825 SBD is the biggest prize I’ve won in my life. So it makes it very special. And being a substantial amount, it allows me re-invest into steem(it) in a big way.

My Thoughts on Winning The Big Prize:

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This month is my birthday month. And I’ve been getting a lot of good news - like the time I became whale for a day. It feels delightful when you get birthday presents in such unexpected ways.

So I woke up today to the news that I had won Season 4 of the most awesome game on the Steemit Platform, or probably the entire planet.

If you don’t know what Steem-Pocalypse is, head over to @papa-pepper’s blog right now, follow him and read about it in the latest post here.

My Journey:

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The game is quite simple, but as you can see, the payout is pretty huge.

Each season starts with a signup post, the signup for season 5 will happen tomorrow.

I died very early in the last season, the first time I participated.

So my personal goal for this season was to atleast make it a little further. I guess I went much further than I expected, which is not really a bad thing. And this is the greatest part about Survival Games - to expect the unexpected.

In my case, it worked out pretty good!

You will be presented with several options, and you have to choose the most likely option to keep you alive.

Simple, isn’t it?

The options sometime allow you to use your skills, sometimes you’re plain clueless. And the fact that you never know what might happen next, what painful death awaits you makes it so exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time.

But it’s all about the fun - you have to navigate crazy wilderness and dangerous terrains, eat strange items and ingest what could be your last drink, stay away from unfriendly weirdos but at the same time be on the lookout for helpful allies. You also have the option to team up with other players along the way.

Season 4 was the season where we all started out solo, and for me it remained like that till the end.

You will have 2 rounds in a day, and you have to eat once in 2 days.

This season ended with day 10 round 1.

The Win:

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On day 10 round 1, we were presented with two options, to either head up to the stream or walk into the woods. I commented on the post that I would go and do a coin toss.

Heads for option 1, tails for option 2. Although I wanted to go for option 1 since I felt that we might get something to eat near the water, I didn’t know what the result of the coin toss would be.

Luckily, the coin toss came up with the right answer and saved me from death by deadly white flowers.

Thanks:

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I enjoyed playing alongside wonderful people all through the season. A big shout-out to the other team that made it to the top 2 - Team TEAM consisting of @keepdoodling and @bycz. @keepdoodling created some sensational doodles during game-play. Congratulations to you both!

Thank you @papa-pepper. The man is truly amazing. I’m not saying this simply because I won the contest. He puts an incredible about of effort into his content and his contests (yes, he runs one more contest). He is generous, helpful and a role-model for several steemians like me.

Parting Thoughts - The Importance Of Contests:

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The prize pool this time was a whopping 1100 Steem Dollars. Do you think you could get that kind of money anywhere else and that too just for choosing options?

Most newcomers join steemit and get disheartened after a couple of weeks when they don’t see the results they expect. Yet contests are a great way to gain exposure, have some fun and earn some steem while you’re at it.

I had previously made an extensive list of contests which can be found here.

Finally, I would like to quote the wise words of the man behind steem-pocalypse,

Don’t waste your time online, invest it with steemit.com

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Thanks for reading @jznsamuel