The most important thing to bear in mind with these games is that they are all about the numbers.
I always make sure that I have at LEAST two F3 alliances with 4 unique players before the game even starts. Controlling 5/15 votes from the start is a huge reduction of risk.
Ideally, I would like to control 8/15 of the votes from Day 1, but this isn't always possible. The key to staying alive in this game is to either control the majority outright, or, if that is not possible, make sure the majority is splintered at least into two distinct groups.
Everyone is paranoid at the beginning, so if you are in control of only 5/15 votes, planting some extra paranoia between two players outside your alliance is usually enough to ensure that the first few eliminations are outside your core group.
If you are the lynchpin between two unique and disconnected F3 alliances, controlling 5 votes, and playing at least 2 of the remaining 10 players against one another, the odds are heavily stacked that you'll find yourself controlling 5/13 votes or better. If you guess correctly, and the two players you pick to manipulate initially are in separate alliances of their own, it's quite likely you can spark a mini-war that will narrow the field to 10 or fewer without ever touching yourself or a single one of your allies.
If you find yourself at 9 with control of 5 votes, you can pretty much buckle up to sail to the finals. If you want to shake things up and eliminate one or more players from your own alliance, plan these moves for the 9, 7, or 5 slots, as you can easily make these votes come out as 5-4, 4-3, or 3-2, making it far less likely that you will be suspected as a betrayer.
At the end of the day, if you've arrived at 9 with control of a majority of votes, either through sabotage or through artful diplomacy and forming multiple alliances, the game becomes heavily stacked in your favor. From that point on, all you need to do is keep the rest of the votes from talking to each other, eliminate votes you can't trust, and block the possibility of a majority building against you. If you can do all of that, there's no reason you shouldn't expect to make final 3 each and every time you play.
If you can keep the numbers in mind, and play to them, you will win games.
