Local "Survivor" Winner Analyzes Game's Early Days

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FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - It is certainly not easy to win the game of "Survivor," as Jennifer Lanzetti found out on Wednesday night, and more than 400 people had learned before she even set foot on the bug-infested beaches of Kaoh Rong in Cambodia. After battling a worm that had crawled into her ear during last week's 32nd season premiere, Lanzetti became the second person voted out of both the game and the 'Brawn' tribe.

However, someone who actually is good at winning the game is DFW's own Mike Holloway, who was crowned the champion of "Survivor: Worlds Apart." He sat down with CBS 11 News on Thursday to talk about the early stages of the competition, and what so many castaways do wrong -- eliminate physical threats too quickly.

"This week, they made the right move," Holloway said, agreeing that Lanzetti was the person who should have been voted out of the 'Brawn' tribe over bounty hunter Kyle Jason and Dallas native Alecia Holden. "Last week is where they made the wrong move. Why did they go back to Tribal Council the second time? Because they didn't have enough brawn."

The team, which also consists of former NBA player Scot Pollard and body builder Cydney Gillon, decided to eliminate postal worker Darnell Hamilton after losing the season's first challenge. It was a questionable move -- considering how un-brawny Holden proved to be -- that may have landed them back at Tribal Council this week.

"That's what happens when you cut your strong people at the beginning of the game," said Holloway.

So, if strength is key during the pre-merge part of the game, why did the 'Brawn' tribe send Lanzetti packing this week, leaving Holden around again? Holloway explained, "Whenever you are starting to get down in the numbers, it starts turning from the physical aspect to who you can trust... and Jenny showed herself untrustworthy."

"It's really a balance of who do I trust versus who's going to help us in challenges," Holloway continued.

Lanzetti had attempted to form a 'girl power' alliance with Holden and Gillon, scheming to take Jason out. But she slipped up at Tribal Council, revealing her strategy despite the fact that it was not going to play out. The mistake made Lanzetti's alliance members nervous, and they cut her loose.

"She strategized (if you can even call it that) her way out of the game," said Holloway.

Up until that point in the game, Lanzetti seemed to be in a good position. She had a strong alliance of four people and an easy vote in eliminating Holden. "The really crazy thing about the game of 'Survivor' is, you can have a million 'atta boys' and one 'aw crap' takes all those 'atta boys' completely away," Holloway said. "You're only as good as your last action."

And, as Holloway continued, "The last action that we saw at Tribal Council was this lady perching herself up on the stool that you sit on, high above everyone else, talking down to the tribe. Just from a psychology basis, I don't want anybody talking down at me in the game, whether that be from an elevated platform or a 'high and mighty' standpoint. I would have voted her out too."

Holloway elaborated, "I think it made the other people feel 'less,' like they're being talked down to."

But standing up on a stool was not Lanzetti's downfall. Her problems started almost immediately at Tribal Council, with her words. "The thing with Jenny is that she dug a very early hole at Tribal," Holloway said. "She just grabbed the nearest shovel and started digging deeper."

However, despite the potential pitfalls that await at Tribal Council, Holloway said that the date with show host Jeff Probst is not always the worst game move. "I was super happy the first time that we went to Tribal in my season, because my focus was [hairdresser Lindsay Cascaddan], and she was the one that was causing a ton of controversy in the camp," Holloway said. "If you're going to Tribal Council and you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you are not going home, sometimes you can trim the fat and it's really good for your tribe."

The trick is knowing how to appropriately respond to Probst's line of questioning, something that Lanzetti clearly could not do well. "Jeff does such an amazing job at finding out what's going on," Holloway stated. "The guy should have a master's in psychology."

Holloway offered some tips for the proper way to speak during the game -- even if he did not always follow his own advice throughout his season. "Don't talk to people like you're their boss," he said. "Whenever you start attacking people's character and how they're performing around camp, it's never a good thing."

Perhaps that is why Holloway sees someone from the 'Beauty' tribe winning this season. "The 'Beauty' tribe is probably the most cohesive unit. We always see them together. We always see them having a good time," he said. "I see the 'Beauty' tribe going really far in this game."

And the "Survivor" winner knows that it's easier to sit on the sidelines than it is to actually play. "It's such a tough game to try and tell anybody how to play, because each game is completely different. The players are different, which immediately affects how the game is played."

That all being said, Holloway explained, "You go into this game with a set of rules, and there's a lot of play within that set of rules. They're more like rubber rules than hardcore lines in the sand. So, there's a lot of maneuvering and crossroads."

But what happens if that maneuvering lands you on the chopping block? Holloway explained, "I've asked multiple players that have played this game once and twice -- once you're the target, how do you get that target off of you? And really, it's waiting for somebody else to make a bigger mistake than what you made, or shifting the focus -- which is very, very, very hard to do."

And that is precisely how Holden, a so-called "mental giant" (her words) and challenge liability, who appears to be the only 'Brawn' member without any actual brawn, managed to stick around on Wednesday night. She was there just long enough for somebody else, Lanzetti in this case, to make a bigger blunder.

Perhaps the most important conversation of the pre-merge was a late exchange between just those two players -- Holden and Lanzetti. While proposing the female alliance, the doomed contractor asked the North Texas girl, "What's the best thing that you can do in this game?"

Holden offered two answers: "be honest" and "win a challenge."

Lanzetti deemed both of them incorrect, instead suggesting that bigger moves to eliminate power players was the way to go.

"I liked Alecia's answers, because it's how I won the game. I was honest and I won challenges. But it depends on what kind of game you're playing. That's a loaded question," Holloway said. Then, after a long pause, he added. "To me, it's loyalty, being who you are and doing what you said you were going to do."

"The most important quality in the game is being loyal, because if I give you my word, I'm going to be loyal to that," added Holloway. "And if you're loyal to that, I'm going to do my best to take you to the end, because there's nothing stronger in the game of 'Survivor' than numbers. And if you have somebody's number, you have their heart. You have their mind. You're going to go a long, long, long way in the game."

Do the seemingly cohesive 'Beauty' players have the loyalty to go a long way? Can the outcast Holden continue hanging on while others make bigger mistakes? Or will the 'Brains' tribe -- not even discussed in this article -- pull together and outwit them both? "It's shaping up to be a good season," Holloway said.

Make sure to catch every episode of "Survivor: Kaoh Rong" on CBS 11 at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday nights. Also, since winning the $1 million prize, Mike Holloway has founded an online T-shirt company called Sweet T's Design Shop. Click here to check out his work.