I was rooting primarily for Yohwan, but no denying the most deserving player won it. Just an incredibly sick run spanning two seasons. Sangmin def enters the conversation about GOAT reality player. Unparalleled domination.

Very enjoyable season again, though I did prefer season 1.

Now I'm off to find season 3 which I think someone said wasn't uploaded yet though

Oh lol and there's something funny about Yohwan being the one to finish second in The Genius Game while Jinho finished first.

Excellent. Only 1 returnee who's barely even a returnee :P

At the moment I am rooting for the poker player (ldo) and the guy who betrayed the watermelon alliance (Guymin something?). I perceive Dongmin as this season's Sangmin/villain and hope that he makes it far as well.

Obviously rooting hard for Jinho to defeat Jiwon and stay alive, but after the dice game this round I feel like Jinho could go on to win the show yet again and I'd still regard Sangmin as the generally better player.

Jumped out of my chair when he said he'd throw away his second marker.

If I'm Sangmin and I have 2/3 of the garnets in play plus the token of immortality, I'm doing what I can to essentially buy a win this round by passing on cubes with my garnets. I'll clearly be the biggest target regardless of anything else that could happen from this point forward so when spent garnets are staying in play rather than going to The Bandage Hyung I'd happily spend at least 10 to ensure I still have the token at F5.

The Burglar episode...can't believe that the big town residents (specifically Guru and JinHo) managed to completely screw up an easy win after they found out that Sungyu was burglar in round 2. Easily the worst gameplay of the season so far, maybe followed by Cheongyop giving away his zombie potion in Ep. 4 at the very last second, then getting promptly eliminated.

Really liked the Indian Poker death match, although I kind of chuckled that the show made it seem like JinHo used his "advanced" card counting technique to win, when in reality he kind of just coolered Guru in a key spot with a 2 showing versus a 1.

THe game is definitely not as easy as you think it is. ZYou also need to define"easy win" because small town wins(small town resident wins and big town resident will lose) if they cannot form alliance with sungyyu the burgalar and trust him, and get majority in both(from quick mental scenarios)

JUst go through what you think the "easy" win scenario is, just realize that at the very end if small town is occupied with 2 small town and 1 big town and its the 9th round and big town is sending over the burgalar, small town will send a small town(majority), and they will easily have the most coins in big town since they have been stolen from at most 1 time.

I also think your easy win strategy might involve a big town resident losing, which then begs the question, who would sacrifice like that? Someone from big town is going to be on small town at the end, and they need to make sure that person isnt lowest in coins.

I think the biggest mistake is that the people formed alliances based on the arbitrary starting positions.

What I'm saying is that they should have at least made sure to always keep the majority in the big town. They could have just sent back whoever comes to them each round. Then in the last round they send Sunggyu to the small town. Yes, probably none of them would have the most coins at the end of the game, but at least they would be on the winning side, and not automatically in the death match.

First of all, why would that necessarily be true? The only person from the orginal big town who would be on the small town at the end for sure is Sunggyu, when they sent him in round 10. Secondly, the original big town dgaf if someone like Eunji ends up lowest in coins in the small town.

I thought when the big town got Kyungran in round 5, they should have sent her straight back. Not doing so was what led to the total turnaround.

Totally agree with what VTchess said in his first paragraph in the post above. Seems suicidal to send Jinho (I think it was Jinho) and open the door for the possibility of the initial small group taking majority.

I'd also agree that it was probably a mistake to get so dead set on alliances based on starting positions.

Im guessing you are fine for the strategy first 4 rounds, which resulted in everyone knowing who the burgular was (sungyu) and the towns being how they started.


Everyone in small town has 10 gold, the 3 that stayed in big town have 8 sungyu 6(sort of irrelvant), and Poong with 10.

Your strat seems to be just send the small town person back every time. Which means on even rounds it will be one from each village in the opposing town, and then after the even round(on odds), it will be back to normal, like it is on 5.

So round 8 its
B
B
B
S
X

S
S
B

With all the small having 10, since they never spent a day with the burgualr(you just sent them back). We can assume big keeps sending poong with 10 also, but why would he agree with this? He is going to end up tied for last in the small town(even though last is 10).

Small town sends over an S, so now , assuming big sends back their s, the tribes havent changed, and its round 9. Round 9 who does B send over? THe same S? Then small town sends over another S. Now its round 10 and tribes are still the same. Now who does B send over? They have to send X(Sungyu) to not lose, S sends over an S, and then now it ends

B
B
B
S
S

B
S
X

with B and S as joint losers, assuming they can get poong to agree to the sacrifice(someone from small has to agree too in round 10 when its SSb in small town, knowing the person staying is a joint loser, but someone from small is effectively going in no matter what anyway)

Thats why someone from big town will always be on small town.

