Zak Yuh

***Zak*** was a castaway on Essential Survivor: Yemen

## Yemen

Zak is one of the better players of the season, but sadly, the reception of his game was ill-received. He seemed to favor trying to turn his biggest enemies against one another while being in the middle.  Starting out on the introverts, he seemed to have a free pass to swap due to the Neil show.  He quickly started spreading Neil’s name around, and proved how well of a manipulator he could be when Neil was informed of it, but quickly convinced Neil that it was Preston who was behind the shenanigans. When they lost the second challenge, Zak was wary of Neil and a potential idol, even going to plan how to get Neil to give him the idol. But instead, he set forth a simple split vote plan just in case it got played to vote Neil and Nic with his alliance, and when Neil played his idol, Zak’s plan was easily executed, showing his strategic prowess early on.

Like most of the Mahjuz tribe, the next two votes were easy, Neil and Essence being tribe targets. The rest of Zak’s pre-mere game was uneventful, working on his social bonds and swapping to the Mutaradid tribe, who never went to tribal partly due Zak, helping win the longest endurance challenge in Essential history for his tribe.

Come merge time, Zak seemed to be in a perfect position. He had accurate reads on most of the tribe, who was close with who. A lot of castaways had Zak high in their trust rankings, so Zak was emerging as a contender, and had the game to back it up. Determined to throw challenges to lower his threat level, the first vote seemed to boil down to Alison or Josh. This was a weaker part of Zak's game, as he thought he was orchestrating a blindside against Alison, even though he admitted that Cedrick had first brought the idea to him, Felix was pulling the strings behind the scene. He did help convince Alison that Josh was the vote, and by the point James told Alison the real gameplan, it was too late and a weaker ally of Zak’s was still sent out the door.

Zak throughout the rest of the game was either entirely spot on, or completely inaccurate. He claimed Alison was “lost in the sauce” for thinking that Matt voted for Josh (spoiler alert, he did) and questioning if Alison and James were secretly ride or dies, doubting that it was true. He did have several people inform him about alliances he wasn’t in, getting ammunition against James, Felix, Matt and Abigail. Coming into the next round, he proclaimed that Matt and James were the biggest threats to his game at the moment, and when Alison won immunity, he shifted his target to James. Wanting to protect Cedrick, he solidified Alison and James voting for Cedrick, keeping them out of the majority. Praising Matt's game play, he set off to convince Cedrick, Joshua and Abby that Matt should be voted, while convincing Felix, Neb and Matt that James was the bigger threat, setting him truly as the flip vote in a 4-3-2 blindside. Originally sending in his vote for James, it was a lie that Matt had told Felix about a potential Felix blindside that Zak fell for. Immediately starting to bash Matt and his gameplay, the person just moments earlier he was complimenting, he switched his vote to Matt, pulling off a clean 4-3-2, arguably one of the best moves this season.

Zak after climbing to the top, only had one way to go. And man, did his game fall fast. He stated that now he was going to stop throwing challenges, and that from the final eight onwards he’d show his true physical capability. He immediately got last place in the next immunity challenge. Unlike his split plan at f19, almost everyone caught on to Zak and his puppeteering. Even Abby, his closest ally, knew that Zak was the one calling the shots and wanted to make a move in the future against him. All the lies he had weaved eventually caught up to him when the people he tried to turn against each other compared notes. Proclaiming that he was way too good at this game and was a social god, he set his sights once again on James, the person he saved the previous tribal. Trying to convince the tribe that Alison was the vote once again so James uses his vote steal, he, Cedrick and Abby attempted to vote James out once again, but a coalition against Zak sent him out 5-3, landing him at 8th.

Although Zak was a great strategist and used his social bonds to help pull the strings for many eliminations, he was faulted for some delusional reads on the game, and his arrogance towards his fellow castaways. He casted his vote immediately for James, without asking any questions until hours after voting, his perception from the audience remained negative for the lack of his confessionals and attitude, wrapping up a solid game in Yemen.