did find it in her
bag. But I'm guessing the producers told her to look in her bag and she
might find something, and they might have told her not to mention that a
producer tipped her off I just don't think they would go through this
whole process of getting the clue over to her and then she doesn't
bother opening her bag. I mean she could have loaded up her bag and
gotten everything ready for TC long before they managed to slip the clue
in there I just don't think they would do this elaborate setup and just
allow for the chance that she would open her bag.

Unless....maybe they have a rule or protocol that players should always
check their bags before TC just in case they might find something.
After all, they have used this concept before of a player bequeathing or
leaving things to specific players in the past, so maybe it's just a
rule they all follow.

[Zeppo]

Post by Rick
Very interesting - but still doesn't answer my original question, which
is how the producers got it in her bag with no one seeing and how she
knew to look in her bag 20 minutes before TC to find it. The players
were presumably all at camp with their bags and a producer just casually
walks over and slips it in her bag?
One is that they perhaps have a
a protocol that you have to bring your bag to confessional interviews,
though I'm not sure why that would be. During this process they might
have alerted her that there is something in her bag and they would have
told her to just tell the camera that she found it in her bag

Wouldn’t such a scenario fall under the category of an employee of
SEG providing Rachel with information that will help her to advance
in the game? Wouldn't this type of assistance be considered a
violation of the spirit of the game? It seems to me that the only fair
way that the on-site producer could have dealt with this matter would
have been to plant the parchment in Rachel’s bag, and tell her nothing.
If she happens to notice it when she is organizing her possessions...
good for her. If she doesn’t....tough luck and sayonara.

But the problem is that Rachel is a player who appears to have a
legitimate chance of winning S47, but was dealt a shitty hand
during Probst’s unnecessary rock pull. There would have been
a lot of criticism directed at SEG, and Jeff Probst specifically, if
Rachel had been booted by the five former members of Blue
Tribe. So there needed to be a way to make sure that such a
result did not occur, but did not stink of favouritism. So we got,
“Oh my, I happened to look in my bag, not more than twenty
minutes ago, and, golly, look what I found”.

[Rick]

Post by Zeppo

Post by Rick
Very interesting - but still doesn't answer my original question, which
is how the producers got it in her bag with no one seeing and how she
knew to look in her bag 20 minutes before TC to find it. The players
were presumably all at camp with their bags and a producer just casually
walks over and slips it in her bag?
One is that they perhaps have a
a protocol that you have to bring your bag to confessional interviews,
though I'm not sure why that would be. During this process they might
have alerted her that there is something in her bag and they would have
told her to just tell the camera that she found it in her bag

Wouldn’t such a scenario fall under the category of an employee of
SEG providing Rachel with information that will help her to advance
in the game? Wouldn't this type of assistance be considered a
violation of the spirit of the game? It seems to me that the only fair
way that the on-site producer could have dealt with this matter would
have been to plant the parchment in Rachel’s bag, and tell her nothing.
If she happens to notice it when she is organizing her possessions...
good for her. If she doesn’t....tough luck and sayonara.

That's a fair point, and it makes me think the most likely scenario is
that players are just told as a general protocol that they should always
check their bags before leaving for a challenge or TC. In that way, if
a surprise is slipped in and they don't find it, it's their own fault.
In this case, if Rachel never finds the note, we would never have seen
anything about it on camera and probably would never have learned about
it unless Sol referenced it in an exit interview.

This reminds me of something that happened back in S45 with Brando.
They were at a challenge and the players were given new buffs because it
was either a tribe swap or the merge. Brando noticed that his buff felt
a little stiffer than it should, and he realized there was a note hidden
in the seam. He decided not to look at it in front of everyone and to
wait until he was back at camp. Once back at camp, a producer took him
away as though to do an interview, and the note was taken away from him
before he could read it. Brando said in interviews that he was never
told what the note said or why they took it away from him. The
speculation is that it was some kind of time-sensitive offer that had to
be read and acted on at the challenge - like switching to another tribe
or stealing someone from another tribe. But because he didn't read the
note at the challenge, it was too late when he got back to camp. The
whole thing was never shown on camera, and the only reason we learned
about it was that Brando mentioned it in two different exit interviews.

Post by Zeppo
But the problem is that Rachel is a player who appears to have a
legitimate chance of winning S47, but was dealt a shitty hand
during Probst’s unnecessary rock pull. There would have been
a lot of criticism directed at SEG, and Jeff Probst specifically, if
Rachel had been booted by the five former members of Blue
Tribe. So there needed to be a way to make sure that such a
result did not occur, but did not stink of favouritism. So we got,
“Oh my, I happened to look in my bag, not more than twenty
minutes ago, and, golly, look what I found”.

