I was very late to the party and only started watching BBUK 17 a week or so ago and even though I knew that Jason won, I'm still a bit shocked that he managed it when it was so obvious (to me anyway) that he was a massive game-player.

Previous experience of this place has taught me that folk around these here parts don't seem to like HMs who do that, although I can't say it bothers me unduly.

I don't mind a bit of game-play but I've got no time for HMs like Jason who act all outraged when they get rumbled - I mean why? What's that all about?

Then we have Jackson, who I've just found out cheated on Georgia (allegedly) and I remember how OTT he was with all his 'integrity' bollocks and I can't help thinking that things would have been a lot easier for him, had he not attempted to adopt such a persona in the first place!

He might even have won.................who knows?

Sorry for going on a bit but I've also remembered that Aaron Allard-Morgan bloke who I couldn't stand because his game (IMO) was way too bloody obvious But my online besties back then wouldn't have it that he was a game-player ffs

I promise I never once said 'I told you so' either, when he admitted it later on

So I guess I'm wondering what others think about game-players and is it a good strategy for winning BB these days?

Would you bother, or just act as naturally as you can do in there?

Who was the best BB game-player and did they win in the end?

1) BB is a game

2) There is a prize to be won for the winner

3) Anyone who takes part in game which has a prize at the end, would like to win it, thats human nature whether they admit it or not. (thats not the same as them saying they think they will or that they can win by the way, just that they would "like" to) and so anyone who takes part IS playing A game and thus is a gameplayer!!!!

The above is why i always laugh or shake my head when accusations of game playing are thrown about, not because its not true but because they are all playing A game!!!!

The only difference is how far they are prepared to go or what they are prepared to do and what they admit to afterwards as being planned or tactical. But there is nothing wrong with game playing in or of itself and even if someone goes on and wins after deploying a gameplan then what exactly have they done wrong? What do they have to apologise for? - if it wins them the game, then it worked !!!!!?! If it doesnt win them the game then it hasnt worked - so again why should they be criticised for something that didnt work???!!!!

When you go into BB, you know you are going to be judged on everything you say and do, and so to have a chance of lasting you have to appeal to the widest section of the viewers and so of course you are going to be conscious of how you behave and present yourself. One of my least favourite accusations is of a hm avoiding arguments or any sort of trouble, so as not to generate any negative opinions towards them by either their fellow hms when nom'ing or the viewers when voting. What on earth is wrong with that - that makes perfect sense surely????

Back in the day Bunions I would have said I thought it was impossible to implement a preconceived game plan because there is just too much uncertainty on route.

Furthermore the game one would play to be liked and avoid nomination in the house is the sort of thing that the public will kick you for the minute you are up. So by fitting in within the house community you may escape nomination, but then BB throw in an everybody up week or a team v team immunity task or a punishment and that game plan is shot.

In old BB I think the only game plan you can implement is one of reading the zeitgeist on a week to week or moment to moment basis. I think that takes extraordinary skill. A level of skill that the people who apply and get selected to be contestants are just not blessed with. However I would have nothing but respect for anyone who could implement a game plan successfully for an entire 11 - 13 weeks.

I was totally fascinated when Dexter game along and made no secret of his intention to follow a game plan. He lost to someone who was his very nice but nevertheless invisible and possibly bland self.

These days having a game plan takes cooperation on the part of BB. With so much outside intervention, golden passes to the final, eternal nominations and so forth the whole idea of it being a game that can be won at all, is a nonsense in my view.

Jason wasn't popular on here or at the bookies until Annihilation Week when he ditched his 'keep my head down and cook' persona for his ruthless, eliminate the competition, master game player persona. He was hugely admired on here for getting rid of Lateysha and unapologetically eliminating Ryan too.

I didn't rate Jason at all until this happened, but he then became my favourite, with Andy my next fav and Jackson my third.


Along with the majority of this forum, I thought it was 100% unfair that a celeb like Lateysha with 300k Twitter followers and a blue tick next to her name, was on BB at all. She was favourite to win for weeks, so Jason was a hero for stopping a celeb from winning BB as far as I'm concerned.

I quite like a game player - my fave ever HM is Victor. Although one of my worst ever HMs is Aaron who I really disliked, even though the bugger played a decent game.

