The trains abide

My hobbies include thinking "they're clearly X!", clicking with confidence, then realizing I mixed up X and Y

I haven't latched on to a daily puzzle in a while. This is lovely

I solved the daily #CluesBySam, Jan 27th 2026 (Medium), in less than 9 minutes
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cluesbysam.com

Weekend plans!

I got 4 actions in a row randomly. I used 3 actions to auction shares and 1 action to build because… Winsome things

#WinsomeGames

Apparently it was already on my long-dormant podcast app account… I've learned my app now supports 4x speed now and, uh, music is weird at 4x speed

G15? More like R18

Yes, the tiles are odd. It took me a bit to rationalize the XX tiles. Now that I've memorized all the shapes, I'll work on the important quantities, and identifying likely shortages

18GB board with labyrinth tiles featuring unusual track

I finally tried #18GB on Saturday. I had a good time, even playing past midnight.

I keep thinking about the timing of selling a company off and letting it run itself. Be free little company… so I can invest elsewhere.

#18XX

Metro board filled with spaghetti-like track

Finally tried Metro by Dirk Henn. I did a lot of defensive plays and had some mishaps, including refusing to play the (only) tile on my hand for much of the game. Opportunity cost is real and it can hurt you, or at least your score

Dooley - 10 wins Ranked run A Gold run at day 12

I'm also very grateful to streamers (Trynet, Tajsama, Time4Miracle) for helping me understand the game. I learned a bunch about both playing well and having fun with The Bazaar.

FWIW, I think something like this is good for Ignition Core, but it's more flexible
bazaartracker.gg/runs/7d8249e...

Dooley - 10 wins Ranked run A Gold run at day 11

Shout out to the BazaarTracker, which helped me figure out this is probably an optimal set of items for a Monitor Lizard build. They recently added stats about item uses and triggers, which is very helpful for understanding item tradeoffs

bazaartracker.gg/runs/7991630...

Post-run screen showing legend, at # 1,657

Goal achieved: I hit the highest ranked tier (legend) in The Bazaar. On the leaderboard, I'm currently rank # 1,656 out of ~6,300 at this rank

The current ranked system isn't very meaningful, but I'm pleased I reached a level of experience and proficiency. It's been fun to learn #TheBazaar

Here, you need to resolve the case where we picked the normal goat . Maybe the 'simplest' modification is to eliminate it: it's impossible we picked the normal goat, and we have a 1/2 chance of getting the special goat

Another set of interpretations: the host knows to show neither the car nor the special goat (e.g. assumes we want car, special goat charges appearance fee), so:
• 1/3 we picked special goat, host shows normal
• 1/3 we picked car, the host shows normal
• 1/3 we picked normal … another rule is needed

For that scenario (random goat, can't pick shown door) we shouldn't switch:
• 2/6 we won with our original pick
• 1/6 we'd win if we switch
• 3/6 we know we lost because the host showed the special goat

One interpretation: the host is always shows a goat (i.e not car) at random and we can't choose the door they showed:
• 1/3 we picked special goat, host shows normal
• 1/3 we picked normal goat, host shows special
• 1/3*1/2 we picked car, host shows special
• 1/3*1/2 we picked car, host shows normal

This seems like an under-specified problem where you get different answers depending on how you interpret it. I'll provide one interpretation and analysis that feels like a 'minimal' modification…

Ah, you're using the Palpatine Single Bidder Open Choice Minimum Maximum Constrained Price Auction? It's very streamlined, very demure: a player selects an item and pays the listed price.

The real trains are the friends we made along the way … or so the MTA tries to convince me

Link costs, eh? 🕵️‍♀️