[Brian Smith]

Post by Rick

Post by Zeppo

Post by Rick
Very interesting - but still doesn't answer my original question, which
is how the producers got it in her bag with no one seeing and how she
knew to look in her bag 20 minutes before TC to find it. The players
were presumably all at camp with their bags and a producer just casually
walks over and slips it in her bag?
One is that they perhaps have a
a protocol that you have to bring your bag to confessional interviews,
though I'm not sure why that would be. During this process they might
have alerted her that there is something in her bag and they would have
told her to just tell the camera that she found it in her bag

Wouldn’t such a scenario fall under the category of an employee of
SEG providing Rachel with information that will help her to advance
in the game? Wouldn't this type of assistance be considered a
violation of the spirit of the game? It seems to me that the only fair
way that the on-site producer could have dealt with this matter would
have been to plant the parchment in Rachel’s bag, and tell her nothing.
If she happens to notice it when she is organizing her possessions...
good for her. If she doesn’t....tough luck and sayonara.

That's a fair point, and it makes me think the most likely scenario is
that players are just told as a general protocol that they should always
check their bags before leaving for a challenge or TC.  In that way, if
a surprise is slipped in and they don't find it, it's their own fault.
In this case, if Rachel never finds the note, we would never have seen
anything about it on camera and probably would never have learned about
it unless Sol referenced it in an exit interview.
This reminds me of something that happened back in S45 with Brando. They
were at a challenge and the players were given new buffs because it was
either a tribe swap or the merge.  Brando noticed that his buff felt a
little stiffer than it should, and he realized there was a note hidden
in the seam.  He decided not to look at it in front of everyone and to
wait until he was back at camp.  Once back at camp, a producer took him
away as though to do an interview, and the note was taken away from him
before he could read it.  Brando said in interviews that he was never
told what the note said or why they took it away from him.  The
speculation is that it was some kind of time-sensitive offer that had to
be read and acted on at the challenge - like switching to another tribe
or stealing someone from another tribe.  But because he didn't read the
note at the challenge, it was too late when he got back to camp.  The
whole thing was never shown on camera, and the only reason we learned
about it was that Brando mentioned it in two different exit interviews.

Interesting. I'm surprised he didn't connect the timing of the two
events. Who knows, if he had read the note as soon as he realized he had
one, he might have won the game.

[Zeppo]

Post by Rick
That's a fair point, and it makes me think the most likely scenario is
that players are just told as a general protocol that they should always
check their bags before leaving for a challenge or TC. In that way, if
a surprise is slipped in and they don't find it, it's their own fault.
In this case, if Rachel never finds the note, we would never have seen
anything about it on camera and probably would never have learned about
it unless Sol referenced it in an exit interview.

Such a policy makes a lot of sense, and I hope that it is, in fact, the way
that matters of this type are dealt with.

[Brian Smith]

Post by Zeppo

Post by Rick
Very interesting - but still doesn't answer my original question, which
is how the producers got it in her bag with no one seeing and how she
knew to look in her bag 20 minutes before TC to find it. The players
were presumably all at camp with their bags and a producer just casually
walks over and slips it in her bag?
One is that they perhaps have a
a protocol that you have to bring your bag to confessional interviews,
though I'm not sure why that would be. During this process they might
have alerted her that there is something in her bag and they would have
told her to just tell the camera that she found it in her bag

Wouldn’t such a scenario fall under the category of an employee of
SEG providing Rachel with information that will help her to advance
in the game? Wouldn't this type of assistance be considered a
violation of the spirit of the game? It seems to me that the only fair
way that the on-site producer could have dealt with this matter would
have been to plant the parchment in Rachel’s bag, and tell her nothing.
If she happens to notice it when she is organizing her possessions...
good for her. If she doesn’t....tough luck and sayonara.

I agree. We've seen twists fail numerous times in the past for various
reason so I don't see why this time would have been any different if
Rachel didn't find the scroll.

Post by Zeppo
But the problem is that Rachel is a player who appears to have a
legitimate chance of winning S47, but was dealt a shitty hand
during Probst’s unnecessary rock pull. There would have been
a lot of criticism directed at SEG, and Jeff Probst specifically, if
Rachel had been booted by the five former members of Blue
Tribe. So there needed to be a way to make sure that such a
result did not occur, but did not stink of favouritism. So we got,
“Oh my, I happened to look in my bag, not more than twenty
minutes ago, and, golly, look what I found”.

These twists are planned way in advance. I doubt Probst cares if someone
gets taken out by bad luck. In this case, it all worked out. By the way,
very few people have mentioned the possibility of the scroll not being
found at the feast. That's happened before and looked like it could have
happened again. If the scroll wasn't found to begin with Rachel would
have been gone.

FYI, Rachel asked Christian what the odds are for what happened to her
concerning the draw.

Been waiting months to ask you for the odds on this draw @chubicki

https://x.com/rachelalamont/status/1851782368719180041

Wow, quite rare.