I think almost all of the HMs must have some sort of game plan in mind before they enter the house, but I think the majority of these plans must evaporate quite quickly as simply surviving becomes the order of the day - especially in a house full of big characters. Getting along with people matters, finding a group matters - which is why I think we find so many 'nasty' groups flourish at the outset, even though it would never have been part of anyone's game plan to join a nasty group. It tends to be fatal.

I couldn't say exactly why I loved Vic the game player, but disliked Aaron the game player, except that I reserve to pick and choose the HMs I like at will and as the mood takes me and it will often make a hypocrite of me! But obvious game players seldom win - sometimes that's because there is often somebody else in the house whose lovely personality shines through for both the HMs and the public to be drawn to, and there is no beating that type of HM.

I agree with you Barracute, but the fact remains that folk throw around the term 'playing the game' as though it's an insult - virtually every week on BOTS.

I don't recall anyone being corrected or chastised for saying it either - other panel members seem to nod to each other knowingly and the crowd too.

It's bizarre and the term is never applied to ALL the game players either but seems to be attributed to whoever is deemed unpopular only.

Like I said, I don't really get it it?

I'm probably slightly guilty of it myself too

I totally agree with that bit.

The best ones at it probably have to have two games going on simultaneously - one for the HMs and another to please the punters, or at least in terms of letting them in on it


Me too.

And even though he couldn't lie straight in bed, he was a brilliant HM but he didn't have the balance quite right. Although loved out here, he wasn't popular in there.


Agree with that too eg Bear and his limelight hogging game plan wouldn't have worked without BBs collusion.

It seemed that the more he played up to the cameras, the more he was rewarded by getting more airtime.

I didn't have a problem with Jason having a game plan as much as I had a problem with his reaction to being accused of having one.

IDK if it was faux outrage or genuine - either way, he didn't seem at all happy about being called a game player and told a massive porkie about not knowing anything about the show and never having watched a single episode

I really liked Nick's gameplan of telling everyone his wife had died in a car accident, that's deep, becoming the house chef just doesn't cut it after that

Personally I don't think there is anything wrong with having a game plan as long as you are not hurting anyone. ie. being abusive and aggressive towards others as part of a plan.

I think its about time HM's should be able to nominate for strategy as it does get ridiculous when HM's resort to trivial or rubbish reasons. Better to say I nominate X because they are standing in the way of me winning BB. Or nominate Y because they sit on the fence and fly under the radar to avoid being nominated.

I think these days everyone entering the BB house has a game plan and wants to win. It should be OK to say that but also be yourself as its hard to put on an act for 3 months.

To his credit, Jason more or less said that about Lateysha - that eviction was very strategic but we'll never know if that was the main motivation.

No indeed he couldn't, which I found quite endearing to be honest. I liked that he had a game plan, made no secret of it, bigged himself up but then smudged it all with a heavy coating of ineptitude. It amused me and that goes a long way to entertaining me.

But thinking about it I think he did have the right idea about the only sort of game plan I can conceive of that could be successful in the old style BB (ie not produced to death). I think the strategy is to be reasonably nice in the house and not rub people up the wrong way. But then be absolutely brilliant in the diary room, witty, entertaining and most of all collude with the viewer. I think you are dead right there. If you can make the public think they are on side and are in on the joke you are well on your way to walking the tightrope between being put up and being put out. Providing the producers don't expose you to the house of course.

I think Chris R came close to that in his series but of course it was manipulated with Helen's ticket to the final and lots and lots of outside influence. Dexter made a stab at it with some success.

Silly thing is I can't remember any of the detail of Slick Vic at all now I try to recall his strategy. I remember him of course but more a series of stills rather than his journey as it were. I am also a bit blurry between his own series and his double hander with 'Nasty' Nick in UBB (was it called?)

Just so.

Good here on hypocrisy

Think you answered your own question. BB is a game, you play games / 'play a game' - it's game playing.

Whatstheproblem?????

When people on here and on eg BOTS say 'X is playing the game' or 'X is a game-player' they don't mean what you're saying.

You know that, right?

I don't think there is anything wrong with playing the game. Aaron is my fave ever HM and Victor in my Top 5.

Jason was genius in what he did and when he did it. Before Annihilation week, he was the one who would keep his head out of things and just be the "poor him on the receiving end" regarding Charlie. The public and the crowd liked that though. He was cheered, got least vots to evict the week before Annihilation.

