The early middle-game goes from the end of the opening (tribe down to six players, or there is a swap, or there is a merge) until after the merge and one tribe has a majority. As in chess, it is the middle-game that is the most difficult. The opening is mostly about creating a strong tribe and a sense of team. This definitely puts restrictions on the strategies a player should pursue and he or she should stick to the book. As the game moves into its final stages, rolls and positions become less flexible and the avenues a player will go down will become more clear, at times almost forced. The key to a good endgame is to never take your eyes off the goal and to pursue it relentlessly, like a machine.

It's the middle that is hard. A player thinks less about the tribe and more about alliances within that tribe. Even further down, it's less about alliances and more about individuals, but exactly where these switchovers occur are very blurred lines indeed with many mitigating variables: tribe type, player position, opponent player types, win-loss record on immunity challenges, has there been a swap? has there been a merge? The list goes on. That being said, there are still axioms and tactics that, though perhaps not absolute, should most certainly be kept in mind. Just as in chess one will rarely go wrong looking to take advantage of pinning your opponent's piece, Survivor as well has its tactics that one should always have ready to pull out of your arsenal.

As mentioned above, one way in which the game moves into this phase is through a player swap. I devoted a seperate article to this so I'm not going to repeat all that stuff here.

Overall Strategies - You Are An N-Tribe Right?

How you play depends a lot upon your position (see Defining Your Position for the definitions of the various player types), so I'm going to start with strategies unique to each of those. But first, if your tribe has yet to achieve N-tribe status (as described in opening strategy), you can ignore all of this because being an N-tribe is of overriding importance. That needs to come first, before you can proceed further. If you are entering the middle-game not an N-tribe, you are likely on a downhill slide that needs to be corrected fast.

N-player Strategy - Playing It Cool

The next stage of the game begins when there are only nine or ten players left and what the N-player needs is at least five votes to control that stage. Some folks might be saying, if there are ten players left, don't you need six to have the majority? Nope, assuming this isn't the situation of the tribes being tied five-five (a seperate situation dealt with at the end of this document), five is enough because players are terrified of ties. If you have five solid votes (including your own), there will always be someone (likely a few someones) that will vote your way rather than force a tie; trust me. Just the fact you are an N-player means you have at least three votes - again, including your own - and likely more. It's time to shore these things up. A third, without another close ally, will almost certainly stay loyal to the dominant duo right up until the end because he has no better option, but after that you need to be carefull to get the right people to play fourth and fifth in your alliance. You need to get people that will vote with you even though it is clearly to their advantage not to later in the game. By this stage, you have been with your tribe-mates for quite some time (at least a week), so what you need are some PP-players to fill this roll.

First get a stable fourth. One possiblitily is to get someone who is partnered with the third creating a foursome of two equal, at least at first glance, pairs. This works fine if both the third and fourth are type PP-players and won't stick together in the end, but this is obviously not ideal as it begs a tie at the final four, or worse, a coup before that. Another possibility is a fourth who's primary loyality is to the dominant pair (or just yourself). Again, a PP-player is needed but games seem to be chocked full of them so hopefully this won't be a problem. It is very likely that an N-player at this stage already has a four player alliance. If this is the case, I wouldn't advise mucking with it. Stability is the key. If you swap players in and out of your alliance, you are bound to piss off more people than you need to.

The fifth need not have the same long-term stablity as the fourth because once the game is down to eight, you won't need that player anymore. You need to find a PP-player who doesn't think too far ahead in the game. Thankfully, Survivor is full of these. The best is to find an issolated T-player with no other allies and to approach them regarding joining the dominant alliance. Be careful in how this alliance is proposed. The wrong way to go is to have an obvious foursome talk to the potential fifth together because that makes this person's low standing in the alliance abundantly clear. Rubbing a playe'rs low social standing in their face is always a bad idea. Many players will delude themselves that they can make it up the social ladder so don't shatter their fantasy until it's too late. A better plan is to have only one or two players from your alliance talk to the potential fifth, giving the illusion he or she may actually be sitting second or third. The N-players could do this, but if their relationship with the third and fourth is very clear to everyone in the tribe this is little better than having all four do it. The third and fourth are in an ideal position to bring in a fifth because if they play the game right, they will be needing the fifth late in the game to dispose of the dominant duo. If the N-players can trust the D-players in their alliance, then they make the ideal ones to bring in a fifth. It is the N-player's ability to pull together a loyal five player alliance that will eventually decide whether they will succeed or fail in this game.

