I never said people should do only what was best for the team. But on a task-by-task basis the optimum strategy is to find a path that serves both your objectives (be seen to be brilliant, or at least not the worst) and your team's (win the task).

What I have said is that it makes no sense to make a selfish move that you know reduces your chance of your team winning, just for the purposes of potentially setting a teammate up for a fall to protect yourself.

The start point for this discussion was you saying Mark and Katie were trying not to win. It's that which I think is ridiculous.

There is always going to be a degree of selfishness, I don't deny that. In fact, Mark's selfish move over the hot tubs last week was exactly the right move - because it was both right for him AND right for the team, and Daniel's squashed pride was just tough. I said as much repeatedly in last week's threads, even though most people were claiming he should have been given the chance to sell hot-tubs just to be fair to him.

I agree that it isn't always possible to do the right thing for both self and team, but that doesn't mean you should actively try not to win the task. As you correctly identified, there are two ways to avoid being fired - don't be the worst on your team and win the task. They're not always compatible but neither are they mutually exclusive. Only a fool (and, to be fair, there have been a few of them on the show) would cut off their nose to spite their face by actively trying not to win, which is the only sure way of surviving from week to week. Because even if you're not the worst performer on your team, that doesn't mean that Sugar might not fire you anyway - how often have we seen Sugar do exactly that?

We both have different ideas on what is the best strategy. We both feel we are right. If I was ever to go on the show, I would play it my way. I am sure I would get a lot further than being a team player.

All I would say before closing on this subject is, do you think Mark moved onto the hot tubs because it was "best for the team", or do you think he was thinking its the "best move for me?" Of course we cant say for sure, however if I was to hazard a guess I would say he did it because it was the best move for him.

You would have to be an alpha type person, or at least think you are an alpha type person to go on a show like this. Alpha type people arent usually team players...they are out for themselves. The team winning is a secondary objective.

I would agree with you, that some of Sugars firings have been odd. Although I think that in part, is because he has more info than we have as viewers.

Mark is clearly out for Mark, everything he does, is firstly to make him look good, then secondly for the team. Just look at the way he undermines his own team. First noticeable time was calling Daniel a liar (Mimms Services). He did it again with the board game (piece to camera) about bad it was, even though it was his idea. He did it again last night (about Katie) and the crap price paid for the Oil. Plus last night he failed to get the rope cut, even when standing there watching someone measure it, he failed to get a better price on the sink. The guy said they sell for £85 and they came straight back with a price and that was it. He even went as far as to congratulate the other sub team for the skeleton, then back track in the car and again in the boardroom, nearly to the point of trying to say he thought it was a bad idea all together.

Because it amuses me. And now I know it winds you up, it will amuse me even more.

Shrike, if you want to annoy me even more, please use brought when you mean bought. As in, Felipe brought a paper skellington. Cheers.

Mark is out to seize any credit going, and to steer any potential responsibility, or blame elsewhere. As PM he spent his time making others responsible for each potential failure, and giving Lauren nothing to do - so he could accuse her of doing nothing. Apart from selling skill , I agree, he hasn't shown much of anything else. His creative moments have proved wrongheaded (relationships) and his memory has been strangely faulty (saying Lauren hadn't thought of the idea for their drink when thats what the VT shows. )

Sure, we'll agree to disagree. I do think Mark's move was driven primarily by his own interest, although that also coincided with him believing it would improve the team's chance of winning the task because he feels he is a better salesman than Daniel (I would agree wholeheartedly with that) - an example of the two strategies being in alignment.

Of course, one of the things that his critics seem to ignore is that he was also taking on risk too - if he had failed and Tenacity had lost the task, he stood a much higher chance of being fired than if he'd kept his head down. That for me is an instance of him prioritising personal/team victory over merely ensuring that he was better than the worst performer, which he could have achieved by keeping quiet and outselling Felipe on the handbags and trailers, which he surely would have achieved with ease.

Good alphas don't need to play games. They just understand the situation, and their compettion, and the strengths of their team. They inspire confidence by being successful, and right, and become the go to person. They network and keep their eye on the pulse of whats going on. No one challenges them because no one thinks they have a chance of replacing them, or they have been coopted and satisfied, or they don't notice where the power really is.

What Lord Sugar creates is a particularly dysfunctional society. He likes the loud brash failed male alphas and keeps them in past their self destruct date. Mark and Daniel are the result of reasembling features of Paul, Tre, Syed, Michael, Paul, Lee, Ben or Stuart, There's often a contempt for the quiet, intellectual, legalistic and thoughtful - wwhich Lord Sugar often shares. He often allows their blatant sexism to manifest itself - as they create the equivalent of a male gorilla chest thumping match . That leaves the abler candidates having to fight through, with incompetents surviving, and failed alphas, who think they are alphas, getting in the way at every turn.

