Blais Finally Wins Russian Railroad Final!

Russian Railroads 2025 saw steady numbers that were nearly identical to 2024. Thank you to everyone who played this year!

As will happen in this game, the scores varied wildly from game to game. Rob Kircher’s 470 points was the most scored in the Heats, and the lowest winning score was Matt Lahut’s 276. Generally, a ‘good score’ is over 400 points, with 500 being a great score. Curt Collins II scored the closest victory, a one point win over Dan Elkins, and Roger Jarrett had the largest margin of victory, which was 163 points.

Through three Heats, there were 16 different winners. Defending champ Curt Collins II, who played all three Heats, was the only double winner. All winners could advance to the Semifinal. Three of those winners didn’t show up to the Semifinal, which allowed three alternates to play.

Semifinal:

Jon Stern narrowly beat Ray Wolff by two points.

1. 459 - Jon Stern
2. 457 - Ray Wolff
3. 399 - Rob Kircher
4. 390 - Curt Collins II

Aaron Blair won a game where the top two players got zero combined points for engineers.

1. 453 - Aaron Blair
2. 405 - Bronwyn Woods
3. 369 - Mitzi Hubble
4. 314 - Tricia Wolff

Dominic Blais won by the largest margin in the Semifinal.

1. 434 - Dominic Blais
2. 361 - Roger Jarrett
3. 357 - Matt Lahut
4. 345 - David Platnick

Chad Martin barely bested Allan Jiang by two points.

1. 426 - Chad Martin
2. 424 - Allan Jiang
3. 349 - Mark Jensen
4. 328 - Tom Lind

The Final, surprisingly, had one player not show, Aaron Blair had to leave the convention early. That left us with a three player final. A three player game is different than a four player in a couple different ways. First, it’s one round shorter, meaning that it might be tougher for the top track players to score as many points as possible since they rely on the later rounds for the big points surge. Second, the players each get an extra worker each round. This helps ensure the board isn’t too open for players to just take whatever they want without opposition.

In round one, Jon Stern took the early lead even though he appeared to be taking the top track. This is thanks to taking an engineer and using another on the board that gave points. Dominic ignored track entirely in the first round, taking gold, the extra workers, and lots of industry. Plus, he built a factory. Chad spent every action he had to move the bottom black track and collect another worker.

Scores after round one:

• 12 - Jon Stern
• 6 - Chad Martin
• 5 - Dominic Blais

In round two, Dominic continued to blitz the industry track unopposed. He also managed to unlock his worker along the bottom track. Chad gained an engineer and worked on his top track, providing some competition for Jon who was set up to unlock his extra top track worker in the following round.

After round two, Dominic had taken a slight lead, which is expected when using the bottom track strategy:

• 28 - Dominic Blais
• 22 - Jon Stern
• 16 - Chad Martin

In round three, Dominic and Jon both unlocked their bonus cards. Dominic took the extra black worker, and Jon selected the size nine train. Chad began taking industry, now competing with Dominic there. Jon spent time obtaining some trains, and Dominic joined the battle for most engineers. All players now had one.

Dominic was pulling slightly ahead after the third round, marking the halfway point:

• 63 - Dominic Blais
• 47 - Jon Stern
• 28 - Chad Martin

Chad unlocked his bonus car in round four and elected to take the extra engineer. Added to the engineer he bought with a coin; he was now up by two on both Dominic and Jon. Jon was maximizing his size nine train on the bottom track, now collecting the full forty five points per round for building out the black track and having the gray track medallion in play. Dominic continued to advance his industry, reaching the twenty point per round space, as well as completing his gray track medallion.

Dominic was now well ahead of the others with only two rounds to play:

• 126 - Dominic Blais
• 88 - Jon Stern
• 74 - Chad Martin

Dominic got his second engineer in round five. He also began dabbling in top track points, having collected 3 double tokens. Chad made a big move by unlocking the white track on top, along with having the doubler tokens to make it that much more potent. Jon Worked out building out his tan track to maximize the use of his own doublers.

Going into the final round, Dominic was ahead, but it wasn’t over yet:

• 217 - Dominic Blais
• 172 - Jon Stern
• 167 - Chad Martin

In the final round, Jon and Dominic took all of the trains, locking Chad out. Chad only had a size six train on the top track, but he had moved his white track five spaces. He hadn’t unlocked the points increase for brown-tan-white track though. Jon unlocked his white track and did have the points increase in play. He only had one total engineer though, so he would not be getting the end game points the other players were getting. Dominic scored some points by getting black track to the end using his extra black worker.

At the end of round six the scores were:

• 334 - Dominic Blais
• 319 - Jon Stern
• 284 - Chad Martin

Chad easily scored forty points for having the most engineers, and Dominic scored twenty points for his two. Jon scored the most for his bonus card: twenty nine points, but Dominic also scored twenty eight for his. Chad scored just a few less, twenty four.

The final scores were:

• 382 - Dominic Blais
• 348 - Chad Martin
• 348 - Jon Stern

Dominic had finally won the Russian Railroads tournament! He has been in the Final more than anyone else, and finally brings home the win. Second place, however, was a tie! There really isn’t a great way to break a tie in Russian Railroads. The current tournament rule is that whoever went later in turn order in the final round wins the tie. That was Chad, so Jon was third.