Annihilation changed everything. Sure, he was now getting booed and social media turned against him, but those who didn't turn against him became more hardcore fans. His ruthless elimination of Lateysha was one of the best things on a reality show I have seen. This is when he became noticed. There is no way he would have won prior to that week. Sure, as I said he was getting cheered but he didn't have enough voting to save him power which is something needed in the last week. He has the least votes to evict, but that doesn't mean you will win, normally the ones who survive VTE with least votes are the quieter ones.

However he was extremely lucky Laura was up with him the week before the final because he would have been toast that week in that VTE. But VTS helped him obviously at the end of Annihilation week and obviously the final.

Also, some could say that perhaps he wouldn't have won if it wasn't for that court room task. I kind of believe that. Before that task I believed he would be 2nd and Hughie would win, but that court room task came at the perfect time for Jason and he dominated that episode. IMO it also helped in Alex's eviction and helped Evelyn getting slightly more of a % than Jayne because I think Evelyn picked up a few votes after that task when the lines re-opened the next day after Sam and Alex were evicted.

Got to say, it was brilliant that Alex was evicted before Evelyn.

Basically to sum up, both Lateysha's eviction and the court room task were the pivotal moments of the series to determine the winner.

It is not a problem playing the game as long as you are not making someone elses BB experience hell doing it!

Victor was a game player but said so in diaryroom "Lets get some of these suckers out of here", although that didn't help him in BB5 but UBB was acceptable. As long as you bring the audience with you when you play the game. At the end of the day it is a game but also an entertainment show!

Personally I think he had 3 motivations which were in this order:

1) Press the button first so he wouldn't be automatically evicted
2) Press the button first to get the 20 grand
3) Press the button first to evict a HM who he thought was likely to win so as to increase his chances of winning

When it was all kicking off afterwards I remember him saying "I knew that if I didn't press the button first that I was going to be evicted" or wtte

All true.

He also had a problem with Lateysha leaving her baby to be on the show - intense dislike is as good a motivation as any

I see things very differently - it was his dealings with Charlie that made me really dislike him. I didn't feel at all sorry for him as he brought most of it on himself, but then - I've never had any problem telling folk to GTFO

I also can't see what airtime he'd have had if she wasn't in there?


Can't argue with that. The look on her face was priceless and it was clear that her and her crew thought she was going to sail along all the way to the final....................oops


I don't recall him being especially efficient during the court task but he certainly knows how to stick the boot in when it counts eg his nomination of Ryan for his 'derogatory comments about men and women'

That did make me laugh, but more because of Ryan's reaction - repeating the word because he didn't know what it meant

Then came the denial but Jason was able to directly quote the offending statement about bum-love

He was a bit sly and it was only with retrospect that you could see he was storing stuff up about the ones he didn't like then using it later when it really mattered.

Probably not how I'd deal with things but it was obviously effective.

I've just remembered something else that I reckon was a bit of game-play and that was Laura when she kept banging-on about being scared to leave the house because of the crowd reactions to her. She said it time after time and IMO it was a ploy to avoid being nommed.

Didn't work though so she won't be going down in BB history as a great game-player

Perhaps a better strategy would have been to not partake in live soft porn action with Marco?

More women vote than men and women aren't going to take kindly to such shenanigans

What is the point in misunderstanding what people mean?

When a HM is accused of playing a game, or being a game-payer, that does not mean playing a game in the way that everyone in a "game" must be playing one. Instead, it means they're being dishonest, false, manipulative -- things like that.

Just imagine that the idiom didn't happen to use the word "game".


So there's noting wrong with being underhand, dishonest, or manipulative ? That is game-playing in itself in the pejorative use of the phrase. And so what if such tactics work? How's that supposed to make it ok?


So what if it makes sense? If a 'below the radar' strategy makes sense in the way you suggest, that doesn't mean that viewers can't rightly despise it.

What was the loathsome Dexter's "game plan"?


Well, one part of Vic's strategy was colluding with Marco over nominating Dan and Vanessa -- cheating.

Because it IS an 'insult', given what those using it as a negative mean by it.

That someone can give the same words some other meaning should be irrelevant.


Perhaps that's because they aren't usually playing games by pretending the phrase is being used in a way that it isn't.

The presenters sometimes fall into the "it's a game show, so it must be ok to play a game and they all must be playing one" trap.


But that's true of pretty much every negative.

The entire 'International Playboy' persona and showmance with Charley.

He later said he didn't have a game plan but he did have a strategy - like there's any discernible difference between the two.

Typical Dex - couldn't lie in bed straight, bless him.