Welcome aboard. I see this is a great way to get more participation. Malcolm was sure that everyone was voting against him but Phillip and the others were voting against Michael. That is the very definition of misreading a situation.
Yes, the idol was still going to waste but Phillip wanted to flush an idol that Malcolm could have had. He would have flushed both idols if Reynold wasn't so dumb. What Phillip did accomplish was to unveil Malcolm's duplicity so that's still something.
Like I said above, it doesn't take a genius to come up with a bluff. Any poker player knows how.