Response to David's post

Fantastic post! Thank you for all your insight and explanations, they were very illuminating. You obviously know how the Mole game works and your observations were very astute.


There is so much I want to comment on this post, I’m afraid I’m going to forget to mention it all. First, I think it’s a little bit unfair that you were in contact with Ryan F during the whole game. He was the biggest mole suspect during the entire game for the players, and for you to rule him out due to talking with him gives you a gigantic advantage. Second, you knew how I played in omc3, which gave you and advantage along with Ryan F because I believe my gameplay was markedly different the second time around. I was very much afraid of this so I tried to explain that by creating “a new approach to the game” but it didn’t really pan out as I hoped.


Third, Travis remarked during the game that my conversations on AIM were a huge part of how I played the Mole. I really missed the live challenges because I think personal chats are a huge part of this social game. Thankfully, many challenges required multiple people on AIM at the same time which brought that aspect to the game. I think in the way I communicated with people I either led them to trust me or believe I was genuinely interested in playing the game. I tried to get on AIM as much as possible and form friendships built on trust with as many of the players as I could. I tried to avoid cliché Mole clues like pausing before I typed (preferring to just type random pseudo-theories instead). I feel that had we talked on AIM you may have been less suspicious of me (or maybe even moreso).


Fourthly, the nomination system helped me tremendously. I guess I positioned myself well within the social game because there was not a single episode that went by that I did not get the EXACT nominations I wanted. In fact, I would often get exactly what I wanted with the exemption nomination and the group nomination, that I had no idea what to do with my own nomination! Lots of times I had to use it somewhat randomly to try and throw people off my trail. Every nomination set was nearly exactly what I wanted, which is why I nominated myself twice. I was able to keep clueless suspects in the game and eliminate those people who were furthest from me.


Without mole points/nominations, Alan would have had the highest score on the first Quiz. Ryan F. would have been eliminated at that Quiz. Andy would have been gone really early, as well as Brian. Ryan L. would haven't stuck around either.


If you notice, every elimination is basically a linear path of who I was most distanced from to who I was closest with. If I was close with them, I could manipulate them which is what I wanted. I was never an option to be nominated by the group or by the exemption winner (although at some points I did wish I had been). Although most people did not tell me who they thought was the Mole in private confessionals, I was able to see where their suspicions lie through analysis of their quizzes. By seeing which answers they put down, I could tell who they were leaning towards. Using this information and the fact that the extra Mole points weighted things severely, I was usually able to predict who would be eliminated in each possible scenario of nomination sets. This would help me a great deal.


Fifthly, I created a very extensive “player Identity” for Sam which was extremely helpful. As a player, I had my mole suspects, my mole theories, my likes/dislikes, etc. I even went as far to change my mood differently when talking with people depending on my current mole suspicions. For example, at the Final Four after Andy was eliminated, I began to distance myself from Ryan F. because my player Identity was beginning to suspect him as the Mole. This player Identity was used in nearly every conversation I had. I would come up with somewhat obscure strategies as a player to get information or to manipulate things the way I wanted and adopt that tone in my conversations.


I wish I had them all documented, because I used many “player strategies” to act as a player and get the “information” my player Identity wanted from the game. One obvious example is that I tried to act as the fake Mole in Episode 8 (which players normally try and act as to throw off suspicion at the very end), as the fake Mole with the Deal or No Deal sabotage.


Finally, I want to point out that I was given VERY little information by Travis throughout the game. The only privileged information I received from him was challenge descriptions a day before the challenge was posted in a few of the chapters, and answers to the Google Earth challenge and the College challenge. That’s it. None of the code clues during the game, no other answers on any challenges, or tips, or tricks, or any future information about the game. However, by looking at players e-mails I was able to read their private confessionals (well, the ones that didn’t delete them right after sending), their quizzes, and their correspondence with other players. So I did have a lot of information from that.


There was a lot of other comments I wanted to make as I read through your post so let me go through them. I just want to say, for not playing the game 95% of your observations were accurate. Also I was able to explain away many of my sabotages and “mistakes” to the players via AIM, something I was not able to do to you.


“Alan is very experienced and capable though.”

I did not know that Alan nor Devon were experienced, nor that they had played in any mole games previously. I am actually quite surprised by that considering how poorly they played in omc4.


