Big Brother strategy is everything a houseguest does to survive the weekly eviction vote and win the last one: the alliances they build, the lies they tell, the competitions they win or quietly lose, and the way they treat the people who will judge them on finale night. The house has been running the same experiment since 2000, and the same handful of moves keep winning it — and keep getting people evicted.
Every one of the strategies below has a season where it worked and a season where it did not. Those seasons are the point. Anyone can explain what a floater is. What matters is which floater won, which one was evicted for it, and what the voter said on the way out.
- The pawn: a nominee put up as the “safe” seat. The oldest move in the game and the one that still sends the wrong person home.
- Lying and misinformation: cover stories, planted lies and the funeral. Works until it is caught.
- Floating: never picking a side. One floater won the game; one was evicted for it by name.
- Throwing competitions: losing on purpose. Safe until the power you gave away is used on you.
- Winning competitions: the comp beast. Untouchable until the first week they can be touched.
- Winning nothing: you can skip every competition but the last one. Whoever wins the Final HOH picks who loses.
- Voting as a bloc: an alliance that never splits its vote. The modern game’s biggest idea.
- Final-two deals: the promise everyone makes. Only one can be true.
- Jury management: playing for the votes of the people you evict.
- The showmance as shield: one partner takes the target, the other survives it.
- Playing to America: the audience hands out power and money, so some houseguests play for it.
- The backdoor: nominated after the veto, with no way to play for it. Its own page.
What is a pawn in Big Brother?
A pawn is a nominee the Head of Household puts on the block with a promise that they are not the one meant to leave. Two names go up every week and the HOH usually wants only one of them gone, so the second seat goes to someone the house is expected to keep. The feed watchers of 2002 had two words for that person, decoy and pawn; by 2005 only pawn was left, and it has not changed since. The nominations page has the mechanics of the block.
It works because the HOH controls who sits beside the target, and a friendly pawn keeps a hostile one off the block. It fails for the reason every houseguest can recite and most of them ignore: pawns go home. The first two pawns of the veto era both did. Lori, in Big Brother 3, was told she was safe, went up beside Marcellas, and was evicted 5–4 on 18 July 2002 after a veto took him down; Tonya, the next week’s pawn, followed her out. The rule was already a cliché by the end of that summer.
The worst pawn in the site’s archive volunteered. In August 2011 Lawon, convinced the season’s return twist would send the evicted houseguest straight back in, offered himself to Kalia as the pawn — “Lawon says that he will be mad if I sit in that damn Jury House for six weeks but if you feel in your gut that i’ll come back, then I don’t mind.” Adam, alone in the backyard that night: “if Lawon puts himself on the block I’ll vote him out, you volunteer to go on the block you get voted out.” He went up as the replacement nominee, was evicted 6–0 by his own side on 11 August, and Brendon, not Lawon, came back through the door. One week later Dani ran the same move properly: two allies, Adam and Shelly, on the block as pawns so Brendon could be backdoored, and Brendon left 5–1.
The promise is still being made and still being broken. In July 2019 Jack told Jessica she was going up as the pawn and that he would use the veto on her, then told his allies, on the feeds, “that last part was a white lie.” And in 2025 the offer itself had become a red flag: when Zach campaigned by promising to be anyone’s future pawn, Rylie’s reaction was “I don’t need a f—ing pawn”, and Zach was evicted 8–2.
How much lying does it take to win Big Brother?
More than most winners admit and less than the villains think — and the lie that wins is almost never the biggest one. Will treated lying as a sport in Big Brother 2, said so to the other houseguests’ faces, and won anyway; the season that followed learned from him that a lie about loyalty is only as good as the day it is discovered. Lies in the house come in two kinds. The cover story protects who you are. The planted lie changes what someone else does.
The cover story’s best case is Derrick, who spent Big Brother 16 concealing that he was a police officer. The house guessed and he let them talk themselves out of it — in August 2014 Christine told him “I don’t think you are a cop you’re too cool” and Derrick answered “thanks another insult.. cops can be cool.” He won 7–2 without ever being nominated as the target. The planted lie’s best case is Dan’s funeral. Nominated beside Danielle in August 2012 with Jenn holding the veto, Dan staged a farewell, publicly cut Danielle loose, and privately sold Frank a final two and a story that Danielle had been “supposed to throw the veto.” Jenn used the veto on him; Britney went up and was evicted 4–1. That night he told Danielle what he had done: “One thing that makes me different in this game is I can play everyone’s emotions it doesn’t bother me..” Her reply: “You used my emotions as strategy.” The site’s shorthand for what he did to people, “misted,” was in its headlines by that September.
