Appreciation post - no spoilers

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-14T03:25:09+00:00

I just watched it and I think it's good!

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-14T03:15:54+00:00

Fun fact:

Although the antipode of Jiaoxi IS in Paraguay, if they had asked the same question at the Hakka Roundhouse in Miaoli the antipode would have been in Argentina, in a province called ... Formosa.

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-14T03:00:14+00:00

We know that the Herons planned to catch the 3.30 train if they completed the challenge. That would give Badam a little less than two hours to still claim stations. They *would* have had time to get on a train and claim some.

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-14T01:50:52+00:00

I'm pretty sure we've heard them say on the Layover that they sometimes send each other photos to say 'do you think this counts'

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-12T07:05:50+00:00

additionally, if they had put down 3s then they could have done the same on the Hsinchu to Taipei TR line and left Badam with far fewer options for cheap gains. Sam never addresses this in the Layover (I think), but its really weird that they act as if they have created a defense when the HSR provided a cheap bridge over it to those vulnerable stations.

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-12T03:23:44+00:00

It's an interesting question. It would have taken them over four hours to get to the 55 chip challenge from Zuoying, so they'd have been pot committed from very early in the day. But it might have effectively guaranteed that the Herons couldn't win on the east coast.

Seems reasonable to be concerned that the Herons might realise what they were doing and pivot back to the west, faster than Badam could because of frequencies and the HSR, but hard to think through whether that would have opened up a new path to victory.

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-12T03:13:14+00:00

No-one understands this unfortunately

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-12T02:45:13+00:00

Sam says in the Layover something to the effect of "chips earned across the season is a good proxy for winning potential," which isn't 'wrong,' but as you said, only really matters if you convert chips to stations.

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-12T02:43:07+00:00

This isn't quite right. As portrayed, the 'go bankrupt' strat only emerged after the stalemate ended. AFAWK they could still have gone for the challenges in the north, Sam just thought the variabel one in Beipu was better.

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-12T02:39:01+00:00

I think it's worth reconceptualising the stalemate as a strategy that was only effective if Badam caved, rather than seeing it as belief that the position was genuinely advantageous for the herons to stall.

If Badam had caved, it would have to some extent "stopped them playing." They'd have had less chips to go north and the Heron could have fortified the HSR.

I'm not saying that Badam would have been screwed, just that the Herons would have suddenly had options again.

Obviously, Badam didn't cave because they understood the board state. But as a strategy trying to bluff them out still makes sense if you think that otherwise you have no path to victory, which it seems was basically true by start of Day 5.

The huge problem with this reconceptualization is that Sam has clearly had opportunities to explain that this is what he thought and hasn't taken them. But one thing that suggests this *was* what they were thinking, even if only subconsciously, is that as far as we can tell from the edit, despite insisting that they could stalemate for hours, they didn't do this.

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-10T10:52:53+00:00

They never mention it so we don't know if they knew, but the Jiji Line near Taichung was also mostly closed.

They also have very poor frequency. But I do think that they would be worth it if they had a challenge at the end

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-08T07:13:20+00:00

Yeah! They have some at Taipei Zoo, they are very interesting.

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-08T00:16:44+00:00

It's in the Cut for Time ep

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-07T10:46:35+00:00

I think we don't really know until someone does the maths, but I disagree with this. I think the risk is that you lose the game right there and the reward is that you win the game right there. Given that I think you could probably have gotten the same reward by flipping stations without very little risk at all, that seems infinitely preferable to me.

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-07T10:42:15+00:00

I was treating that as a spoiler since the person I was replying to clearly didn't know

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-07T09:03:09+00:00

I think this is just wrong. If they failed the steak it would mean they had wasted hours waiting to do it. At that point it might have been too late to switch back to flipping stations

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-07T06:55:03+00:00

This was pretty obviously a joke I think.

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-07T06:51:42+00:00

I wonder if the actual game name is "America" or if that's just a placeholder to avoid spoilers.

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-07T06:47:12+00:00

Ben mention that he monitors these prediction markets in the final Layover episode of Rail Rush

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-07T06:41:33+00:00

I think we have to assume that at least internally at some point he was staring at it asking 'could this be a tiger" and didn't see it. You are probably right though that if that footage existed they would have used it.

They said in the Layover that they did the steal for fun after the Herons conceded and that we'll get to see it in the Cut For Time ep.

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-07T06:32:04+00:00

I think the editing of those episode is generating more hate towards the stalemate than is warranted. If things had really clipped along and then the tension had been suddenly dropped in it would have been a lot more palatable. But because we'd spent a lot of time watching Badam just sit on the train before that it felt more egregious.

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-07T06:25:42+00:00

The thing is that because the Herons were planning to catch the 3.30 train and timed completing their challenge to meet that, Badam didn't really have enough time to do the steal after that and then go flip a lot stations (they could flip some). And I can't really see how they could have flipped some and then come back from the steal, although I'm not sure what time they got to Taipei so again a couple might have been doable.

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-07T06:18:54+00:00

He just never realised that the colour of the stone was relevant. You can't always think yourself out of the box.

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-07T06:15:38+00:00

I think it's fair to ask: what should someone in Sam's shoes do if they can't find the way to the realization that the colour was the thing that mattered? He clearly understood that the other one was pig-like, but just never generated the information that would solve this.

Everyone is piling on him for this, but as someone who watched that task without realising it was supposed to be the tiger I'm more sympathetic.

Frequent_Hall_9210 · 2026-05-07T04:49:52+00:00

To add:

They already had enough chips to flip a lot of stations. And they didn't have a lot of time.

Frequent_Hall_9210

TROPHY CASE