Thao Pham

**Thao Pham** is the Sole Survivor of *Survivor: Thailand*. She later competed on *Survivor: All-Stars*.

On *Thailand*, Thao was best known for her sharp ability to make allies and her strong gameplay. Thao began with subtle moves, such as dropping Terra Freeman's name to vote her out, and forming the Core Four Alliance which ended up taking over the game. Thao's creation of a powerful alliance that took her to the end is a move in the game that is widely praised. Despite being a power player, Thao was able to stay in the game by strengthening her personal relationships and targeting other power players in the game. In the end, Thao was named the Sole Survivor in a 6-1 jury vote.

On *All-Stars*, Thao returned with a massive target on her back as the winner of *Thailand*. Quickly, Thao was able to diffuse the target joining in with the majority alliance, making it easily to the merge. Thao's game was sunk three votes into the merge after the entire tribe targeted Natasha Brown and Natasha pulled out a Hidden Immunity Idol, voting against Thao with a small bloc of people and getting Thao out of the game in a 3-0 vote. Thao holds the distinction of being the last previous winner on *All-Stars*, and the only previous winner to make the merge.

## Profile

* All-Stars

* **Name (Age):** Thao Pham (26)
* **Tribe Designation:** Ko Wai
* **Current Residence:** Olympia, WA
* **Occupation:** Dentist
* **Hobbies:** Trying new foods, traveling, running and rock climbing
* **Pet Peeves:** I consider myself to be patient so I don't really have that many pet peeves but I guess slow walkers?
* **Which *Survivor* contestant are you the most like?** I have the tenacity of Chantal, the charm of Jasmine, and the desire to win of Keith. I hope I'm the most like Keith because he's the Sole Survivor.
* **What's your reason for being on *Survivor*?** I enjoy adventure. My family's from Vietnam, which is close to Thailand so I'm excited that Thailand is the location for this season! I also want that $1 million to pay off my loans from dental school of course!
* **Why do you think you'll "survive" *Survivor*?** I'm a super go with the flow type of person and that will help keep my spirits and morale up during the game. I know it'll be tough but I knew that and that's why I signed up to play *Survivor*!

## Survivor: thailand

Thao was assigned to the Ko Wai tribe. Thao immediately proved to be a provider for the tribe and was physically dominant in challenges, helping her tribe win the first two Immunity Challenges. Thao's ability to band with her tribe to form a voting bloc proved to be helpful for her, as the first time the Ko Wai tribe visited Tribal Council, Thao remained in the majority in voting Terra Freeman out of the game in a 6-3 vote.

After the switch however, Thao fell into a bit of trouble when Michaela Thompson decided to flip on their alliance and vote Chris Glover out of the game over previous Soi Dao member, Ashlee McKay. Because of Michaela's ability to flip quickly on her allies, in the next vote Thao drafted up a plan to split the vote between Michaela and Ashlee so Michaela would be blindsided by the vote. This plan worked, as Michaela was voted out in a 3-2-1 vote.

After the tribes merged into the Suay tribe, Thao hit her stride by creating the Core Four Alliance with four of her tribemates: Ashlee, Isabelle, Jared, and Tyler. This gave Thao half of the numbers, which led to a tie in the first vote. Thao and her alliance's solidarity led Gary Catlett to flip his vote from Ashlee to Samson in the revote to avoid drawing a rock. After this first vote post-merge, the Core Four Alliance had the numbers in a 5-4 advantage. In the next vote, they worked together to get Natalie Vossen out. In the next vote, Thao wanted to target Ashlee however, because she saw Ashlee as a threat for avoiding so many attempts to get her out of the game. The Core Four Alliance became solid and got rid of their affiliate, Ashlee. They did this by telling Ashlee to vote out Thao, and put votes down for Thao to blindside her.

For the next three votes, the Core Four stayed intact and dominated the vote, taking their allies out one by one. At the Final Four, however, only the alliance members were left forcing them to flip on one another. Thao threw Isabelle's name out for being a threat, in an attempt to shift the focus off of Thao's strong gameplay. Fortunately for Thao, it worked and Isabelle was voted out. At the penultimate Tribal Council, Jared Klein decided to bring Thao to the Final Two with him instead of Tyler Lobdell because of Thao's more subtle gameplay, whereas Tyler was more aggressive.

At the Final Tribal Council, Thao won the jury over by emphasizing her strong gameplay, especially in the second half of the game. Thao's gameplay combined with her impressive performance at the final tribal garnered her 6 of the 7 jury votes. Thao was named the Sole Survivor on Day 39 for her ability to create relationships and play the game extremely well.

## Trivia

* Thao is the second Sole Survivor to never switch tribes pre-merge.
	+ During the Tribe Switch, Thao remained on Ko Wai. In *Survivor: Samoa*, Keith remained on Namua.
* Thao is the first Sole Survivor to receive all but one Jury Vote (6-1 vote).
* Thao lost 19 lbs (8.62 kg) during her time on *Survivor: Thailand*.
* Thao is the first female winner.
* Thao won the most challenges on *Thailand*, with 10, along with Tyler Lobdell.
* Thao voted with the majority for every vote post-merge.