Survive Donkey Island: My Island Diary 001

OK, before I launch into my diary, a few items of business:

1) Al Can't Hang and Full Tilt Poker have added $100 to the next four Sunday tournaments! This is just $100 straight-up into the prize pool, good for anybody who wants to play, whether Team Donkey, Team Fish, or regular poker-playing fool.

2) Based on feedback from some of you, the rebuy donkament structure was fun but went a little too late. I'm going to change up the structure of the Sunday Game in a variety of ways and we'll see which is more fun for more people. Perhaps it is the variety itself that will be fun.

Anyway, this week is a $1+$1 Rebuy like last week, but the rebuy period should be done after a 1/2 hr. instead of the full hour, which should help those of us with bedtimes.

Survive Donkey Island 003

Full Tilt Poker

$1 + $1 Rebuy

February 20, 2011

9:30 PM EST

password: survive

The following Sunday will not be a rebuy, but rather a $5 + $1 multi-entry tournament. I've gotta think that the multi-entry structure will make a last-longer . . . interesting.

We'll continue the on and off rebuy/multi for a few weeks and see how it goes. If you have suggestions, I am a reasonable Goat. Let me know.

Anyway, here's my island diary. I don't know if many of you know this, but we actually are on a faraway tropical island. This is just a little background behind-the-scenes of Donkey Island from an insider/contestant.

I was a little late getting this post up, so this entry will cover the first two days of play, including the first elimination, but it won't cover the elimination of Riggstad a couple days ago. We'll be on a bit of a lag for a while. Bear with me.



The Donkey Island Diary of Julius_Goat

Our shelter after the end of the day's work. The picture makes it
look nicer than it really was.

Day 001: We just landed via helicopter on the beach. Buddy "Probst" Dank greeted us with a cheesy grin and split us into our teams. I didn't get a very good look at the other team (Team Fish) before we were whisked down the beach to our team camps, but they seem like a motley crew; I reckon the Donkeys are in good shape. Almost immediately, I was accosted by a beefy guy with muttonchops who wanted to talk about our shelter and what he referred to as a 'secret alliance.' Since he was talking about this 'secret' at the top of his lungs in easy earshot of the rest of the team, I steered him toward the topic of the shelter.

Muttonchop's name is Numb Rutherford Bono, and he claims to be an "Alpha Wolf" (his words)and a "shelter building champion." A small lady wearing horn rimmed glasses named Jamy Hawk proposes a hut on stilts using the plentiful bamboo around us, but Bono insists that his way is the best way. I think we're all a little jet-lagged from the trip, so we let him do it his way. This proves a bad choice. Bono digs a large pit and covers it with banana leaves, proclaiming his creation "a mansion away from home." I am skeptical, and I'm not alone. Five of us, including Mrs. Hawk, Jordan, and a hillbilly with five teeth by the name of Heff decide he has to go the first chance we get.

Numb Rutherford Bono took charge from Day 1, but that
didn't help him come vote time.

Day 002: Here we are, the first immunity challenge. The drizzle that began as we walked to the challenge site has turned into a full-on downpour as Buddy explains the rules to us: We're supposed to beat each other over the head with coconuts until only one team is conscious. We are well ahead, 8-3, when suddenly Bono screams "HERE I COME TO SAVE THE DAY", Mighty Mouse style. He then tears open his shirt to reveal an actual Mighty Mouse costume underneath and proceeds to brain us mercilessly until we all collapse in a half-conscious daze. A young guy named Jordan with a full head of curly hair is particularly affected; he gets half scalped, leaving him with an unnatural premature baldness that I hope will grow back in time.

Having subdued his team, Bono looks at me with a friendly wink and says, "Don't worry, Goatboy. I've got a plan, here." I sure hope so, because the rest of us can't even stand, much less compete. Team Fish certainly seems nervous at the raw display of power they have seen, though somewhat encouraged by the turnabout in numbers.

"FREEEEEEEEEEEDOOOOMMM!! screams the muttonchopped Bono, charging across the beach at our adversaries. He brains two of them into a stupor, but in the process drops most of his coconuts. A nearby pack of baboons pick them up and set upon him, leaving him bloodied and weeping. He's quickly dispatched by the only remaining member of Team Fish, and elderly lady named Hoyazo.

When we come home, the rain has flooded out our "shelter", which now reveals itself as nothing but a quickly-dug mudhole. Bono sententiously tries to blame BrainMc, a tall kid with a UCLA diving scholarship, for "not putting the leaves over the hole right", but this holds about as much water as our erstwhile home. We sit in the rain and feel sorry for ourselves.

Later, at Tribal Council, we nurse our poor heads (Jordan is holding his hair in his hands like he just found his favorite dog dead in the street), but our course is clear. Numb R. Bono has to be gotten rid of. We cast our votes almost unanimously, and Bono is beheaded, spitted, and roasted for seven hours. He makes a decent breakfast; a little stringy, perhaps, but after the two days we've all had we can't really complain.

Hope we can win the next one without our most fierce and dangerous warrior.

Images via  TravelPod and Slashgear.