It’s the second least likely outcome. The odds of having all Tuku
together is only 1.5%. It’s only 0.88% likely that a Gata would be
stranded with them.

https://x.com/chubicki/status/1851784697635819568

This has me wondering what would have happened if Andy had been in
Rachel's spot and Sierra found the advantage scroll. Do you think she
would have screwed him over and given the scroll to say either Sue or
Caroline?

[Rick]

Post by Brian Smith

Post by Zeppo

Post by Rick
Very interesting - but still doesn't answer my original question, which
is how the producers got it in her bag with no one seeing and how she
knew to look in her bag 20 minutes before TC to find it. The players
were presumably all at camp with their bags and a producer just casually
walks over and slips it in her bag?
One is that they perhaps have a
a protocol that you have to bring your bag to confessional interviews,
though I'm not sure why that would be. During this process they might
have alerted her that there is something in her bag and they would have
told her to just tell the camera that she found it in her bag

Wouldn’t such a scenario fall under the category of an employee of
SEG providing Rachel with information that will help her to advance
in the game? Wouldn't this type of assistance be considered a
violation of the spirit of the game? It seems to me that the only fair
way that the on-site producer could have dealt with this matter would
have been to plant the parchment in Rachel’s bag, and tell her nothing.
If she happens to notice it when she is organizing her possessions...
good for her. If she doesn’t....tough luck and sayonara.

I agree. We've seen twists fail numerous times in the past for various
reason so I don't see why this time would have been any different if
Rachel didn't find the scroll.

Post by Zeppo
But the problem is that Rachel is a player who appears to have a
legitimate chance of winning S47, but was dealt a shitty hand
during Probst’s unnecessary rock pull. There would have been
a lot of criticism directed at SEG, and Jeff Probst specifically, if
Rachel had been booted by the five former members of Blue
Tribe. So there needed to be a way to make sure that such a
result did not occur, but did not stink of favouritism. So we got,
“Oh my, I happened to look in my bag, not more than twenty
minutes ago, and, golly, look what I found”.

These twists are planned way in advance. I doubt Probst cares if someone
gets taken out by bad luck. In this case, it all worked out. By the way,
very few people have mentioned the possibility of the scroll not being
found at the feast. That's happened before and looked like it could have
happened again. If the scroll wasn't found to begin with Rachel would
have been gone.
FYI, Rachel asked Christian what the odds are for what happened to her
concerning the draw.
https://x.com/rachelalamont/status/1851782368719180041
Wow, quite rare.
It’s the second least likely outcome. The odds of having all Tuku
together is only 1.5%. It’s only 0.88% likely that a Gata would be
stranded with them.

This reminds me of that famous tribal swap in All Stars when everyone on
the two tribes got randomly swapped to the opposite tribe except for
Amber who remained on her original tribe. This led to the famous
request by Boston Rob (who was now separated from Amber) that Lex "take
care" of Amber on the other tribe. (Lex did this and got repaid for his
efforts when Rob got rid of Lex post-mrege).

I wonder what the odds were in that case that the tribes would be
identical after the switch except for one player? In that case, two
tribes of four and six randomly switched to two new tribes of five each,
and the tribe of four remained together but added Amber and the tribe of
six stayed together except for Amber. I'm not smart enough to be able
to figure if that's more or less unlikely than what we saw this week.

Post by Brian Smith
https://x.com/chubicki/status/1851784697635819568
This has me wondering what would have happened if Andy had been in
Rachel's spot and Sierra found the advantage scroll. Do you think she
would have screwed him over and given the scroll to say either Sue or
Caroline?

[Brian Smith]

Post by Rick

Post by Brian Smith

Post by Zeppo

Post by Rick
Very interesting - but still doesn't answer my original question, which
is how the producers got it in her bag with no one seeing and how she
knew to look in her bag 20 minutes before TC to find it. The players
were presumably all at camp with their bags and a producer just casually
walks over and slips it in her bag?
One is that they perhaps have a
a protocol that you have to bring your bag to confessional interviews,
though I'm not sure why that would be. During this process they might
have alerted her that there is something in her bag and they would have
told her to just tell the camera that she found it in her bag

Wouldn’t such a scenario fall under the category of an employee of
SEG providing Rachel with information that will help her to advance
in the game? Wouldn't this type of assistance be considered a
violation of the spirit of the game? It seems to me that the only fair
way that the on-site producer could have dealt with this matter would
have been to plant the parchment in Rachel’s bag, and tell her nothing.
If she happens to notice it when she is organizing her possessions...
good for her. If she doesn’t....tough luck and sayonara.

I agree. We've seen twists fail numerous times in the past for various
reason so I don't see why this time would have been any different if
Rachel didn't find the scroll.