How it fails is Ronnie. In July 2009 he played both sides of the Big Brother 11 house through the second week’s vote and was found out the same night he won HOH — Jeff’s verdict on the feeds was “this year we have a puppet master and his name is Ronnie.” His own side caught him again twelve days later, and he was evicted 4–3 on 6 August. A lie that is discovered does not just cost the liar the week; it costs them every promise they make afterwards, which is why Dan’s funeral worked once and could not have worked twice.
What is a floater in Big Brother?
A floater is a houseguest who never commits to a side, and the word has meant two different things since the summer it arrived. It was born in Big Brother 4, when Alison told the Diary Room she was a floater who would go where the power was, and Julie was calling Jun and Alison “the two floaters” by August 2003. Those two were the final two. Jun won 6–1. The aggressive floater — inside more than one alliance, trading information between them — has been a winning strategy from the start.
The passive floater is the other thing, and Ronnie defined it in July 2009 talking about Kevin: “he’s a floater, he will never win HOH, he will never get blood on his hands, he will be puckering up to whoever’s in that room.” That version reliably reaches the final three and loses there — Adam in Big Brother 13, Victoria in Big Brother 16, Enzo, never once nominated, losing 9–0 in Big Brother 22. It rarely wins, and it rarely gets anyone evicted early either, which is exactly why the house tolerates it.
The word became an insult on 29 July 2010, the night Rachel won her second HOH and told Kristen that floaters had better grab a life vest. The line was aimed at a specific person and the house repeated it as a joke within the day — the site’s first record of it is Britney’s impression. Rachel was evicted two weeks later. Three summers on, production borrowed it: the 2013 press release announcing the MVP twist quoted the executive producers saying “With America rewarding good game play, it doesn’t pay to be a floater this summer.” Andy won that season 7–2 with a game built on being inside every alliance at once. The clearest case of someone evicted for floating came in 2017: at the final four of Big Brother 19, with Paul holding both HOH and veto, Christmas cast the only vote to evict Kevin — zero HOHs, zero vetoes, nominated four times — and told the house that houseguests should be judged on what they did while in power.
Why do houseguests throw competitions?
To stay off the radar, to keep an ally in power, or to avoid an HOH that would force them to pick a side — and the archive holds far more accusations than confessions. Winning the Head of Household means naming two nominees and owning the week; a houseguest sitting inside two alliances has every reason not to. The accusation is as old as the feeds; the admission almost never comes.
When it is catastrophic is easier to date. Kaysar, back in the Big Brother 6 house on the audience’s vote, held the button in the Pressure Cooker for hours and then let go for Jennifer on her sworn promise to target James. She nominated him instead, and he was evicted 7–0 on 18 August 2005, five days after handing her the power. Six years later the site watched a throw announced and then abandoned: on 9 August 2011 Dani told Kalia she would throw the week’s HOH to Shelly or Porsche, won it herself two nights later, and used it to backdoor Brendon. The same season produced the classic unproven claim — Dani and Shelly telling Rachel that Jeff had thrown the cornhole veto that let the backdoor happen. Jeff never said so, and the feeds cut the moment Rachel asked who had.
Modern houseguests are asked to throw far more often than they agree to. In August 2021, with only Cookout members left in an HOH competition, Azah asked Kyland to throw it to her; he won it instead, and she told him so in the words that became the post’s title: “BRAH I asked you to throw the comp and you didn’t.” The oldest version of the mistake is not a throw at all but a refusal to use what was won: Marcellas, in Big Brother 3, held the first veto that could save its holder, chose not to use it on himself, and left on a 1–1 tie broken by Jason on 12 September 2002. Houseguests were still citing him on this site’s comment threads twelve years later.
Can you win too many competitions in Big Brother?
Yes — but only if the streak lasts until the last competition, because the house takes the comp beast the first week it can. Janelle is the founding case. She was the last of her alliance standing in Big Brother 6 and again in All-Stars, won more than anyone, and finished third both times; in 2006 the house, unable to remove her, removed her allies one by one until there was nobody left to vote with her. The phrase itself is newer. “Comp beast” arrives on this site in August 2012, the summer Frank was either HOH or nominated every single week until the double eviction took him 3–1 on 6 September.
The pattern has not changed. Michael finished Big Brother 24 with six vetoes and nine competition wins, the best competitive season anyone had played to that point — and it ended when Turner named him the replacement nominee in the double eviction of 8 September 2022 and the house voted him out 3–0, twenty minutes after the hour started. Hisam won the week 2 HOH of Big Brother 25 and the veto in the same week; seven days later Jag took himself off the block, Felicia named Hisam as the replacement, and he went out 11–0. The beast is safe exactly as long as the streak.