Thats what we have now. Roisin is what an alpha should be - and can be it now she isn't confronted by James. Bianca is doing better too - in a team where Roisin and Solomon calm things down, They just have Sanjay as loud deadwood. Katie however is caught between Mark and Daniel - who want to use her, but don't want her to look too good, and have alternated between wanting the other to fail, and wanting anyone but Katie or the other to be PM. Katie 's got a problem not looking too quiet in the war around her, not having her succcesses overlooked by Lord Sugar, and not being targetted herself by the two game players.

Its very dubious if Lord Sugar has more information, or uses it. He does have the crucial information what projects they are proposing though. He's not going to worry much if you go with a proposal he's not interested in, or is in the wrong place , or offers less quick money , or more risk, or needs involvement than he wants to put in.

Its also very debateable if he makes the right choices. Over the years he's usually sent the self made small entrepreneurs home - because they lack size and experence, and the successful corporate high flyers home because the job on offer was too dull or they were too unlike him. He's rejected everyone who studied business as too unlike him. He rejects the people most like himself starting up, and the ones who will make most money - so its difficult to see what qualifications many winners have to win. There's a long list of howlers among his sackings, and he's consistently missed the most successful people to appear.

This series its got even worse- because the multiple sackings have lead to only bad options in following weeks. The excesses of the triple firing meant that only one could go the next week. And the failure to fire two this week means he may have to fire two next week - whoever wins , and whatever the merits of the second one staying.

Its basically all rather random. A case of if you stagger to the end, on luck, you may have something he likes. Or you may get to the end only because you have something he likes. Or, you may go home on some irrelevant grounds - like you can't cook, or someone else presented or made a video badly, or the task wasn't a level playing field. Or you may go just because two or three had to go that week.

Sorry, I cannot except your offer - you need to be a bit more pacific.

I thought it was to ensure that they failed the task even though they bought the items cheapest overall. He couldn't allow them to bypass the rules twice, with the skeleton, and the rope, and still win. So making a fuss over the rope gave him the ammunition he needed to fine them again.

Even a paper skellington is better than coming back with nothink.

The Prisoner's Dilemma shows people often don't know or know but don't practice the optimal strategy.

Oh he'd find a way if it was Felipe.
"What's this extra bit? I don't want an extra bit of rope. I specifically asked you for a 1m rope. To give me an extra piece is just showing off. You didn't buy a 1m rope, this is just one 2m rope cut in half. So for that I'm fining you £732".

I'd have thought so.
But I get the impression that if they said that they didn't have time to find a skeleton it would be brushed off and he'd move on.
Didn't the other team miss one or two items? Why wasn't Sugar going mental at them?
At least Daniel's team tried and brought something back. At least they had something to show that they went to the effort.

Tim burton called him "Jake Skellington" in The Nightmare Before Christmas"' I think.

No, the only reason he rejected it was because it would be controversial and get us all talking about it. And it worked. He's duped us all. He knew full well that the paper skeleton was fine to accept.

Or, alternatively, they get 1.7m of rope, cut it down to one metre (rather than "cutting it in half" as AS suggested) and then, upon being measured, it turns out that it's actually 98.5cm long and AS throws a paddy about the need for accuracy and how if he needed a 1m length of rope then a bit that's too short is useless whereas a bit that's too long is still perfectly serviceable.
"So, you took a bit of bladdy rope which was better than wot I asked for and bladdy-well ruined it?
I dant want to go inta biznis wiv sam bladdy idiot who dasn't 'av da brains to realise when they're makin' fings worse wiv their baggering abart"

Seems like another case where any imperfection could either be criticised or ignored subjectively.

That's very good.

I think that's why Katie didn't cut the rope, so that she and Mark could start having a go at Felipe.

I watched her face, as she held the rope, and when asked if she was going to cut the ends off, she hesitated for a bit, then her face changed and she decided not to cut it. It was then I realised she was up to no good, for if she had the rope cut, then there wouldn't have been any arguments with Felipe. But if they wanted to get rid of Felipe or Daniel, then not cutting the rope was the way it had to be done. If Katie had had any integrity she would have cut that rope. As Mark didn't object, then he was party to the plan of discrediting the others.

I noticed last night on the little catch up they have at the beginning, didn't like the way Katie sort of jumped forward in her seat and pointed over Daniel's head towards Felipe in response the LS's question on whose idea was the skeleton. Very childish, she came across very bigheaded by the end, over emphasising her talents that she'd discovered on the show and how much better she was than others. "look at me I'm a working class mum, whose so much better than all these professionals"