Monopoly: The Board Game.

Post by **Zac Miley** » 30 Jan 2008 17:27

Yo, who plays monopoly? Casually? Heatedly casual? Tournaments? Blah blah?

Talk strategy. It's a really fun game. Sometimes Matt K, Dave C and I play online, but anyone else is surely welcome (It's not like, an official online game, we play over aim).

Yeah. What's everybody's favorite colors on the board? Mine's orange and purple. I always monopolize purple, and I usually end up with orange.

Yeah. People better like monopoly or shit's gonna go down.

Matt K · Post by **Matt K** » 30 Jan 2008 17:43

Zac's gone undefeated in the 4 or so games we've played.

Except for 5 moves during one game, he gets lucky as shit rolls.

Laroche · Post by **Laroche** » 30 Jan 2008 18:01

Monopoly is amazing, we've had some epic matches in NYJ, and yes, Zac's a monster. He gets some obscene runs sometimes (hahaha I said runs in a monopoly context!).

I'll play, purple definetly my favorite color. Trades are so essential, I fucking hate anyone who refuses generous offers. You know who you are.

dp · Post by dp » 30 Jan 2008 18:12

Oh my god Monopoly has got to be the most boring game in the world.

EDIT: I feel like too much of a Negative Ned. I used to love the game, last time I played it was like a year ago, maybe then I'd like it.

Post by **Zac Miley** » 30 Jan 2008 20:19

Get out Danny. Nobody likes you.

HG · Post by HG » 31 Jan 2008 10:49

<----- monopoly's Oliver twist

bdams19 · Post by **bdams19** » 31 Jan 2008 15:09

I love monopoly. Since I am the worst craps player ever though, I always roll 7s. So you can basically predict where I land every turn.

bdams19 · Post by **bdams19** » 31 Jan 2008 15:10

Orange is obv best because of the jail

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 31 Jan 2008 15:26

Yeah I enjoy monopoly. Fun game, but I don't play very often.

One of the strategies I use, is to keep all my money and cards in a single pile, so nobody can see how much you've got, or what cards you've got.

Other than that, I try and play flexibly, rather than aiming for a particular set. I agree that the Orange set is the best, as people are most likely to land on that set from jail (and they're more likely to be rolling from the jail square than any other on the board). It's like a 14/36 chance that land on orange from jail. Also the houses are still only $100 each, which means you can build up really quickly, and you get more rent than purple.

Post by **Zac Miley** » 01 Feb 2008 05:39

Jeremy wrote:Yeah I enjoy monopoly. Fun game, but I don't play very often.

One of the strategies I use, is to keep all my money and cards in a single pile, so nobody can see how much you've got, or what cards you've got.

That's cheap. And also you can just ask to see it, I don't see how that would work very well.

Does anyone get the yellows or greens?

professor · Post by **professor** » 01 Feb 2008 12:19

Isilwar wrote:Does anyone get the yellows or greens?

Waste of money. Orange and pink are the best bang for your buck.

I'm a hardcore monopoly fan. Whenever I go back home (Phoenix), my friends and I play monopoly and order pizza. That's about the most fun someone can have. It gets serious though. You would think we were playing with real money.

Post by **Zac Miley** » 01 Feb 2008 13:25

professor wrote:
Isilwar wrote:Does anyone get the yellows or greens?
Waste of money. Orange and pink are the best bang for your buck.

I'm a hardcore monopoly fan. Whenever I go back home (Phoenix), my friends and I play monopoly and order pizza. That's about the most fun someone can have. It gets serious though. You would think we were playing with real money.

Agreed on the first part, although I don't mind trading pink stuff off as much as orange stuff. Orange costs a lot more to me.

Why didn't you play any Monopoly at NYJ Ben?!?!?! WTF!

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 01 Feb 2008 13:58

Isilwar wrote:
Jeremy wrote:Yeah I enjoy monopoly. Fun game, but I don't play very often.

One of the strategies I use, is to keep all my money and cards in a single pile, so nobody can see how much you've got, or what cards you've got.
That's cheap. And also you can just ask to see it, I don't see how that would work very well.

Does anyone get the yellows or greens?

There's no rule that you have to show people how much money you have, or what properties you own. I got that tip from reading an article about the Australian monopoly champion (who came 2nd in the world championships). He thought it was a good idea. It certainly annoys people you're playing against, and emotions stop people from behaving rationally, so in a game of chance that's certainly in your best interests.

Post by **Zac Miley** » 01 Feb 2008 14:39

True, but why wouldn't you just write down their properties? It's not that hard.

Money isn't that big of a factor either, it's not hard to tell how much money people have late in the game, and in the beginning money really doesn't matter.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 01 Feb 2008 15:21

Well it's specifically an advantage when making deals with people, which is usually the place where the most amount of skill is required. When making deals, it's always good if you can ask for cash close to the value of what the person has, so that they are forced to mortgage properties if they get debts shortly after the deal. I also think (again tip from the same person) that you should do as many deals as possible, even deals to your disadvantage. Once most of the properties are bought up, you can construct some kind of strategy about which properties you want to hold a set. Now the obvious mistake is to try and do a direct swap, giving somebody the properties they want for the ones you want. This means you're still relying on chance of where people land (and even if you come off with better properties, the odds aren't really that much different). So instead you need to do a large number of deals that don't appear to give anybody a set, or advantage anybody (probably that slightly disadvantage you), culminating in you getting your set, while nobody else has one. So the first deals are aimed at just confusing people and at getting bargaining pieces for later deals. For example I played a game a while ago where nobody held a set after most of the properties were bought up except one guy (who held the light blue set). I had 2 yellow properties, 2 orange and 0 red (and obviously others). My first deal was to swap the yellow property somebody who had the other one. This meant that he'd be mainly trying to get the third, which I had and was not giving away. From there I got swapped around all my properties for bargaining properties, and ended up holding only 7 properties - the orange set, the red set and the one yellow property. Nobody realised that I had a set (let alone 2) until I started putting houses on them. If you're doing lots of different trades with everybody on the table, nobody is going to remember which properties you have unless they see them. They're all thinking about what they're doing, not what other people are doing. I've never seen somebody write down what properties you have, but I guess that might help.

Post by **Zac Miley** » 01 Feb 2008 17:22

Generally I find it fairly easy to remember which properties people have just from when people land on them - unless you say nothing when somebody lands on the property early in the game, which would be a great strategy.

Thanks for those tips btw!