With the five chosen, the N-players need to now play it cool. As Brian Heidik said, "be the Ice Man." Continue to concentrate on the team and do everything you can to make the T-players feel part of the game. Going into the merge with the majority is an almost essential component to success and that isn't going to happen if part of your tribe is demoralized and ready to pack it in. The pervailing attitude the N-player should try to establish is that it is the other tribe that is the enemy so that the players lower down on the social totem in your own tribe will be less likely to decide to try and make a move until it is too late. Should you go to tribal council, your boot choices should be the ones that will cause the least ripples in the tribe while maintaining strength.

This doesn't mean you can't remove a social strong or aggressive player (ie. one that possess a threat to you). It is possible that you can remove a strategically strong player early without overtly disrupting the tribe, but a more likely opportunity for this to occur is as the merge looms. This is especially true if your tribe is significantly in the lead with regard to winning challenges and you feel you can sacrifice a little harmony in order to remove a potential threat. It's a balancing act. If the other tribe has been reduced to four players (thus guaranteeing your majority in a normal merge) you may even want to throw a challenge to accomplish do this. In fact, as will be discussed in late middle-game strategies, the best scenerio for the N-player is a merge with a slim majority (6-4). Anything more than that increases the chances of a coup so there is no problem with N-players removing a little deadwood if they sense the merge coming, just don't go nuts and begin booting every tribemate with a good smile and well developed biceps. Access who the one or two key threats are and deal with them.

D-player Strategy - Bide Your Time

The D-player is riding either third or fourth in the dominant alliance and many a player in this position has been more than happy just making it to the final four. Don't be! The reasons as to why will be talked about far more in the article on endgame strategy, but for now these players need to realize that they are going to have to make a move on the dominant duo but their best opportunity will likely come much later in the game.

Ideally, these two players should ally. D-player's need to be very sure of each other and should begin feeling each other out early in this stage of the game. In order to play this roll effectively, these players both need to be AP types but at the same time need to hide their plans from their allies, a tough job. It is very possible that one of the D-players isn't willing to turn on their leaders after living as much as a month with them. Many players can't do this for purely sentimental reasons. If either of the D-players feels they can't rely on the other when the time comes, then they had best look to the T-players for support, making a secret final two promise perhaps with the alliance's new fifth. Either way, subtlety and secrecy are important and both are in pretty short supply when it comes to Survivor.

It is very possible that an aggresive D-player may find themselves unable to secure trustworth allies. A situation they should certainly avoid is one where they simply swing the balance of power to become the D-player of just another alliance. That is no good. If they are to turn on the N-players, it must be to become N-players themselves. Anything less will not do. They also can't press too hard at this stage as it could easily cause the dominant alliance to collapse and perhaps the tribe with it. If relationships with the other D-player or T-players are not baring fruit, then the D-player is best waiting to see what opportunities may present themselves come a merge or swap.

So basically, as far as voting is concerned, the D-player is doing little more than going along with his or her alliance, but there are always exceptions. Perhaps if the N-player's lead is completely ineffectual or they target a D-player's second, or perhaps the D-player themselves in some fit of hyperparanioa, I can see having to take measures into your own hands, but this would have to be early in the game, probably during the opening, as the N-player would certainly have the allegiance of a second and third (or else they wouldn't be an N-player) which means you would need the support of at least three other players to avoid a tie. A swap could present another opportunity, but the D-player needs to beware of playing too aggressively and make sure the reasons for the coup are sound. Even without the support of the other D-player, they are usually better off waiting until well after the merge to try and turn the tables.

T-player Strategy - The Uphill Struggle Begins

In the first nine seasons, the only player to be in this catagory at the beginning of the early middle-game and to go on and win was Tina Wesson, and she did it by becoming an N-player through a coup on the very first tribal council of this stage. That's a pretty dismal record and it's easy to see why. Let's say the early middle-game ends when there are nine players left and the mix between the two tribes are 5-4 (a very common scenerio). The N-players have a solid pair of D-players (also very common), that leaves only one isolated T-player! What's he or she going to do? Join the other tribe and play the fifth for them? No way! Perhaps he can join the other tribe to boot one of the other N-players and then flip back, but that is a dangerous game and unlikely to succeed. It's worth a shot (I would do it over waiting for your number to come up), but in all likelihood that T-player is screwed. Things do get better for the T-player if their tribe's majority is bigger after the merge, or if they feel that the N-player's alliance is a weak one and they can get support of the fourth but I will save all that for when we get to Late Middle-game strategy.

