Back in episode four of Survivor: Pearl Islands, the Drake tribe decides they want to throw a challenge to vote out a member. Burton Roberts pitches to Rupert Boneham that if they go into the merge with so many weaker members of their tribe, the two strong men are sitting ducks for the rest to pick off. As the others catch wind of Burton’s plan, they decide to turn it against him and vote him out. Either way, everyone on the tribe agrees to throw the challenge. Well, almost everyone.

In his typical Rupert “try your hardest every time, play a straight up game” style, Rupert believes that throwing a challenge is something you never do. That sentiment is echoed an episode later by Jeff Probst when the tribe finally admits to him that their thinly veiled throw was indeed a throw. He is incensed that a tribe would lose on purpose. My reaction to that back when Pearl Islands aired live is the same as it is now: of course there are times when you should throw a challenge.

We’ve seen it before from dominant challenge tribes. The longer they go on a winning streak, the more cracks can appear in a tribe. Koror was able to avoid falling apart only because Ulong was left with one member come the assimilation. Even then, the end-game in Palau was bitter, dark and felt very real because these people were playing more than just a game. They had spent so long together without ever having to turn on each other that when they did, everything felt way too personal.

This challenge basically defines “Survivor on a personal level”.

For players like Tom Westman, not throwing any challenges worked out for him. He had an iron-grip into his tribe and allowing more outside forces to come against that was the right solution. For Gregg Carey and Jenn Lyon, who were secretly trying to mount a rebellion against Tom and Ian Rosenberger, his second-in-command, having a few more Ulong players at the merge could have definitely helped.

If Koror loses a few challenges in the pre-merge, Willard Smith still goes home but so would players like Caryn Groedel and Janu Thornell. That allows Bobby Jon Drinkard and Ibrehem Rahman to make the merge and the end-game might look completely different. Since they would have been looking for any kind of assurances, Gregg and Jenn could have made their move after voting out Coby Archa to rally the remaining Ulongs and strike against the Tom, Ian, and Katie Gallagher trio.

Of course the most obvious, in my eyes, example of a good challenge throw was in Survivor: China. Not in the execution of the throw but in the decision to do so. Up to that point in the game, Fei Long has been absolutely dominating Zhan Hu in challenges thanks in large part to James Clement and Aaron Reisenberger. In one of the more unbalanced twists in Survivor history, both tribes choose two members from the other side to “kidnap” and essentially plug into their team. Zhan Hu somehow manages to make the correct decision by taking James and Aaron.

Once the two big men get to Zhan Hu camp, the original Zhan Hus realize that they have the majority over the two. They also realize that their two former members now on Fei Long are in the minority. In addition, both James and Aaron are massive physical threats. Peih-Gee Law and Jaime Dugan decided then and there to throw a challenge to vote out Aaron and do so in a fairly obvious manner.

Despite not being good at hiding their intentions, the actual decision to throw the challenge is brilliant. They are keeping their original members safe by letting Fei Long win and they getting rid of somebody who could dominate come the individual immunity portion of the game. Their plan to do the same with James gets messed up one round later but getting rid of Aaron at least gave Zhan Hu a fighting chance. All by simply throwing a challenge.

Fuck Sudoku.

Another good example of throwing a challenge at the right time is from somebody we don’t expect to make key strategic decisions. Go all the way back to the second boot of Cook Islands. Billy Garcia is already rubbing his tribe the wrong way and openly saying he does not belong on the Latino tribe because he does not identify with him. He’s also a liability in challenges and generally useless around camp. People are catching wind of this and getting annoyed.

The one and only.

Seeing a loose cannon in front of his eyes, Ozzy Lusth decides to bring his tribe together to make a unilateral decision: let’s throw the next challenge and vote out Billy. While Ozzy encounters some opposition to this idea, the tribe ultimately decides to go with Ozzy’s plan and vote out Billy. The next day, the four tribes are dissolved into two new tribes. Had they not voted out Billy, there is no doubt that he flips over to any other alliance the minute he meets new tribe mates and suddenly Ozzy and the rest of his tribe are in serious trouble.

There are even times when a tribe definitely should have thrown a challenge but didn’t for whatever reason. My example for this is the first immunity challenge post-tribe swap in Survivor: Vanuatu. At the immunity challenge, Bubba Sampson tries to signal to Chris Daugherty to “think of the merge” but does so pretty poorly and Ami Cusack would eventually vote him out because of it.