Post by Zeppo
But the problem is that Rachel is a player who appears to have a
legitimate chance of winning S47, but was dealt a shitty hand
during Probst’s unnecessary rock pull. There would have been
a lot of criticism directed at SEG, and Jeff Probst specifically, if
Rachel had been booted by the five former members of Blue
Tribe. So there needed to be a way to make sure that such a
result did not occur, but did not stink of favouritism. So we got,
“Oh my, I happened to look in my bag, not more than twenty
minutes ago, and, golly, look what I found”.

These twists are planned way in advance. I doubt Probst cares if
someone gets taken out by bad luck. In this case, it all worked out.
By the way, very few people have mentioned the possibility of the
scroll not being found at the feast. That's happened before and looked
like it could have happened again. If the scroll wasn't found to begin
with Rachel would have been gone.
FYI, Rachel asked Christian what the odds are for what happened to her
concerning the draw.
https://x.com/rachelalamont/status/1851782368719180041
Wow, quite rare.
It’s the second least likely outcome. The odds of having all Tuku
together is only 1.5%. It’s only 0.88% likely that a Gata would be
stranded with them.

This reminds me of that famous tribal swap in All Stars when everyone on
the two tribes got randomly swapped to the opposite tribe except for
Amber who remained on her original tribe.  This led to the famous
request by Boston Rob (who was now separated from Amber) that Lex "take
care" of Amber on the other tribe.  (Lex did this and got repaid for his
efforts when Rob got rid of Lex post-mrege).

And IIRC, Les was super pissed off when he got what he considered to be
backstabbed.

As a side note, when I first read what you wrote I thought it said "HAS
now separated from Amber." I was like "How did I miss that?!"

Post by Rick
I wonder what the odds were in that case that the tribes would be
identical after the switch except for one player?  In that case, two
tribes of four and six randomly switched to two new tribes of five each,
and the tribe of four remained together but added Amber and the tribe of
six stayed together except for Amber.  I'm not smart enough to be able
to figure if that's more or less unlikely than what we saw this week.

I'd say the odds for that happening would be way less than what happened
to Rachel. I'd like to know how Christian calculated his odds. In most
(all?) stats classes they would assume everyone has the same odds of
drawing either color rock but in Survivor that's clearly not the case.

[Rick]

Post by Brian Smith

Post by Rick

Post by Brian Smith

Post by Zeppo

Post by Rick
Very interesting - but still doesn't answer my original question, which
is how the producers got it in her bag with no one seeing and how she
knew to look in her bag 20 minutes before TC to find it. The players
were presumably all at camp with their bags and a producer just casually
walks over and slips it in her bag?
One is that they perhaps have a
a protocol that you have to bring your bag to confessional interviews,
though I'm not sure why that would be. During this process they might
have alerted her that there is something in her bag and they would have
told her to just tell the camera that she found it in her bag

Wouldn’t such a scenario fall under the category of an employee of
SEG providing Rachel with information that will help her to advance
in the game? Wouldn't this type of assistance be considered a
violation of the spirit of the game? It seems to me that the only fair
way that the on-site producer could have dealt with this matter would
have been to plant the parchment in Rachel’s bag, and tell her nothing.
If she happens to notice it when she is organizing her possessions...
good for her. If she doesn’t....tough luck and sayonara.

I agree. We've seen twists fail numerous times in the past for
various reason so I don't see why this time would have been any
different if Rachel didn't find the scroll.

Post by Zeppo
But the problem is that Rachel is a player who appears to have a
legitimate chance of winning S47, but was dealt a shitty hand
during Probst’s unnecessary rock pull. There would have been
a lot of criticism directed at SEG, and Jeff Probst specifically, if
Rachel had been booted by the five former members of Blue
Tribe. So there needed to be a way to make sure that such a
result did not occur, but did not stink of favouritism. So we got,
“Oh my, I happened to look in my bag, not more than twenty
minutes ago, and, golly, look what I found”.

These twists are planned way in advance. I doubt Probst cares if
someone gets taken out by bad luck. In this case, it all worked out.
By the way, very few people have mentioned the possibility of the
scroll not being found at the feast. That's happened before and
looked like it could have happened again. If the scroll wasn't found
to begin with Rachel would have been gone.
FYI, Rachel asked Christian what the odds are for what happened to
her concerning the draw.
https://x.com/rachelalamont/status/1851782368719180041
Wow, quite rare.
It’s the second least likely outcome. The odds of having all Tuku
together is only 1.5%. It’s only 0.88% likely that a Gata would be
stranded with them.

This reminds me of that famous tribal swap in All Stars when everyone
on the two tribes got randomly swapped to the opposite tribe except
for Amber who remained on her original tribe.  This led to the famous
request by Boston Rob (who was now separated from Amber) that Lex
"take care" of Amber on the other tribe.  (Lex did this and got repaid
for his efforts when Rob got rid of Lex post-mrege).