(Episode 1) “It looks as though he just wanted the exemption, but did he really?”

I literally did not know how to make my blog any prettier lol. I spent so much time as is getting that up I couldn’t do any better. Also, I played that damn toaster game for 10 minutes before I got stuck on a boss I could not beat. That was my highest score, and I didn’t know the other people’s scores so I was very surprised to see mine at the bottom. No one would help me against that boss in the game and I was stalled by Andy’s fake template post which caused me to waste an hour redoing my blog.


(pre ep2 quiz) “If he goes, which seems more likely considering his history and Alan / Ryan M's (both of which are seriously experienced Molers, and Alan's just won a hard game)”

Really? Alan was online on AIM all the time, but he never formed a relationship with anybody and didn’t talk to anyone. You can’t win the mole without talking to people. Likewise, Ryan M had disappeared off AIM and no one had heard from him. Both were at the very bottom of the pack of the game and both were way off the Mole (well, considering that was me maybe that’s not evidence to my favour haha)


“Brian remains a strong suspect simply because he HASN'T done anything too noteworthy.”

Exactly. This made him a strong suspect for me to point out up until around Episode 4. Then the fact that he never did ANYTHING to sabotage ever made him definitely not the mole.


“Sam, according to one of his compatriots, has been quiet.”

In omc3 I was anything but quiet. =) This may have been a clue.

“I thought he was the most likely person to be the Mole, after me, in the first two rounds of OMC3, which might be swaying my judgement. (I thought Lloyd was easily the least likely person, simply because of his good performance challenge-wise, but that didn't stop him incurring a lot of suspicion.)”


Thank you! Also, I put Lloyd down 75% on the quiz I lost. Thanks for rubbing it in. =)



“The 5x5 puzzle challenge last episode for example - if I were the Mole, I'd wait to make sure that at least one other person posted the wrong puzzle, and then post the right one myself, taking a bit of suspicion from me. That's exactly what Sam has done.”


I did not realize this at the time, but that is exactly what I did and I think it is suspicious. However, I honestly did not know that players who would post the real puzzle would get +4 mole points. I thought that was hilarious.


(before Ep. 5 quiz) “1) Ryan L and Brian were the biggest scorers. What an amazing surprise! Since they're the only two that seem to be bothering to win any money at all,”


Ryan L??? lol he was the absolute worst scorer. He did not even try in the majority of the challenges and was very little help to anyone. He posted the red pawn / fake clues and took every opportunity to take money from the pot. Brian was the only one who I feel tried to win the money at every turn. I agree it was very weird how nobody ever wanted to win the money or the challenges. I felt my gung-ho attitude towards winning made me stand out, something I didn’t expect, so in the future I stopped pretending to care about winning (something that wasn’t very difficult to do at all).


“What's the fun of being the mole if nobody is trying to win any money? It wouldn't surprise me if the mole deliberately kept Brian (star player by about fifty miles) around, just to have a bit of competition.”

I agree. I wanted Brian around very much at the beginning because he was both suspicious and put 100% Andy on his quiz, plus he was loyal to me and usually did what I wanted him to do at challenges and with nominations. However, he started to become less suspicious… then started putting me down as the Mole… and I couldn’t get rid of him lol. I was afraid he would put me down 100% on the Final Five quiz and get validation that he still survived, so I feared nominating him, preferring him to stay safe and not get his suspicions double checked. It worked!


“And I hope Sam's grateful for the way I didn't point out that his Mole Point entry made it crystal clear that he was the only one not interested in Mole Points, despite going up against only two players in what is traditionally the hardest elimination of any online mole game.”


I disagree with regards to Mole Points wholeheartedly. First, Andy didn’t even bother with any mole clues (which led to his elimination) and that wasn't a gigantic factor in him being suspected as far as I know, despite it being 5 times as more revealing as not trying hard on 2 challenges. On the contrary, I was usually at the top of the code list and tried very hard to crack each and every one. I spent so much time talking with players, either trading code clues or working together to solve them. This was a big factor in my gameplay. I think I spent more time on this than others. In addition, I spent an incredible amount of time on every one of the Mole point challenges except for two. The first would be impossible to win because Alan and Ryan M had such excellent blogs and I didn’t know how to copy that. The penultimate challenge I did not have time to make up a crazy theory and I wanted it to look like I was doing bad on purpose to fake being the Mole.