For now, what is the T-player to do. Number one, do everything you can to win challenges. First off, every time your tribe wins a challenge it is one more time you aren't getting voted off (as a T-player those crosshairs are never too far away). Secondly, winning challenges increases the number of your own tribe to make the merge and the more of your own people that make the merge, the more material you will have to work with in attempting a coup. To help your tribe win challenges, it means you still have to put your all into the tribe. This can be difficult because you are likely feeling your tribe is hardly putting its all into you, but you have to get past that.

But what if your tribe does lose an immunity challenge, how should you play? Here are the questions to ask yourself? One, how many of our tribe is likely to make the merge? To answer this question, imagine the two tribes split the remain immunity challenges until there were ten players left. If there is an odd number of challenges, give the extra win the tribe currently in the lead. If the number is seven or more, you should definitely wait until after the merge to make any move. If the number is four or less, you should make your move now if you can though in all likelihood, in this scenerio you are likely the one going. If the number is five or six, you are in a grey zone.

Question two, is it you or your second going? If the answer to this question is yes, then there are no holds bared and try for the coup. Question three, is the leader of your tribe so ineffectual that he is running your tribe into the ground? Be honest, just because you aren't the leader or allied with him or her doesn't automatically make them incompetent. If the answer to this question is yes, then you should be trying to get rid of them.

If you are going to make a move, make sure you shoot for the head of the alliance. If you are going to do this, you must dispose of the leader and be ready to assume the mantle of leadership yourself. Anything less, and you might as well continue to ride in their shadows. Taking out one of the D-players only wounds that alliance but likely won't kill it and a wounded animal is exceedingly dangerous.

Here's the kicker, though. Knowing it is in your best interest to dispose of a leader now and actually doing it are two entirely different things. The leader is almost surely the leader because he or she has the support of the tribe, meaning your ability to drum up enough votes to get rid of him or her is severely hampered to say the least. No, the best hope for the T-player in this phase is to hope there is a swap while your tribe is in the majority. This shuffling of the deck has a real chance of changing your hand and from where you are standing, that hand will likely be better than the one you were originally dealt.

Athletic Players - The Big Lie

You might be wondering why I've gotten so deep into this document without talking about getting rid of those threatening athletic players before the merge occurs and immunity becomes individual. The reason is because I think this strategy is way overused with many players taking themselves, and their tribes, right out of the game. This over zealous pursuit of athletic and charismatic players hurts the tribe, not only by removing strong competitors but through demoralizing the rest of the tribe. Once the other tribe is down to four members, N-players are free to pursue this avenue to their heart's content, even throwing challenges to do it, but not before. Even with that, I wouldn't put that much weight on athleticism, but rather on charasima and intelligence as these are the traits that mark the true "threat", not simply what they can bench press.

Here's something to stew on in regards to those mega beefcake players they like to put in these shows. If they are so readily perceived as a threat, the chances of them drawing support after the merge is actually less, making them less of a threat. If I were an N-player with the other tribe down to four and choosing between two T-players to boot from my own tribe, one being a muscle bound male who kicks ass in the challenges and the other a 95 lbs female with charasma and brains, I would boot the woman every time. Besides, the immunity challenges are far more about competitiveness, endurance and smarts than about brute strength. Many a Gold's Gym dumbbell has been perfectly useless at the challenges despite his or her perfect abs. And don't even think about pulling this kind of stunt until the other tribe is down to four. As mentioned above, N-players should boot the player that createS the least ripples in the tribe. If that happens to be a charasmatic threat, great, it has been done many times before, but don't make removing threats your overall priority as it will likely kill your tribe.

The Merge With Tribes Are Tied - Don't Be The One To Blink

Once the merge hits we exit the early middle-game unless the two tribes are tied in numbers. If that is the case, the issue of which tribe is to achieve dominance must be settled first before players can even begin to think as to their next steps.