And IIRC, Les was super pissed off when he got what he considered to be
backstabbed.
As a side note, when I first read what you wrote I thought it said "HAS
now separated from Amber." I was like "How did I miss that?!"

Post by Rick
I wonder what the odds were in that case that the tribes would be
identical after the switch except for one player?  In that case, two
tribes of four and six randomly switched to two new tribes of five
each, and the tribe of four remained together but added Amber and the
tribe of six stayed together except for Amber.  I'm not smart enough
to be able to figure if that's more or less unlikely than what we saw
this week.

I'd say the odds for that happening would be way less than what happened
to Rachel. I'd like to know how Christian calculated his odds. In most
(all?) stats classes they would assume everyone has the same odds of
drawing either color rock but in Survivor that's clearly not the case.

I believe I heard on one of Rob's podcasts that Christian didn't
actually calculate anything but simply brute-forced an answer by running
millions of random number trials on a computer and giving us the
results. But perhaps Rob misunderstood and Christian actually
calculated it.

Also, it seemed that he wasn't calculating the odds of any of the tribes
ending up together but of Tuku specifically, since they were the only
tribe of five.

I didn't try to re-do Christian's calculations but I did use software to
calculate the odds in Amber's case, and it turns out that the odds of
her whole tribe switching except for her are 1 in 42 or 2.38%, which is
slightly better than what Christian quoted for the current season.

[Brian Smith]

Post by Rick

Post by Brian Smith

Post by Rick

Post by Brian Smith

Post by Zeppo

Post by Rick
Very interesting - but still doesn't answer my original question, which
is how the producers got it in her bag with no one seeing and how she
knew to look in her bag 20 minutes before TC to find it. The players
were presumably all at camp with their bags and a producer just casually
walks over and slips it in her bag?
One is that they perhaps have a
a protocol that you have to bring your bag to confessional interviews,
though I'm not sure why that would be. During this process they might
have alerted her that there is something in her bag and they would have
told her to just tell the camera that she found it in her bag

Wouldn’t such a scenario fall under the category of an employee of
SEG providing Rachel with information that will help her to advance
in the game? Wouldn't this type of assistance be considered a
violation of the spirit of the game? It seems to me that the only fair
way that the on-site producer could have dealt with this matter would
have been to plant the parchment in Rachel’s bag, and tell her nothing.
If she happens to notice it when she is organizing her possessions...
good for her. If she doesn’t....tough luck and sayonara.

I agree. We've seen twists fail numerous times in the past for
various reason so I don't see why this time would have been any
different if Rachel didn't find the scroll.

Post by Zeppo
But the problem is that Rachel is a player who appears to have a
legitimate chance of winning S47, but was dealt a shitty hand
during Probst’s unnecessary rock pull. There would have been
a lot of criticism directed at SEG, and Jeff Probst specifically, if
Rachel had been booted by the five former members of Blue
Tribe. So there needed to be a way to make sure that such a
result did not occur, but did not stink of favouritism. So we got,
“Oh my, I happened to look in my bag, not more than twenty
minutes ago, and, golly, look what I found”.

These twists are planned way in advance. I doubt Probst cares if
someone gets taken out by bad luck. In this case, it all worked out.
By the way, very few people have mentioned the possibility of the
scroll not being found at the feast. That's happened before and
looked like it could have happened again. If the scroll wasn't found
to begin with Rachel would have been gone.
FYI, Rachel asked Christian what the odds are for what happened to
her concerning the draw.
https://x.com/rachelalamont/status/1851782368719180041
Wow, quite rare.
It’s the second least likely outcome. The odds of having all Tuku
together is only 1.5%. It’s only 0.88% likely that a Gata would be
stranded with them.

This reminds me of that famous tribal swap in All Stars when everyone
on the two tribes got randomly swapped to the opposite tribe except
for Amber who remained on her original tribe.  This led to the famous
request by Boston Rob (who was now separated from Amber) that Lex
"take care" of Amber on the other tribe.  (Lex did this and got
repaid for his efforts when Rob got rid of Lex post-mrege).

And IIRC, Les was super pissed off when he got what he considered to
be backstabbed.
As a side note, when I first read what you wrote I thought it said
"HAS now separated from Amber." I was like "How did I miss that?!"

Post by Rick
I wonder what the odds were in that case that the tribes would be
identical after the switch except for one player?  In that case, two
tribes of four and six randomly switched to two new tribes of five
each, and the tribe of four remained together but added Amber and the
tribe of six stayed together except for Amber.  I'm not smart enough
to be able to figure if that's more or less unlikely than what we saw
this week.

I'd say the odds for that happening would be way less than what
happened to Rachel. I'd like to know how Christian calculated his
odds. In most (all?) stats classes they would assume everyone has the
same odds of drawing either color rock but in Survivor that's clearly
not the case.

