A very bright spot for me in the dreary year that has been 2020 is Ticket to Ride.

Ticket to Ride (or “the train game”) was created in 2004 and the very simple idea of the game is you draw some route cards and try to build your train across the map. Different length routes are worth different amounts and there are some bonus options. The goal is to have the most points at the end of the game.

I first encountered this game on a cruise ship in 2012. My friends and I quickly became obsessed and spent every free moment we could find sitting in the Officer’s Bar, playing this game. I would even venture to say it is one of the many things my friend Iris, who now blogs over at Life of Iris about cruising and travel life, bonded over.

It seems so simple – and it is – but it’s highly addictive. You see, other people are also trying to build their routes, so their plans get in your way. You have to decide which thing you’re going to do each turn – place a piece of track, pick up route color cards, or select more route cards.

There is a lot of decision making, developing plans, having your plans destroyed, and calculating backup plans.

When I got off that ship, I learned that one of my best friend’s had also played Ticket to Ride and loved it.

As I traveled the world, we realized there was an app version you could download and occasionally a few of those ship friends or the BFF would play it.

Over time, our lives picked up, our playing dwindled, and the train game just faded from our everyday lives.

Enter April 2020. As I sat on my couch one night, wondering what was even happening with life, the BFF send me a text – “want to play Ticket to Ride?”

And it began again. And there are so many maps on the app! And only one of you needs to own the map for everyone to play on it! So we joked we would take turns buying a new map a month (we already had U.S.A. and Europe from way back when) until the pandemic ended.

How naïve we were. In November, we bought the last map in the app (step it up, Ticket to Ride app, I know there are other maps out there you can convert). I have definitely spent more hours playing Ticket to Ride this year than with actual humans.

As we’ve been playing our mega-championship tournament this month (that’s where I neurotically track our outcomes as we play through every map this month for an uber-winner at the end), I realized there are a lot of financial applications to Ticket to Ride.

You’re dealt what you’re dealt.

Which can be utter garbage sometimes. There have been several games we’ve played where someone got a perfect set of cards on the initial route draw. They dovetail into one another and make a nearly perfect line and they’re all worth a ton of points.

Other times you get four random 5-point routes that are nowhere near each other. How could you ever compete against that other perfect hand? Spoiler, you probably can’t. Though you also don’t know the other person is playing with that perfect hand till the end of the game. And they don’t know you’re playing this futile hand that is highly unlikely to get you a win.

Your best bet is to pull more route cards and hope you get a few to give you a shot at some real points, but while you’re doing that, you’re falling behind racking up color cards and claiming route segments.

It’s just a garbage situation to be in sometimes, but it is what it is.

LOL – were you here today for inspirational content? It’s 2020, ya’ll. There’s just garbage. 5 points from Denver to El Paso for everyone.

Sometimes the rules aren’t always clear.

Funny story, my brother hates this game and it’s all because he misunderstood a piece of the instructions the first time we played and never got over it. He thought he could put down his whole route in one go instead of section by section.

We got really far into the game with him having no trains down and finally I was like “what are you doing?” He smugly was like “leave me alone, I have a plan.” A few minutes later he tried to put down a full train run from NYC to Los Angeles. Nope. Hilarious. He was so mad. He lost.

If people who love you are asking “what are you doing?” Maybe a key time to reevaluate your plan. Doesn’t mean they’re right (unless it’s your big sister questioning you, she’s probably right). But it is worth double checking you’ve at least got all the rules right, especially if you’re “playing” something for the first time.

I super effed up a retirement account choice because I misunderstood one of the rules. There were much better options for where to stash self-employed retirement money than the one I picked because I just misunderstood a few of the rules. The hassle to convert it is a lot, so there’s a good chance I’ll just leave that alone in all it’s unoptimized glory – and also as a reminder to make sure I’m clear on the rules when making a financial decision.

You can’t do everything at once.

Ticket to Ride is a constant reminder of this. I want to draw those two green cards that just wound up in the river but I also want to claim this route. If I claim the route, will one of my competitors claim those green cards (probably, gosh darnit, we all always seem to be going for the same colored cards).

Sometimes you claim the route and then the green cards are still there and isn’t life good? Lots of times though, you pick a path and that other option disappears, which is frustrating AF.

It’s like when have $100 extra and what do you do with it? You want takeout. But also to pay off some extra debt. Also to save that money for your emergency fund. But really you kind of need to pick one option and go with it (and it’s cool if sometimes that option is takeout, you do you, boo).

Thanks for mentally preparing me for all that frustration, TTR.

Sometime you win, even when you didn’t think you would.

Going back to that not knowing what’s in everyone’s hand thing – sometimes you’re playing your worst game ever and are fairly resigned to a sweeping loss, and at the end, as you watch your opponents cards being tallied, you realize they weren’t completing any of their hands either and apparently you were playing a pretty equal garbage game all along.

This reminds me a little of the idea of keeping up with the Joneses. In the game, it feels (to me anyway) like the opponent is ahead when they go to pull more route cards. Like, what?!? You completed all yours already?

In reality, I might be working on 3 slow and steady 20+ point routes and they might have 12 5 point routes. And I might have messed up their ability to claim two of those routes anyway, so I’m sitting there thinking they’re holding 100+ points in finished routes and in reality, they’re trying to claw their way back up from -30 points in routes they can’t even claim anymore.

I might get it in my head that I should pull more route cards, even though I’ve already got my plan and it’s going well. An extra route card could mess up the whole plan.

It’s like having a decent house and car and thinking, but I want a brand new car. Things were fine. The new car is an unnecessary financial strain. Or even worse, it’s like pulling cards that only have routes that are nowhere near your plan and now you don’t even have enough trains to complete them anyway.

Now you’re in a cycle of pulling more and more route cards to hopefully fix this mess, but now it’s a gamble instead of a careful plan and you might just dig yourself deeper and deeper.

Anyway. Let the Jones’ live their best life. You live yours with the 3 slow and steady 20+ point cards.

Defeat is temporary.

There’s always another round to be played. Learn what you can from the defeat. Sometimes it was an avoidable mistake. Sometimes it just is what it is.

And then be ready to go for another round. Because –

Victory is sweet.

Though also fleeting.

What have you gotten into during the pandemic to stay sane?

Also, this is not a sponsored link, but I would be remiss if I didn’t direct you to where you can find hours of fun playing Ticket to Ride on Apple or Android devices. And feel free to hit me up to play if you download it – MelliVanelli.