A Model for Winning Survivor

A Model for Winning Survivor victoriaritvo.com

53 points•evakhoury•12 days ago•28 comments•

28 comments

> I loved using it while watching Season 50, and it identified several interesting threads early on.

The ideas in TFA are interesting, but it’s important to keep in mind that when we watch Survivor, we’re not watching something that happened in real time and then was simply compiled together. Survivor is edited after the fact, once the winners and all the arcs of contestants are known.

And don’t get me wrong! I love watching the show even knowing that in my mind. But a model built on the edited material is necessarily biased due to the format of the show itself.

jonhohle11 days ago

The first and third most correlated stats are completely out of the player’s control. The confessional stat is reasonable if you’re trying to guess the winner, but as a player, there’s no obvious way to control it.

Interesting to see Russel as the biggest upset. He is probably my favorite and completely changed some aspects of the game (idol hunting without a clue or game information about an idol even being present). He burned everyone, but his strategic game was flawless while his methods were still novel. Once they were known, however, his game collapsed.

duped10 days ago

Russell is famous for playing a different game than survivor, and then getting mad that he wasn't rewarded for it. His game didn't really collapse, because he was never going to win.

twoodfin11 days ago

It’s been a very long time since I watched Survivor, but in the early seasons at least it was obvious that the producers were also manipulating the game as it went along to increase the drama.

Tribe shakeups, double/no immunity, second chances… usually just when a particular alliance seemed set on a strategy that was going to make the next few tribal councils predictable.

tenuousemphasis11 days ago

>Survivor is edited after the fact, once the winners and all the arcs of contestants are known.

That might make it easier for the model to pick up on clues from the editing process. Like winners get more on-screen confessionals or something like that.

IAmGraydon11 days ago

Interesting, but it misses a lot in not factoring social dynamics (which the author admits). IMO the greatest Survivor player of all time was JT Thomas in Season 18. The guy was a down-to-earth cattle rancher from Alabama, and he was so good because his personality did all the work. He had that rare perfect combination of traits that you see in true born leaders, and was so loved by the group that no one ever cast a vote against him, not even once. It’s almost like they subconsciously let him win because they believed he deserved it more than they did.

quickthrowman11 days ago

The model in reality is “Hope the producers like you enough to write you into the show as the winner.” Survivor is hyperreality, not an actual competition.

mariusor11 days ago

Not everything is in the hand of the producers though, and especially not the final vote.

NooneAtAll311 days ago

doesn't mean that can't be predicted by visible side-channels

NitpickLawyer11 days ago

> By the finale, Kalshi’s “Survivor” market had reached a volume of $32.7 million

I don't get this. How are people "betting" on something that is "known information" for other people? What's the point? I get betting on stuff that no one can know, but who's taking "the other side" on these bets? Why would you put money into something knowing that there are people who already have the absolute answer?

echelon11 days ago

That's exactly what "prediction markets" sell themselves as. Super-predictors.

Insiders have an edge and can in theory shape the overall distribution of bets such that the real world outcomes are priced in better.

sd911 days ago

Yes but in this case, tens or hundreds of people know the outcome months in advance. I'm very surprised that the market doesn't immediately converge to 100% for one candidate. The winner is not really a forecastable 'random event' in that by the time the show is airing, it's not being pulled from a distribution.

conmod27811 days ago

"There are three ways to learn. The most noble is by thinking and getting to the truth yourself. The second, which is still pretty good, is by imitating those who do. And the third one is through pain."

In prediction markets, imitation is the best policy

jihadjihad11 days ago

> Why would you put money into something knowing that there are people who already have the absolute answer?

https://youtu.be/Hm3mDatFpNE?is=vKkBJs6XsypuD833

guiand10 days ago

Love this!

I played with doing something similar, where my features were based on Edgic charts I found online[1]. This ends up implicitly factoring in people’s _perceptions_ of the players/editing, which can be useful. Ultimately it was just a bit of a toy still, somewhat better than random.

Like other people mention, Survivor is edited with a lot of intention, I think if you really want to predict winners you need to somehow capture cues from the editors.

I wonder if you could derive per-player 1st and 2nd person sentiment from transcripts of the episodes. Could be interesting to factor that in.

[1]: Example - https://www.reddit.com/r/Edgic/s/2v0nA93odi

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