I believe I heard on one of Rob's podcasts that Christian didn't
actually calculate anything but simply brute-forced an answer by running
millions of random number trials on a computer and giving us the
results.  But perhaps Rob misunderstood and Christian actually
calculated it.
Also, it seemed that he wasn't calculating the odds of any of the tribes
ending up together but of Tuku specifically, since they were the only
tribe of five.
I didn't try to re-do Christian's calculations but I did use software to
calculate the odds in Amber's case, and it turns out that the odds of
her whole tribe switching except for her are 1 in 42 or 2.38%, which is
slightly better than what Christian quoted for the current season.

Sounds like Christian might have used a Monte Carlo method to arrive at
his numbers.

Which software did you use?

If you factor in that the odds change after each rock has been selected
and the order in which the players drew the rocks, the odds of what
happened to Rachel would be way lower. Same for Amber.

[Rick]

Post by Brian Smith

Post by Rick

Post by Brian Smith

Post by Rick

Post by Brian Smith

Post by Zeppo

Post by Rick
Very interesting - but still doesn't answer my original question, which
is how the producers got it in her bag with no one seeing and how she
knew to look in her bag 20 minutes before TC to find it. The players
were presumably all at camp with their bags and a producer just casually
walks over and slips it in her bag?
One is that they perhaps have a
a protocol that you have to bring your bag to confessional interviews,
though I'm not sure why that would be. During this process they might
have alerted her that there is something in her bag and they would have
told her to just tell the camera that she found it in her bag

Wouldn’t such a scenario fall under the category of an employee of
SEG providing Rachel with information that will help her to advance
in the game? Wouldn't this type of assistance be considered a
violation of the spirit of the game? It seems to me that the only fair
way that the on-site producer could have dealt with this matter would
have been to plant the parchment in Rachel’s bag, and tell her nothing.
If she happens to notice it when she is organizing her possessions...
good for her. If she doesn’t....tough luck and sayonara.

I agree. We've seen twists fail numerous times in the past for
various reason so I don't see why this time would have been any
different if Rachel didn't find the scroll.

Post by Zeppo
But the problem is that Rachel is a player who appears to have a
legitimate chance of winning S47, but was dealt a shitty hand
during Probst’s unnecessary rock pull. There would have been
a lot of criticism directed at SEG, and Jeff Probst specifically, if
Rachel had been booted by the five former members of Blue
Tribe. So there needed to be a way to make sure that such a
result did not occur, but did not stink of favouritism. So we got,
“Oh my, I happened to look in my bag, not more than twenty
minutes ago, and, golly, look what I found”.

These twists are planned way in advance. I doubt Probst cares if
someone gets taken out by bad luck. In this case, it all worked
out. By the way, very few people have mentioned the possibility of
the scroll not being found at the feast. That's happened before and
looked like it could have happened again. If the scroll wasn't
found to begin with Rachel would have been gone.
FYI, Rachel asked Christian what the odds are for what happened to
her concerning the draw.
https://x.com/rachelalamont/status/1851782368719180041
Wow, quite rare.
It’s the second least likely outcome. The odds of having all Tuku
together is only 1.5%. It’s only 0.88% likely that a Gata would be
stranded with them.

This reminds me of that famous tribal swap in All Stars when
everyone on the two tribes got randomly swapped to the opposite
tribe except for Amber who remained on her original tribe.  This led
to the famous request by Boston Rob (who was now separated from
Amber) that Lex "take care" of Amber on the other tribe.  (Lex did
this and got repaid for his efforts when Rob got rid of Lex
post-mrege).

And IIRC, Les was super pissed off when he got what he considered to
be backstabbed.
As a side note, when I first read what you wrote I thought it said
"HAS now separated from Amber." I was like "How did I miss that?!"

Post by Rick
I wonder what the odds were in that case that the tribes would be
identical after the switch except for one player?  In that case, two
tribes of four and six randomly switched to two new tribes of five
each, and the tribe of four remained together but added Amber and
the tribe of six stayed together except for Amber.  I'm not smart
enough to be able to figure if that's more or less unlikely than
what we saw this week.

I'd say the odds for that happening would be way less than what
happened to Rachel. I'd like to know how Christian calculated his
odds. In most (all?) stats classes they would assume everyone has the
same odds of drawing either color rock but in Survivor that's clearly
not the case.

I believe I heard on one of Rob's podcasts that Christian didn't
actually calculate anything but simply brute-forced an answer by
running millions of random number trials on a computer and giving us
the results.  But perhaps Rob misunderstood and Christian actually
calculated it.
Also, it seemed that he wasn't calculating the odds of any of the
tribes ending up together but of Tuku specifically, since they were
the only tribe of five.
I didn't try to re-do Christian's calculations but I did use software
to calculate the odds in Amber's case, and it turns out that the odds
of her whole tribe switching except for her are 1 in 42 or 2.38%,
which is slightly better than what Christian quoted for the current
season.

