Reading Opponents and Blocking in Ticket to Ride

The midgame lesson gave you a list of things to watch: the face-up row, where trains point, ticket draws, and train counts. This lesson turns that list into a picture of each opponent’s plan, and then into a decision: when is a block worth it?

Guessing tickets from the board

Tickets are secret, but railroads are not. A player’s trains are a drawing of their tickets.

Look at the ends. A railroad’s loose ends point toward where it still needs to go. A line that runs east from Helena and stops at Duluth is heading somewhere: Sault Ste. Marie, Chicago, Toronto. The ticket value lesson showed that tickets follow shortest paths closely, so a line usually keeps going roughly the way it started.

Look at the odd routes. A short route far from the rest of a player’s trains is often a claim into a dead end, made early because it was scarce. It marks a ticket city.

Look at the edges. Ticket cities are often at the edges of the map: Seattle, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Montréal. A railroad heading toward an edge city with only a few ways in tells you which routes it needs.

Use the ticket list. The USA tickets are a fixed set of 33. With some practice you will know that a line from the Pacific Northwest toward the Southeast probably carries Portland to Nashville or something like it.

Reading the hand

The face-up row is public. Every card a player takes tells you a color they want, and that color plus their railroad’s direction usually names the route.

• Colors taken from the row narrow the route. Three yellows and a line pointing at a yellow route means it is coming.
• Hand size tells you how soon. A player with a dozen cards can claim a long route, or claim several times in a row.
• Blind draws hide information. A player who suddenly switches to blind draws may be saving for something they do not want you to see.

Ticket draws and train counts

A player who draws tickets mid-game is confident in their network. Expect their new goals near their current trains. A player who draws tickets late, with few trains left, may now hold a ticket they cannot finish. Ending the game quickly punishes that.

Train counts tell you the clock. The player with the fewest trains decides when the game ends. In a tournament game at the World Boardgaming Championships, train, card, and ticket counts are public information, so ask when you need them.

The block decision

A block is a route you claim mainly to stop someone else. It always costs you a turn and trains. It pays when the detour it forces costs your rival much more.

Do the math in trains and turns:

• Your cost: the trains you spend, minus the route points you score, and the turn you did not use for your own plan.
• Their cost: the extra trains on their detour, the extra turns to draw and claim it, and the risk that they cannot finish the ticket at all, which costs them double the ticket’s value.

A block that works

At 2 or 3 players, only one of the two 1-train routes between Seattle and Vancouver can be claimed. If a rival needs Vancouver and is building up the coast from Seattle, claiming that single route costs you 1 train and earns 1 point. Their detour runs through Calgary: 4 trains from Seattle to Calgary, then 3 to Vancouver. That is 6 extra trains and an extra claim, and the colors may not match their hand.

At 4 or 5 players, the same block does nothing. The second route of the pair is still open.

A block that does not

Say a rival’s railroad already runs through Charleston and Atlanta, and they need Miami. Claiming the 4-train route from Charleston to Miami looks like a block, but the 5-train route from Atlanta to Miami is still open. You spent 4 trains, and they spend 1 extra. Unless the route is on your own plan, that is a bad trade.

Who to block

Block the player who can beat you. At three or more players, a block also helps everyone you did not block. Slowing the leader can be worth it; slowing the player in last almost never is, and it can decide the game for someone else, a problem our piece on kingmaking covers. At two players, every block is direct, as the two-player lesson explains.

The best block is one you would claim anyway: a route on your own path that a rival also needs. Then you lose nothing, and they lose the route.

Keep it friendly

Blocking is part of the game, and at most tables it is rare. Players who block often can sour a family night, and our piece on take-that games explains why some tables love direct interference and others do not. Know your group. In a tournament, block without apology. At home with a nine-year-old, maybe let the route go.