It wins in two shapes. Cody won Big Brother 22 with four HOHs and four vetoes, was never nominated, and took the jury 9–0 because there was nobody else to credit. Kaycee won Big Brother 20 the other way, quietly early and then five vetoes stacked at the end, 5–4 over Tyler. The failure inside the winning shape is Paul, who ran Big Brother 19 with three HOHs and five vetoes and lost 5–4 to Josh — “Jason calls Paul out for poor jury management,” as the finale post put it. Winning everything gets you to the chair. It does not, on its own, get you the votes.
Can you win Big Brother without winning any competitions?
All season, yes. On the last night, almost never. Will won Big Brother 2 on persuasion alone, and he told Gervase how it worked: every week he lied to somebody new, swore he was finished lying, and every week they believed him again. Jun took six of the seven jury votes in Big Brother 4 moving between alliances and running side deals with Jee and Alison at the same time. Neither of them needed a competition record to be believed.
What neither could have skipped is the last one. The three-part Final HOH is the one competition in the game with no way around it, because whoever wins it chooses who sits beside them — and that choice has decided more seasons than any nomination. Rachel won it in Big Brother 13 and cut Adam. Cody won it in Big Brother 22 and cut Nicole. Jag won it in Big Brother 25 on a tiebreaker, guessed 163, and evicted Bowie Jane. Josh won parts two and three of Big Brother 19 and took Paul anyway, which is the only reason he is a winner.
Lose it and you are somebody else’s decision. Janelle was the last of her alliance standing in Big Brother 6 and the only route to the final two was winning that HOH; she did not, and she became the final juror instead. So the honest answer is that you can dodge every competition on the calendar and still be sitting in one of the last two chairs — but you will be sitting there because somebody chose to put you there, and people get chosen for being beatable.
How does voting as a bloc work?
A bloc is an alliance that votes as one and never breaks, and it is the single biggest change in how the modern game is played. The idea is older than the name. The Friendship in Big Brother 6 — five houseguests who voted together on every eviction from August 2005 onward — delivered its own final two, and Maggie beat Ivette 4–3. What changed is discipline: the modern bloc hides itself, spreads its members across other alliances, and never lets two of them sit on the block together.
The Brigade wrote the template in 2010: four men allied on Day 2, kept it secret for two months, and revealed it to Britney only on the night they evicted her — “Uhh so i’m going home is that what your telling me?” “well i’m telling you i’m not using the veto” — with Enzo explaining that he had got close to Brendon so that two Brigade members would never be nominated together. Three of the four reached the final three, and Hayden beat Lane 4–3. The Cookout perfected it in 2021. Tiffany laid the plan out on the feeds on 28 July: “the only way for this to work is none of us 6 goes home before 5” and “three in a row has to go.” Each of the six attached themselves to one outsider so the house would read them as duos, and two Cookout members never sat on the block together. All six reached the final six, and Xavier won 9–0. Between them sat Level 6, which in July 2018 one member was already calling “my baby my entire world is to protect this,” and which put two of its own in the final two; Kaycee beat Tyler 5–4. Enzo, back for All-Stars, drew the family tree in one breath: “You were the hitmen, we were the brigade, you (Tyler) were what? Tyler — Level Six.”
It fails on size. The Bomb Squad of Big Brother 16 had eight members and was declared over on 1 July 2014, six days after the premiere; the two-man deal inside it, Derrick and Cody, went the distance instead. The Leftovers of Big Brother 24 had seven, carried all seven to the final nine, and then split into sub-groups the week Kyle tried to cut Monte or Michael — “The Leftover thing is done now.” Kyle was the first member evicted, 5–0. Four to six people can hold a secret and a vote. Eight cannot.
How many final-two deals can one player hold?
As many as they can keep straight — but only one can be true, and the jury house is where the rest get compared. The clean version is a two-person deal inside a larger alliance, held from early and honoured at the end. Dan and Memphis reached the final two of Big Brother 10 together, and Dan won 7–0. Derrick and Cody, the Hitmen, did it with a third person carried as the safe seat — “We did it we’re guaranteed 50 grand dude” — and Cody, who won the final HOH, took Derrick and lost 7–2. Nine years later Jag and Matt copied it consciously: “The Hitmen played Victoria… We played Bowie.” Jag won the final HOH on a tiebreaker and beat Matt 5–2. Big D honoured a day-one deal he knew he could not win: “I would honor that deal because that deal got me to where I am today,” and Xavier took him to the end and beat him 9–0.
Cody’s second season is the other lesson. He held understandings with both Nicole and Enzo into the final three of Big Brother 22, won the last HOH, and took Enzo — “Evicts Nicole (Holy s—!)” — and the jury still went 9–0. Breaking a deal costs nothing if the jury respects the reason.
