Jackie's Opening Statement

[Jackie Ibarra]

Hey everyone!  

Sorry for the late post! I was doing a bit of Christmas shopping after work that took WAYYYY longer than I thought it would. Hopefully you guys have your stuff pretty wrapped up so you don’t have to deal with all the craziness! 

First off, I just want to say it’s been an awesome season and I’m so happy I got to play with all of you. I always enjoyed talking to you all whether it was about game or just the random stuff that’s been going on in our lives the past couple months. I know a few of you probably are a little upset with me because of how some of my actions affected you, but please know it was all game and none of it was ever personal.   

Now on to my gameplay…. 

With the twist of no HOH comps for the first half of the season, I made the decision to lay low at the beginning of the game. Though it probably seemed like I wasn’t doing much, I was always working on making connections with people to get me farther in the game and help me later on. I would tell people I didn’t have close relationship with anybody in the game so it didn’t seem like I was a social threat at all when I was really talking to a lot of people. I made alliances with people to make sure I was safe have an input of what was going on. Because of that, I was only nominated once as a pawn during Nicole’s HOH and never as anybody’s target. I used my relationships to keep my separate alliances safe and get them farther in the game. If any of my early alliance member’s names came up as a threat, I would refocus the target on someone else who I was not aligned with. Through all the drama that was going on the first half of the season, I let everybody target each other while I just gathered information to be used later on.  

When Candice pulled her vote twist which was without a doubt one of the biggest moves of the season, I saw my chance to start making more aggressive and visible moves. I started by making the decision to evict Nick instead of Zach which put me in a position where I was aligned with or had deals with everyone left in the game. This ensured I had safety even if I didn’t win competitions. From that point on, I started making the tough decisions eliminating specific people to make sure I was the sole player that people were most loyal to. I won the competitions I needed to in order to be able to ensure the person most dangerous to my game was the one sent home, both competitively and socially. If you look back from Week 7 on, I was always either the tiebreaker or sole vote cast and the ultimate decision of who went home was mine. 

Though I was quiet and relied more on my alliances at the beginning of the game, I feel that my actions during the last half of the game showed I was a true competitor. I did what I needed to ensure I made to the end on my own merits and would truly deserve the win. I hope you all see that and I’m ready for any questions you may have for me!