Ticket To Ride: Elite Lobby

[@sjcak]

From ~6:35 - 8:40 green had a Saint Louis-Nashville sized hole in their route - given we were heading that way, I think taking that route would've been advantageous, both to make the life of the strongest player more difficult, and keep our future route options as open as possible. When we eventually took a Nashville route, it took many turns to complete as the only way in was triple white.

[@joshdavis3743]

Someone call a doctor, that was a bloodbath.

[@glenm99]

I liked the risky play! It definitely feels like the right strategy against such strong opponents. Plus, you know... it's entertaining!

[@roverthtaeh]

Surprised, given the high ELOs on show, that some of the obvious blocking opportunities weren't taken by any of the players, particularly early on.

[@arivald6677]

Intentional blocking is bad in 90% cases, good players will not block you as its slows down both you and person blocking you, but helps 2 other players. You block only if you need the game to last few turns longer and by blocking specific route you delay player that was about to trigger endgame - so if blocking - block the top dog. Matt wasn't a threat to them this game, he didn't hold the most important routes for them (New York area) unfortunely he didn't realise this early and played bit too panicky. There was no reason to resign on longest train card for example. New players don't block because they want to be nice, veterans don't block because its waste of tempo and resources so playing it calm and collecting cards is often right - only exception is if you're in 4p game with ELO 150-250 range you should be extra careful. That being said people will take key routes super early so stuff like: LA-LV, Houston - New Orleans, will be gone after first circle often so there's a lot of unintentional blocking by people just taking good routes.

[@roverthtaeh]

Beg to differ. A strategic block can almost eliminate a player. Now you have a 1 in 3 chance of winning. I've used blocking to great effect before. And been blocked to great effect, too! I was also not referring to Matt being blocked. Each to their own!

[@arivald6677]

@@roverthtaeh Congratulation you spent resources on blocking that poor guy, he's definitely not doing well. One enemy less. Yay!... except not really 2 other guys just got way more ahead, they did all the work with your hands.

[@roverthtaeh]

Thanks. Obviously, deeper game theory has passed you by. If someone has bigger tickets than you, through luck of the draw, then blocking them is your best strategy. As for enemies, who cares!

[@wfchannel4673]

yeah, this game basically game down to ticket draws. you were in decent shape to play a west coast game, but you need to draw west coast tickets to do that and you unfortunately did not.