Thursday, March 22, 2012

Competitive Monopoly – we are not at Grandma’s table any more


Monopoly was one of my favorite games as a kid!  I think of sitting at the dining room table at Papa and Grandma’s, getting upset when we had to pause the game because of some ‘adult’ thing (like eating lunch – psh!).  There was hiding my $500 bill under the pillow next to me, to pull out when everyone thought I was broke.  Convincing grandma to allow us each to start with a color group with hotels on it, and letting me choose first.  Putting money in free parking, and giving an extra five hundred dollars to the lucky person who landed there, and thinking those were the real rules.

Years later, no one ever seems to want to play.  “It takes too long” is the complaint I hear.  But over winter break last year we bought a copy on impulse, and played a few games. *  Of course, there was the usual amount of fighting and screaming over rules, and who was being a jerk to whom, but I had fun.

It ignited the spark to play again in me.  Being my modern, competitive self… I started looking up monopoly strategy online.  Everything I know, I learned here and here.

In short, statistically, the most landed on space is… jail!  That makes the orange and red color groups the most profitable properties.  Owning all 4 railroads is the cheapest, most reliable source of income.  Never buy utilities at full price.  Later in the game, you WANT to stay in jail, to avoid paying rent.

I started finding people who wanted to play, and winning with my strategies.  I knew what to trade for and that it was worth giving up Boardwalk for Tennessee Avenue and Reading Railroad.  It was interesting to see them making decisions that were not optimal, and seeing them feeling smug about the decision.

So read the links above, double check that you are using the official rules, and let’s roll some dice!  I want to live large, buying and selling outrageous property on a whim… if only for an hour or two.


*The copy we bought was the Electronic Banking US Cities Edition.  It uses credit cards and a little calculator device that keeps track of your balance, instead of cash.  It makes cheating by stealing money from the bank… difficult.  All prices are inflated by a factor of 10,000, and the names of properties are all, as expected, US cities and the like.  There are airports instead of railroads, and Boardwalk is the New York Skyline (for a mere 4,000,000 dollars!  Sign me up for THAT real estate agent!).  It is lot of fun, but sad not having the traditional names for all of the cards.  The credit card system speeds up gameplay a lot.  I highly recommend it!


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