Sounds like Christian might have used a Monte Carlo method to arrive at
his numbers.
Which software did you use?
If you factor in that the odds change after each rock has been selected
and the order in which the players drew the rocks, the odds of what
happened to Rachel would be way lower. Same for Amber.

I used ChatGPT and then checked the answer with Copilot and got the same
results.

I also entered the information for the switch from this week's episode
and both AI products said there was a .76% chance that the tribe of 5
would remain together after the random switch and that one player from
the other tribes would be the sixth player. If we modify the problem to
ask what the probability would be that the five person tribe stayed
together with Rachel specifically, the odds drop to 0.1%. Again, both
products gave the same answer.

[Brian Smith]

Post by Rick

Post by Brian Smith

Post by Rick

Post by Brian Smith

Post by Rick

Post by Brian Smith

Post by Zeppo

Post by Rick
Very interesting - but still doesn't answer my original
question, which
is how the producers got it in her bag with no one seeing and how she
knew to look in her bag 20 minutes before TC to find it. The players
were presumably all at camp with their bags and a producer just casually
walks over and slips it in her bag?
One is that they perhaps have a
a protocol that you have to bring your bag to confessional interviews,
though I'm not sure why that would be. During this process they might
have alerted her that there is something in her bag and they would have
told her to just tell the camera that she found it in her bag

Wouldn’t such a scenario fall under the category of an employee of
SEG providing Rachel with information that will help her to advance
in the game? Wouldn't this type of assistance be considered a
violation of the spirit of the game? It seems to me that the only fair
way that the on-site producer could have dealt with this matter would
have been to plant the parchment in Rachel’s bag, and tell her nothing.
If she happens to notice it when she is organizing her
possessions...
good for her. If she doesn’t....tough luck and sayonara.

I agree. We've seen twists fail numerous times in the past for
various reason so I don't see why this time would have been any
different if Rachel didn't find the scroll.

Post by Zeppo
But the problem is that Rachel is a player who appears to have a
legitimate chance of winning S47, but was dealt a shitty hand
during Probst’s unnecessary rock pull. There would have been
a lot of criticism directed at SEG, and Jeff Probst specifically, if
Rachel had been booted by the five former members of Blue
Tribe. So there needed to be a way to make sure that such a
result did not occur, but did not stink of favouritism. So we got,
“Oh my, I happened to look in my bag, not more than twenty
minutes ago, and, golly, look what I found”.

These twists are planned way in advance. I doubt Probst cares if
someone gets taken out by bad luck. In this case, it all worked
out. By the way, very few people have mentioned the possibility of
the scroll not being found at the feast. That's happened before
and looked like it could have happened again. If the scroll wasn't
found to begin with Rachel would have been gone.
FYI, Rachel asked Christian what the odds are for what happened to
her concerning the draw.
https://x.com/rachelalamont/status/1851782368719180041
Wow, quite rare.
It’s the second least likely outcome. The odds of having all Tuku
together is only 1.5%. It’s only 0.88% likely that a Gata would be
stranded with them.

This reminds me of that famous tribal swap in All Stars when
everyone on the two tribes got randomly swapped to the opposite
tribe except for Amber who remained on her original tribe.  This
led to the famous request by Boston Rob (who was now separated from
Amber) that Lex "take care" of Amber on the other tribe.  (Lex did
this and got repaid for his efforts when Rob got rid of Lex post-
mrege).

And IIRC, Les was super pissed off when he got what he considered to
be backstabbed.
As a side note, when I first read what you wrote I thought it said
"HAS now separated from Amber." I was like "How did I miss that?!"

Post by Rick
I wonder what the odds were in that case that the tribes would be
identical after the switch except for one player?  In that case,
two tribes of four and six randomly switched to two new tribes of
five each, and the tribe of four remained together but added Amber
and the tribe of six stayed together except for Amber.  I'm not
smart enough to be able to figure if that's more or less unlikely
than what we saw this week.

I'd say the odds for that happening would be way less than what
happened to Rachel. I'd like to know how Christian calculated his
odds. In most (all?) stats classes they would assume everyone has
the same odds of drawing either color rock but in Survivor that's
clearly not the case.

I believe I heard on one of Rob's podcasts that Christian didn't
actually calculate anything but simply brute-forced an answer by
running millions of random number trials on a computer and giving us
the results.  But perhaps Rob misunderstood and Christian actually
calculated it.
Also, it seemed that he wasn't calculating the odds of any of the
tribes ending up together but of Tuku specifically, since they were
the only tribe of five.
I didn't try to re-do Christian's calculations but I did use software
to calculate the odds in Amber's case, and it turns out that the odds
of her whole tribe switching except for her are 1 in 42 or 2.38%,
which is slightly better than what Christian quoted for the current
season.

