"Once again," Jon says, "Johnny Fairplay finds himself in a great position." He continues by explaining that he can either go with the original plan and stick with the ex-Drakes, or he can flip and reconstitute his alliance with Darrah and Tijuana instead of Christa, Rupert, and Burton. Two reasons to flip, obviously: first of all, the new alliance would have five, rather than six, people in it. When you can set yourself up in an alliance that excludes three people instead of two and you think that alliance might hold, you're one step farther in the game. Second, the sub-alliances in the new alliance favor Jon much more than the sub-alliances in the old alliance. (Say it three times fast -- go!) This is why the Triumvirate's strategy was lacking: tipping your hand to that degree as to your sub-alliance within your larger alliance is very, very stupid, because your sub-alliance still constitutes a minority of the larger group, and if the rest of your larger alliance knows you'll later function as a bloc vote, they're going to boot you. It makes you too big a target -- like one person with three votes. If you knew, post-merge, that there was one person with three votes, who would have three votes all the way through to the end, you'd get rid of that person. You'd have to. You could sidle up to them for a while, but really, you'd have no chance against them as time progressed, so you'd have to get rid of them while you still had a chance.