With the current tie breaking rule (see article on Ties) this is basically a big game of chicken. Winning in chicken is not rocket science, in fact the best chicken players are dumb as bricks. It's all about convincing the other tribe that you will not be the one that flinches. Don't believe a single promise that comes your way from the other side to break the tie. All promises will almost certainly be forgetten once the other tribe is safely in the majority. Instead be the one that intimidates the other tribe and lets them know that everyone on your tribe is not afraid to roll the dice. Talk to the members of your tribe and do your best to convince them this is the best course. If you stick to your guns, there is a good chance someone from the other side will cave rather than to go to the purple rock. If not, go to the rock and let the chips fall where they may. The alternative is giving the other tribe the majority which only means a slightly longer, though much more certain, death.

When deciding whom on the other tribe to target there are a couple of things to consider. One is leadership. If you can take down their leader (one of the N-players) there is more of a chance the rest of the tribe will fold up their tents. Two is the likelihood they'll change their vote in a revote. If there is someone that you feel would be very squimish about going to the purple rock, make sure you do not vote for him. After the first vote, the players involved in the tie do not participate in the revote and it would certainly be a shame if a player who might have changed their vote to avoid the rock was denied the opportunity.

Some examples.

The Good:

The Maraamu tribe from Survivor-Marquesas: This tribe was in an ugly state after their first two boots and nowhere near an N-tribe. The dominant alliance was made up of two equal, and equally aggressive, pairs: Rob/Sarah and Sean/Vecepia. They just completed a coup over the previous leader, Hunter, by removing his third, Patricia, while leaving Hunter (an athletic player) and his second (Gina) alone. Remember the adage first mentioned in Swaps: When taking down an enemy, shoot for the head. With Hunter still in the game, the tribe was still bitter and divided. The reasons for keeping the athletic Hunter were clear, but when they lost their third immunity challenge in a row, it was clear that what he gives in the challenges and around camp is more than offset by the lack of a defined leader. Rob, Sarah, Sean and Vecepia made the right decision and cut him loose. After that there was a player swap, and with Maraamu being down eight to five in the number of players, it was pretty clear that they were likely to end up in the minority on both sides of the island. Gina and Sarah ended up together with three members of the other tribe and when they lost their first challenge, their was no hesitation what-so-ever in getting rid of the next to useless Sarah.

What was interesting is that the tribe's three most aggressive players (Rob, Sean and Vecepia) moved over to live with five Rotus. Three of those players basically formed the dominant alliance, John, Tammy and Gabriel, though that alliance was yet to be put to the test of actually going to a tribal council. Instead of sucking up to the dominant players (a mistake every other minority tribe has done in the past) the three Maraamus began stirring the pot, trying to create dissention. John, Rotu's leader, at first welcomed the newcomers but when it became clear to him that they weren't playing ball with him he became more aggressive, especially to the aggravating Rob. John naturally wanted to shore up things in his alliance, bringing in a fourth in Robert but suddenly Gabriel, uncomfortable with the level of tension around the camp, began telling John that he was not going to play the alliance game and would vote more as his conscience guided him.

Now feeling he can no longer depend on Gabriel, he replaced him in his alliance with another Rotu, Zoe, giving him a solid four - John, Tammy, Robert & Zoe - but he didn't stop there. He was so worried, and paranoid, regarding Gabriel he wanted him gone and elicited the help of the Maraamus thinking Rob would be tickled pink just to live another three days. He should have known better. Rob immediately did the right thing and approached Gabriel with the plan of the four of them voting John, forcing a tie and going to the tie breaker (votes against no longer counted). This is exactly how the tribe in a minority situation should play. It's the old saying, "the best defence is a good offence." Putting pressure on your opponent increases the liklihood of them making a mistake and a mistake by those ahead is the only way for those behind to catch up. If Rob and company just played like good little tribemates, there is little doubt that they simply would have been voted out one by one.

This particular situation didn't quite go as planned because Gabriel refused to force the tie and bowed out by throwing away his vote on Rob. At least it's a Rotu going instead of a Maraamu, but it paid off even better than that because when the three Rotus who went to the other side of the island saw the popular Gabriel gone they were shocked. They realized the game was more ruthless than they first preceived and when John's aggressive posturing continued after the merge, they teamed up with the remaining Maraamus and exercised a coup. Unfortunately for Rob, he was voted out before that happened, along with Gina, but it is important to realize that without this constant pressure being put on John and his alliance, they would not have taken such an aggressive stance and would have likely pagonged themselves to victory.