Sounds like Christian might have used a Monte Carlo method to arrive
at his numbers.
Which software did you use?
If you factor in that the odds change after each rock has been
selected and the order in which the players drew the rocks, the odds
of what happened to Rachel would be way lower. Same for Amber.

I used ChatGPT and then checked the answer with Copilot and got the same
results.
I also entered the information for the switch from this week's episode
and both AI products said there was a .76% chance that the tribe of 5
would remain together after the random switch and that one player from
the other tribes would be the sixth player.  If we modify the problem to
ask what the probability would be that the five person tribe stayed
together with Rachel specifically, the odds drop to 0.1%.  Again, both
products gave the same answer.

So extremely low odds which is what I thought. Like most people, I'd
prefer they stop doing random draws like this, especially at this stage
of the game. Save random draws for RCs only.

[Zeppo]

Post by Brian Smith
These twists are planned way in advance. I doubt Probst cares if someone
gets taken out by bad luck. In this case, it all worked out.

I was responding to Rick’s speculation concerning how Rachel became
aware of the advantage ie. an -on-site producer told her it was in her
bag; or just handed it to her and told her to act surprised at TC. I
acknowledge that the advantage was not inserted into the game
specifically to help Rachel, and I believe that Solomon’s choice of
who he wanted to give it to was made freely. So, with all of those
pieces having fallen nicely into place, it seemed unlikely that Probst
and the other executive producers would have taken the risk that
Rachel would be booted without knowing that her salvation was
In her bag. That’s why I think that she likely received a “heads
up” before departing to TC.

Post by Brian Smith
By the way,
very few people have mentioned the possibility of the scroll not being
found at the feast.

Not likely given that one of camera operators surely pointed it out to
Solomon. :-)

Post by Brian Smith
This has me wondering what would have happened if Andy had been in
Rachel's spot and Sierra found the advantage scroll. Do you think she
would have screwed him over and given the scroll to say either Sue or
Caroline?

I speculate that, in such a situation, she would have given it to Andy

[Brian Smith]

Post by Zeppo

Post by Brian Smith
These twists are planned way in advance. I doubt Probst cares if someone
gets taken out by bad luck. In this case, it all worked out.

I was responding to Rick’s speculation concerning how Rachel became
aware of the advantage ie. an -on-site producer told her it was in her
bag; or just handed it to her and told her to act surprised at TC. I
acknowledge that the advantage was not inserted into the game
specifically to help Rachel, and I believe that Solomon’s choice of
who he wanted to give it to was made freely. So, with all of those
pieces having fallen nicely into place, it seemed unlikely that Probst
and the other executive producers would have taken the risk that
Rachel would be booted without knowing that her salvation was
In her bag. That’s why I think that she likely received a “heads
up” before departing to TC.

Post by Brian Smith
By the way,
very few people have mentioned the possibility of the scroll not being
found at the feast.

Not likely given that one of camera operators surely pointed it out to
Solomon. :-)

Post by Brian Smith
This has me wondering what would have happened if Andy had been in
Rachel's spot and Sierra found the advantage scroll. Do you think she
would have screwed him over and given the scroll to say either Sue or
Caroline?

I speculate that, in such a situation, she would have given it to Andy

Really? The edit makes it sound like she thinks Andy is an idiot and
useless. I also think she would like to work with the women as at least
a backup plan to Sam.

[Zeppo]

Post by Brian Smith

Post by Zeppo
I speculate that, in such a situation, she would have given it to Andy

Really? The edit makes it sound like she thinks Andy is an idiot and
useless. I also think she would like to work with the women as at least
a backup plan to Sam.

She doesn’t have a high opinion of Andy, but, if he had ended up going to
TC with the five former Blue Tribe members, I suspect that she wouldhave
chosen to save him in order to keep all four former Yellow Tribe members
in the game, and, at the same time, diminish the strength of the former
Blue Tribe going into F11.

[Brian Smith]

Post by Zeppo

Post by Brian Smith

Post by Zeppo
I speculate that, in such a situation, she would have given it to Andy

Really? The edit makes it sound like she thinks Andy is an idiot and
useless. I also think she would like to work with the women as at least
a backup plan to Sam.

She doesn’t have a high opinion of Andy, but, if he had ended up going to
TC with the five former Blue Tribe members, I suspect that she wouldhave
chosen to save him in order to keep all four former Yellow Tribe members
in the game, and, at the same time, diminish the strength of the former
Blue Tribe going into F11.

Her decision would probably depend on whether or not she got to back to
camp before deciding. If she talked to Sam I think he would convince her
to give it to Andy. If she had to decide at the feast I think she would
screw Andy over. No one would ever know if she kept quiet about it.