Holding several is where it collapses. Will, in All-Stars, needed Janelle and Erika each to believe she was his route to the end alongside his real partner Boogie; in September 2006 the two women compared notes, shook on their own deal, and Janelle cast the final-four vote that evicted him. Paul held so many arrangements in Big Brother 19 that Josh spent the last week convinced Paul was covered from every angle, took him to the end anyway, and won 5–4 — “The Jury laughs when they hear Josh took Paul to the end.” A year later the site was already writing about “the final 2 deals Tyler has” in week four; he lost the last vote 5–4.
What is jury management?
Playing, from the middle of the season, for the votes of the people you are about to evict. The problem was created in Big Brother 3. Danielle ran the season’s one lasting secret alliance and said exactly what she thought of everyone in the Diary Room; the evicted houseguests were not sequestered, watched the show, and voted 9–1 for Lisa on 25 September 2002. The jury has been sequestered ever since, which turned the last month of every season into a second game.
Dan played it best. In September 2008 he won a day at the beach and spent it with Michelle, the juror he had backdoored, then came back and told Keesha to finish the job; he won 7–0, the first unanimous verdict. Four years later the same player took a jury full of people he had personally blindsided to the end and lost 6–1 to Ian, Danielle’s the only vote. His own account of the plan, given to that jury, was that being hated was what got him to the chair. It got him there. It did not get him the votes.
Paul is the failure case twice over: 5–4 to Nicole in 2016, then, after saying on the feeds that this time he would manage the jury through his goodbye messages, 5–4 to Josh in 2017. The margins are that thin. Kaycee’s vote in Big Brother 20 sat at 4–4 until Bayleigh’s key. And a jury can be won from the bottom of the house: Taylor was nominated three times in the first month of Big Brother 24 and won it 8–1. Enzo asked the question every finalist asks in a post title of his own: “Did I do enough jury management to beat Cody?” He had not; it was 9–0.
Is a showmance a strategy?
It can be, when one partner absorbs the target and the other survives it. A showmance is always read by the house as a pair of votes, so the house always has a reason to break it, and it usually breaks it by taking the partner who wins competitions first. The other partner inherits a jury vote and, often, the season. The showmances page has the pairs themselves; this is the game around them.
Jeff and Jordan set the template in 2009: Jeff, the competition threat, was evicted 2–1 on 3 September, and Jordan won 5–2 twelve days later. Brendon was evicted from Big Brother 13 twice, once before the audience sent him back and once after, and Rachel won 4–3 with his vote among her four. Corey took the final-four cut in Big Brother 18 — James’s sole vote — and “Corey votes for Nicole” was one of the five that beat Paul. Jackson and Holly reached the final two together in 2019 and the jury split 6–3.
It fails when the pair is the target rather than one of them. Cody was the second-week target of Big Brother 19, came back through the Battle Back, and then he and Jessica were evicted in consecutive weeks, 7–1 and 7–0. Swaggy was backdoored 8–4 in the second week of Big Brother 20 and Bayleigh followed a month later. Rachel and Brendon, the first time round in 2010, were both gone by the double eviction. The shield only works if the house is willing to stop at one.
What does playing to America mean?
Playing for the audience’s vote as well as the house’s, because the audience has been handing out power and money since 2005. Kaysar was the first houseguest the viewers put back in: 82 percent of the vote returned him to Big Brother 6 on 11 August 2005, and the house evicted him again 7–0 a week later. The audience’s favourite is not the house’s. Two years on, Eric played an entire season on viewer instructions, which taught the next twenty casts that somebody outside the walls was keeping score.
What the score buys is real. Jeff’s following delivered him the Coup d’État in 2009 and the favourite-houseguest prize twice, the only repeat. Elissa won the viewer-voted MVP three weeks running in 2013 and named a third nominee each time — until the fourth week, when the twist flipped and the same audience put her on the block. The modern payout is the favourite prize itself: Tyler lost Big Brother 20 by a vote and collected it the same night; Tucker took $50,000 in 2024 without reaching the jury. Only Taylor, in 2022, has won the game and the audience in the same season.
It fails when a houseguest misreads the room they cannot see. In August 2014 Frankie, banking Team America money with Derrick, said on the feeds that “People love me and people love him (Donny)”; Derrick’s answer was “you want a show america we’ll give you a show.” Donny took the favourite prize with five million votes, Zach and Nicole were the next two, and Frankie was not on the list. Playing for the cameras rewards the visible move. Playing for the jury rewards the relationship. The players who win both are the ones the cameras barely notice.
What about the backdoor?
A backdoor is a target nominated after the veto ceremony, so they never get the chance to play for the veto and save themselves. It is the one move on this list built entirely out of the rules rather than the people, and a houseguest invented it — Nakomis worked it out in Big Brother 5 and the house called it the Six Finger Plan. The backdoor has its own page.