Sue (in SEASON 1) remains one of the best players to never win IMO (if not the best), and I'd blame her being voted out on Kelly's foolishness.

As far as ranking winners go, I'm usually loath to come up with a hard ranking. I admire certain players' paths to the million more than others, but at the end of the day, each player has to take the path that gets them the million (even if it is one I don't find particularly gutsy or entertaining).

As far as master strategists go, Richard Hatch (PULAU TIGA) and Brian Heidik (THAILAND) are probably the best as far as having a clear strategy, understanding the thinking of the players that surrounded them (whether they were allies or enemies) and being in control of most of the game, while obviously being 'power players.' Granted Richard was working with a bunch of players who'd never played the game before and Brian was working with extremely gullible alliance-mates, I can't think of any other winner who played a better game. Sometimes I want to give Richard the edge, because I think Sue was one of the better players and a worthy competitor, and he first introduced how to get rid of a partner that you can't beat without voting them off yourself. Other times, I want to give Brian the edge because he was able to be a powerful player and win, after four seasons of SURVIVOR had come and gone. Players should be aware of what does/doesn't fly on this game, but I truly think Jan, Helen and Ted were some of the dumbest players to make it to the endgame. Plus Brian knew what he was doing in making sure that he'd be up against Clay (who no one liked) in the final two.

I think Tina Wesson (OUTBACK) is unfairly touted as an under-the-radar player. Virtually all of her strategizing and plotting was hidden by way of editing. When S2 aired, most people thought she and Keith had an alliance, when in reality she and Colby had the alliance (which was made apparent when they got to Final 3/Final 2). The editing led us to believe that Colby and Tina were in two opposing factions within the Ogakor tribe and that Jerri was in control of the dominant alliance. Apparently Tina was responsible for much of Ogakor's post-merge strategizing and was quite the significant player in finding out which players from Kucha had previous votes. This proved a critical move because after they merged, OGAKOR correctly targeted Jeff as a boot. Back then, previous votes was the tiebreaker and even though Colby and Jeff were tied 5 to 5 at tribal council, Jeff got booted because he had previous votes against him and Colby didn't. Tina, from what I remember, had one of the best 'vote-based-on-strategy-and-not-with-your-heart' jury speeches IMO. Tina was a good player, but I'd rank her somewhere below Richard and Brian because even among the actual players, she wasn't perceived to be the person calling the shots and to be an obviously powerful winner is a bigger accomplishment IMO.

I give Vecepia Towery (THE MARQUESAS) more credit than most because she was never in a safe position within a dominant aliiance for the majority of the game. A lot of people argue that she rode Rob Mariano and Sean's coattails, but I disagree. Any good player of the game gets into an alliance not merely to control the game, but also to have protection. To me, there's nothing wrong with shielding yourself with more in-your-face players, whose attitudes also rub others the wrong way. Vecepia also exposed a critical loophole in the game. When she was in Final 4 faced with Kathy, Pascal and Neleh (from the other tribe), it was revealed that she'd brought along a notebook as her luxury item and had taken notes on everyone that played the game. On the F4 challenge (FALLEN COMRADES - a quiz about booted players) she beat the other three, forcing them to cannibalize themselves. This led to a tie in which the PURPLE ROCK was introduced as a tiebreaker. In Final 3, Vecepia realized early that she wasn't going to beat Neleh in the endurance challenge and made a deal to take her to F2 if she won. Then at the jury, Vecepia gave a better speech to a very bitter jury than Neleh did.

I put Chris Daugherty(VANUATU) just a tad lower than Vecepia, because his 'vote-off-the-young-and-the-strong' gameplay put the men at an unnecessary disadvantage at merge time. However, once he was 'dead man walking' he did a good job keeping himself in the game and breaking up the women's alliance (though he did require Twyla to actually show him the initial crack to work with). He also overplayed just a little bit, in getting very personal and playing on Eliza and Julie's emotions. Chris had power and lost power and almost overplayed himself.

I put Sandra Diaz (PEARL ISLANDS) somewhere around here because a lot of her gameplay reminds me of Tina's although there were times when she didn't have nearly the control that Tina did. I also don't think she had to overcome the odds that Vecepia and Chris did in getting to the end game. Sandra was definitely one of the craftiest winners. To this day, I'm still not sure if her allegedly inadvertent elimination of Rupert from one of the immunity challenges (the one that led to his boot) was really an accident. Sandra also made some crucial powerplays post-merge. First in teaming with her nemesis Jon to get rid of Tijuana after she and Tijuana had an agreement to get rid of the guys, yet she stayed just behind-the-scenes enough to make her partners, Rupert and Christa her first line of defense. From what I remember, Sandra also helped make Lillian believe she stood a better chance against her as F2 than Jon the strategist.

I put Jenna Morasca (THE AMAZON) after Sandra. Jenna was in the dominant alliance 90% of the game post-merge, but rarely was she a mover-shaker whether up front or behind-the-scenes. Deena and Rob Cesternino were the heads of the dominant post-merge alliance, and just about every major move was devised and initiated by Rob. Jenna did win a critical endurance challenge and made a smart move in getting rid of Rob (who might have won due to strategy) over Alex (who no one on the jury liked except Butch). Jenna's win is somewhat tainted for me because I really don't think there was any way the jury was going to give Alex the win over Jenna. Her jury speech was better than his, but again, I think he could have given them the recipe for a cure for AIDS as a speech and still lose.

BIG GAP

I put Ethan Zohn (AFRICA) below the other regular season winners. His gameplay isn't really the type that does anything for me (though the editing that foreshadowed his win was some of the best I've ever seen). Ethan was the nice guy hiding in the shadows of Lex Van Der Berghe's bold moves. It's one thing if a player actually acknowledges that, but Ethan had this ridiculous idea that he deserved to win because he played the game honestly and was a good guy (he still maintained this on ASS). It was easy for him to be the good guy, when Lex had made all the hard decisions and became the bad guy to most people. Ethan was nicer to Kim Johnson than Tom Buchanan and Lex were, so she selected him to be her F2 partner, so I give Ethan credit for that. But then again, Kim Johnson's win of the F4 challenge (another FALLEN COMRADES quiz) is tainted by the ambiguity of one of the quiz questions, which led to Lex losing the challenge and Tom's elimination. Ethan and Jenna's gameplay were in reality very similar, except Ethan was made to look like a good guy. Jenna actually had to make game-changing decisions, while Ethan pretty much floated on his charms and hid behind others.

Amber Brkich (ALL STARS) was the 'perfection' of Ethan's game play. Attach yourself to a strong player and hide behind him. Her strategy was a combination of past winner's strategies, but she's the only winner who never really did anything strategywise for herself or her alliance and really only benefitted from the fact that Rob Mariano had steamrolled other people in the process. Not much of an improvement over her gameplay in S2, except this time she was joined at the hip with a real player (Mariano) and not a delusional twit (Jerri Manthey).