The Bad:

The Sook Jai tribe from Survivor-Thailand: This tribe was dominanted by the foursome of Penny, Jake, Ken and Erin, backed up by Shii Ann. This alliance was called the "Fortress Five" by fans because they built a shelter that only housed the five of them. Could they make it any more clear to the T-players that they were on the bottom of the totem? In the opening they removed athletic T-players (actually, most of the T-players were the athletic ones) Jed - actually throwing only the third immunity challenge of the game to do this - and Stephanie. Once into the early middle-game, their play did not improve. Other than Shii Ann, the other T-player was a young, strong man named Robb who spent his entire time sucking up to the dominant group. Shii Ann is what I would called a Brutus player, waiting in the wings looking for the best place to put the knife. Shii Ann was also, easily, the physically weakest player in the tribe. Right from the beginning she was unpopular with the T-players, but instead of booting her they got rid of the strong but not so bright Robb, despite losing three of the past four challenges. Not surprisingly they lost their next challenge as well and finally were forced to get rid of Shii Ann, the player that should have been their very first boot. Physically, this tribe was head and shoulders above their competition in Chuay Gahn, but now they were down five players to four despite winning three of the first four immunity challenges - their one loss being the one they threw.

The tribes still weren't allowed to merge and, again no surprise here, Sook Jai lost another challenge, their fourth in a row. The truly indicative thing about this alliance is that with each of the first four players they voted out, they did not shed a single tear and returned to camp feeling pretty pleased with themselves. When they finally had to boot someone they preceived as one of their own, the tears flowed o' plenty. If they felt half as bad as this about voting out any of the previous four, they likely wouldn't have found themselves in this situation at all. The sense of building a team to compete against the other tribe was completely lost here. This final vote of the early middle-game was an interesting one, though. Penny and Jake were a pair and were deciding whether to vote out Erin or Ken. They chose to keep Ken because they were worried the tribes still weren't going to merge and that they would need his strength - too bad they weren't thinking that way with their first three boots. Erin and Ken, meanwhile and hardly atypically, voted for each other showing they didn't know how to play this situation either, but I'll leave that discussion for when we are dealing with endgames.

The Ugly:

The Mogo Mogo tribe from Survivor-All Star: Mogo Mogo actually came out of the opening in pretty solid shape. They performed well in challenges with the only player they lost being one that quit before there was even a challenge. At the beginning of the early middle-game, the tribe consisted of Colby, Kathy, Lex, Richard and Shii Ann. As mentioned, they had yet to go to tribal council so actual alliances and promises had yet to be challenged. By the best I could figure it seemed to be Colby, Lex and Richard playing leaders with Richard depending upon Colby and Colby depending upon Lex. Kathy and Shii Ann most certainly had a relationship but Kathy's support seemed more to be drifting Lex's way. It doesn't really matter because this all began to fall apart when the game moved into the next phase when the Saboga tribe was dissolved. The players actually got to pick the players that would come their way and Mogo Mogo brought over Ethan with the expressed purpose of booting him out. Their second pick was Jerri.

But something changed after they lost the very next immunity challenge and Mogo Mogo shifted into removing threats. The first victim was Richard. No one seemed to notice that this brought the original Mogo Mogo down to only four members, the same as Saboga which doesn't even exist anymore. Besides that, Richard was a leader and a solid contributor around camp and in the challenges. Like so many tribes in the past, once the internal battles begin so do the challenge losses and they went on to lose the next three immunity challenges in a row. Not content with Richard gone, the tribe felt Colby should go next. We don't need to win challenges do we? Next went Ethan, their only voting which made any sense as next ep would be the traditional merge. The thing was, there was no merge just yet. Instead there was a swap and through some miracle of probability a random selection of buffs had the tribes staying exactly the same except for Amber (one of the N-players from Chapera) coming to Mogo Mogo. What a gift! But not content to do the obvious Lex, Kathy and company made the absolutely mind boggling move of voting out Jerri. Jerri was unlikely to play the loyal fourth forever, but thinking Rob will stick with a quick statement that he'll take care of Lex if he takes care of Amber is certainly less likely. But hey, Lex and Kathy got to play the ever popular hypocriful moralist on the jury so they kind of got what they wanted too.