Every other challenge I spent a tremendous amount of time on and did very very well on. I think I scored better than Ryan M., despite him getting all the flack for performing so well. I was usually the only one to take the mole point challenges really seriously and did well on them, perhaps too well even. Far from being “the only one not interested” I felt I was way too over-interested.


I figured out all the clues by myself or with the help of others without Travis' help. Well... at the final four near the very end the clues started to get VERY difficult and I just couldn't solve them. So to keep up appearances I just copied the answers from Brian's email to get full points at the end lol. But EVERYTIME before that I figured them out, often at great expense of time.


(ep. 8) “The two Ryans are in the final together. I wonder if Sam can do a Me on either of them and convince one of them that he's not the Mole? I doubt he'll succeed with Ryan F”

There was an infintesmal possibilty with Ryan F, but a possibility none the less. He hadn’t taken an actual quiz the whole game without tons of bonus points or against inactives. He did think Ryan L may have been the mole (but that could have just been acting). Ryan L’s performances on all the challenges were terrible which made him a top suspect. Ryan F had a history of putting the wrong person on the Quiz down at the Final Three before. Besides I had convinced Ryan L and Brian off of me despite incredible odds, so maybe I could do it with him too. =) It was worth a shot, and I gave it my best (severely pissing Ryan F off in the process I think) and did everything I could to shake him without appearing too obvious, but it didn’t work.


(end thoughts) “I knew how certain players from OMC3 played the game, and what Travis thought of them. This is why I never considered Ryan F a suspect, and also why I thought Sam was a good possibility from the start.”

I agree… and Ryan F had that advantage as well. I mean after all, if Travis had to pick would he pick Sam who praised him 24/7 or Ryan L who insulted, cheated, and ignored his challenges most of the time? I guess in retrospect it’s pretty obvious.


“CLUE 1: SAM'S LOW SCORE IN THE FIRST "EXEMPTION" CHALLENGE.”

I explained this already. =) Everyone knew I couldn’t beat that one boss (I posted it publicly) and made a point to whine that I didn’t get any help from anyone.


“Alan had just won a difficult Mole game against some very tough competition. Most of the players in OMC4 probably knew this.”

I had no idea. It certainly wasn’t my impression that Alan was a threat. If anything he was completely harmless.

“Given that, if there is anybody in OMC4 that the players would not want to get an exemption, it would probably be Alan,”

True, but because we wanted him gone for not being a part of the group.


“For me, this meant that Sam was either pretending the Mole (which was not his game style in OMC3) or that he was the Mole.”

WHAT?!?! That’s insanity lol. That was my ENTIRE gameplan in omc3. All I did was (poorly) try and make people think I was the Mole. At the time I heard that people were shocked I was eliminated either because they thought I was the Mole or because they thought I was smarter than that. However before OMC4 I asked Travis whether he thought anybody suspected me in omc3 (because I thought I had been working so hard to be perceived as the Mole). He said that not a single person suspected me as the Mole and that if that was my intention, I had been doing a terrible job. This made me sad and excited me at the same time. The good part was that I could continue this same attitude and NOT be suspected (since it “worked so well” for me the first time.)


However, I felt I could not be as publicly outspoken as I was in omc3. In omc3 I was very much in the public eye, the center of attention, and constantly calling people “moles” and “hey mole!” As the Mole, I felt I could not do this because sometimes people instantly latch onto one suspect and continuously put them down on the quiz, regardless of future events. I knew this from Padraig and David. People are very attached to their mole suspects and tend to warp or bend new evidence that is presented to fit their pet theories. So as the Mole I had to stay low for the first two rounds. I still got some sabotage in but not much. If you notice, the pot win/loss totals in Episode 1 and 2/3 were about even, sometimes even winning more money than we lost! It’s insane if you consider the next 5 Episodes were we lost like 80% of the money. My goal was to get the pot to about 40% of the possible size, and I succeeded beyond my greatest hopes getting it to 34.74% If you do the math, you’ll notice that doesn’t add up. That’s because I did not add in the .45 cents “won” by Ryan L. at the World Cup prediction bonus challenge.