Also worth noting is both S in big are going to win token of life.

Ok, I think everything you said is true, except it doesn't matter if Poong agrees to it or not. It's just majority vote, so whoever the 3 tightest big towners are can just agree to stay in the big town all game, and send Poong to small town.

Seems like a better option to me than what happened in the game, where JinHo and Gura basically gave away control of the game and got stuck in a horrible spot on small town.

Poong was richest though. A couple garnets and he can stay on big, especially in this group with fluid alliances.

Also you mentioned being dissapointed in jinho and gura who clearly are not the tightest 3.

I think you just underestimated the nuances. With majority on both sides(including poong in small), they can all stay safe(including sungyu), win token of life(by draining the points from the others) and make small loser.

Their mistake was not keeping an eye on sungyu, assuming they wanted to stay as the big 5. This game is way more indivudal then they were playing though.

Sangmin was def my favorite. It was so much fun to watch him playing.

I was just using Poong as an example, it didn't have to be him. JinHo and Gura not being tight is irrelevant; the point is that they were a lock to be on the winning side, and they bungled it. JinHo says mid-episode that it's over, they have won. At the end of episode Gura is wondering where it all went wrong. That's because they played it poorly, which was my whole point. Worst gameplay in the first 6 episodes so far.

But your strategy involves sacrificing someone from the big, which in turn opens up an the ability for bribery with garnets. Its not a simple, keep sending back the player that comes from exile game, especially since you are sacrificing someone likely to want to death match you.

I think trying to maintain majority in both is the way to go, but they should have bribed sungyu since that was key. Maybe each offer a garnet, or something.

It is definitely not as easy as you are somehow convinced it is.

The joint winners, who are going to be from small, choose the loser, and thye are going to chosoe the big(assuming they send poong and its a tie at 10, else its whoever else they send who has less than 10), and then he could choose the last small, but why would he, when he can choose any of the three that betrayed him? So your strategy bascially puts them at 1/3 chance of going to death match. Doesnt seem optimal for such an easy win.

In your scenario, sungyu is safe and the two winners from small are safe.

If winning town gave protection I would agree with you, but it doesnt.

Imo you are way overthinking this. What's the point in even trying to have majority in both groups? One group is going to be the losing group. I can't think of a scenario where all of the 5 people in the original big town would end up safe. Please tell me how that would happen

JinHo is a total boss. Absolutely love his attention to detail.

Also, lol @ the crying call in Indian Poker by Poong early in the match to a gigantic all-in when Eunji was showing a 7. Seems really bad. He could have picked her apart easily playing small ball. She clearly was playing pretty ABC.

Pretty much all of our reactions watching him in that ep.

IN your scenario only one ends up safe. With the other 3 being at risk. There may be a scenario where they all end up safe I am not going to put in th work. You came in here criticizing their strategy but havent presented one concrete reason, other than simplicity, as to why your strategy works. You didnt even full understand the end game of your own strategy(seeing as how I had to explain it almost always ends up with one being sacrificed). Also it is transparent and will cause garnet bribes to happen all over the place.

Having majority allows them to do a lot of things.

If they can work with sungyu they can send him over, so its SSX. They will sit with him and lose points, they can then send over a B, and be a majority in both, with draining happening only on them. Allowing them to make more, and maybe setting up a multi-win for safety as well as making one of them the elimination candidate. They dont even need to send sungyu over in the 10th round, just send over someone in the 9th from B, thats majority in the small with B and Sungyu, and then they can just both send the B back allowing them to have two S at the end over in small with sungyu.

Ther are so many more posibilities with majority in both, and I wouldnt be surpirsed its is possible to end the game with all 4 having the same amount of garnets(if they can secure sungyu once they know send him over right away to drain). And trust me, you underestimated the complexity of the game when you came in here. I can also guarantee just sending back the person last in exile is far from optimal, and if we are not here to argue optimal then whats the point?

You seem to think the breakdown came in going for the majority on both, but the breakdown came from, maybe, who they sent to small to get majority(aka who they kept with sungyu) and not soldifying sungyu.

I thinik optimal is to send over sungyu in round 5, once you get private time to deal and discuss with him. One of two things happens:

They decide to keep him: This will drain their gold. You can just send back who they sent. In round 9 you send over a B. You have majority over their and send that B back over in round 10 and you send back the S they sent you. This ends with all B and 1 S in big town, with the winner being, more than likely, poong with 10.

They send him back, you can just send back, and this has the benefit of igf it goes back and forth you can just keep him one round in round 9 and then send him back, he ends with 9, which isnt the most(10 is), so he is elimination candidate