you're missing the essential ingredient:

1. winner-takes-all

in any situation where the spoils of victory are shared its best to align with the most competent. contrarily, when the winner gets everything, like life or the girl or the title, its almost always best to team up with your fellow incompetents to take down the likely victor.

the game show survivor strikes me as especially illustrative. players routinely gang-up on those perceived to be the most competent to increase everyone's chances of winning. once their usefulness as a workhorse or a ''challenge winner'' has been exhausted, or at least no longer outweighs concerns about winning a million bucks (as soon as the perceived probability of winning exceeds some minimum), the "strongest" or "most (apparently) cunning" player is often ousted..