First, that challenge was added in as an extra, non-planned challenge just because the people were doing so bad. Second, Ryan M put .45 cents on one and Ryan L put .45 cents on the other. Travis managed to twist things around (completely unfairly in my opinion) that because Ryan M was eliminated three days after he posted his bet, that somehow nullified his bet and caused the team to conveniently win because Ryan M had bet on the wrong team?? Rubbish!


“CLUE 2: SAM'S BLOG.”

Explained.


“CLUE 3: MOLE IDOL GAME.
CLUE 4: COLLAGE GAME.
CLUE 5: COLOUR ME PUZZLED.
CLUE 6: DEAL OR NO DEAL GAME.”

That’s exactly what happened.


(deal/no deal sabotage) “My reading of it was that I thought Ryan L was beginning to suspect Sam.”

Nah, Ryan L is just poor at reading rules lol (one of the reasons I wanted him in). It was an honest mistake on his part and I made sure not to point it out to him.


“CLUE 8: SAM'S MISTAKE.”

After consideration, I admit that this is likely. But I really did spend SO SO much time on this game in a short time period. Not my fault if no one else did via trying to win the challenges or writing confessionals or talking on AIM. =)


“according to Ryan F, the players did not spend as much time on this game as Sam described.”

Not only did you have the #1 mole suspect personally crossed off your list, but you had the only person who both knew me in omc3 telling you his thoughts, AND you had the only person who suspected me the entire game! David, I think you may have had an incredibly unfair advantage in your perspective. Perhaps without all these massive things stacked in your favor you might have not been onto me so definitively. =)


CLUE 9: SAM'S NOMINATIONS.

Throughout the game there were hints to the identity of the Mole in the nominations process. In the very first nomination, the Mole chose Ryan F to face the quiz. It was a wise choice that would have borne fruit had Ty and Bartley appeared to take the quiz themselves. But who would have known better than Sam, who had played against Ryan in OMC3, that Ryan F was such a threat?

*****Nah. I knew Ty/Bartley were gone by the time I nominated. I knew my nomination didn’t matter. It was also the very start of the game so I didn’t have much information and honestly I hadn’t talked with too many people due to our conflicting AIM schedules. I didn’t really care who was nominated. I just looked at the names and picked randomly. There was really no intention behind it.

In Episode Two and Episode Six Sam, the Mole, self-nominated. Not coincidentally, these were the only two quizzes where Sam the player had an obvious and direct motive for wanting to get rid of the other two nominees.

******Hmm… maybe. I made sure though that my mole nominations were somewhat non-revealing. One Episode I had both an Exemption nomination and a Mole nomination. I made very sure that both were aimed in different directions and with different reasonings.


And, finally, there was the fact that Sam, who had gone out so early in OMC3 having never considered me a suspect, managed to survive so many eliminations for so long. Sam is a much better Mole than a player. Perhaps we will meet in another Mole game and he will surprise me.


******This is a huge clue and I agree with you 100%. It was one thing I was scared from the beginning. I had to watch myself never to tell anyone I was surprised I had made it this far or about my poor past history (other than omc3). Although it did slip out a bit at the end. I also made sure I had clear mole suspects for every quiz and would justify my survival in nominations by these mole suspects, hopefully leading others to believe that because I survived I was “right” on my suspects. I would always think to myself “I survived this quiz because I put Andy/Devon down equally” or “I survived this quiz because I put Ryan F down 100%” and would try and convey that non-obviously to my competitors.


Jesus this is long, but I had to get my two cents in there because this was a fantastic game. =) Even though ten people max will read it haha, Travis probably not included. I think he tired of my incredibly long-winded confessionals appearing every few days during the game. I wrote down all my thoughts and strategies. I’m not sure if Travis wants to save those or not to post in a future summary (like in omc3? That was so awesomely done), in the event that you are reading this, could you tell me Travis? However, those confessionals I wrote are quite harsh and I do not mince words on my feelings towards other players. I apologize in advance when you read those because I went over the top in my frankness sometimes.


Thank you everyone for playing, for hosting, and for watching and commentating, especially you David!


Finally, I want to be the first person to admit that as a player I knew absolutely nothing about the Mole game and how it is played. In fact I recall telling Travis multiple times during the game that I was ashamed at how badly I played omc3 and how ineffective and stupid my ideas and plots were. I clearly had no idea whatsoever on how to play the Mole game. Being the Mole has taught me so much about how the game works and given me a whole new perspective on the game.