...and Ronnie promptly exits stage left. Well, sorry to say I saw that coming. Not first boot, but early days for sure.
Obviously there is a strong fan base in the poker community for Survivor – Jason Somerville has staged tourneys with Survivor players and media figures and Daniel Negreanu is an avid fan also. However, there’s a misperception poker play equates to strategic thinking which can then be applied to a broader context. As a general concept I think the idea falls flat -specifically so with Survivor.
Poker has it’s own skill sets- but they are somewhat insular. Survivor demands a broader set of skills and taps into a highly motivated and educated fan base to source their players. Though many express mock ‘surprise’that Survivor is still aired- it has one of the most loyal fan bases in television - the weekly viewing figures (live to air) still regularly hit 10 million which is phenomenal in today’s market. But, as someone recently noted, that means the entire fan base could be classified as ‘Superfans’, as people who know the history and gameplay inside out. From that perspective a poker player brings little to the party.
So it comes down to personality if you are to evade the first few ‘tribals’, a voteout - let alone hit the merge. The way to do this is almost appear a nonentity, but yet willing to work hard around the camp and in challenges. If you bring your ‘character’ to the fore (good or bad) you risk alienating others because all they have to form an opinion on is whether an individual is trying to assert their self.
Ronnie Bardah is a nice guy, particularly in a poker context -he’s affable and gregarious at the table. He certainly knew better than to be too ‘out there’ on Survivor and thought he could keep all things RonnieBardah low key. But the inability to keep that convivial nature tamped down (at least temporarily) raised red flags and led to a naive expressing of opinion -this early its better to have zero opinion on any and everything.
So poor Ron became a classic ‘first boot’- not for any actually offensive or aggressive behavior, but just lacking the discipline to keep his head below the parapet.
It’s precisely thesame reason I could never see Danial Negreanu succeeding on Survivor either (that idea itself has been rumbling for years). I don’t think Daniel could tamp his character down, he’d want to be a the center of everything and would therefore put a target on his own back(even without the idea some would likely know who he was).
And, talking of how I believe poker skills do not translate to reading the game of Survivor….
Daniel Negreanu was so excited before this season he talked Adam Schwarz and TerranceChan into agreeing to do a weekly update on Survivor within their DAT Poker Podcast, due to Bardah’s participation. Negreanu was sure Bardah would progress further than any other poker player had done before being a nice guy etc….
….please note there has been no DAT podcast so far this week.
