note: I decided to do this post about a week ago. Since then, I played my roommate (and 2 AI players) in Nintendo Monopoly and lost pretty badly. So, you know, take this post with a grain of salt.
By any estimation, I have played a lot of Monopoly in my life. Not just the occassional family or sleepover game that most people have indulged in. There was a time in my life where my friends and I played Monopoly almost every night. And this wasn’t in fifth grade, it was in college. For roughly 2 years, every summer and winter break in KC was spent playing Monopoly with the same 5 or 6 guys (cool, huh?)*. We had all kinds of stupid Monopoly inside jokes, and we’d spend hours upon hours sitting around the board, taking binger rips, chugging Busch heavys and just laughing the night away. Looking back, I can say with all sincerity that those were some of the greatest times of my life.
*I think it was actually one summer break and two winter breaks. But we really were playing almost every night.
Eventually, me and my friends all became excellent Monopoly players. So good, in fact, that playing began to feel less like a game and more like a memorized task. Everyone knew exactly what to do at all times, and because of this the game lost its fun for us. At this point I know a lot of you are probably thinking one of two things:
either
1) “I’m awesome at Monopoly too. I guarantee I’m just as good as those guys.”
or
2) “What the fuck is this idiot talking about? Monopoly is a board game where you roll dice. How good could anyone really be?”
Now I realize Monopoly is one of those games, like MarioKart, Trivial Pursuit or NHL ‘94, that everyone thinks they’re great at. Don’t believe me? Bring it up at a party and watch as some guy in a button-up shirt responds, “Oh shit, I’m dominant at Monopoly! Seriously motherfucker, I never lose!” Then a compatriot, similarly dressed, will exclaim, “No way fucker! I’m the Monopoly King! For real bro, I’ll destroy you at Monopoly, you don’t even know.” I know that sounds ridiculous, but next time you’re out with a big group give it a try. I guarantee you get responses similar to that, curse words and all. What I also guarantee is that if either of those guys sat down at a game with me and my old Monopoly gang, they’d be the first ones out.
Some of you, the ones who fell into category #2 earlier, are skeptical of this claim. Rightfully so. Monopoly is, after all, a board game with dice. Luck plays a huge factor. But when I talk about being good at Monopoly, what I’m really talking about is being good at trading. Trading is an essential part of the game, every bit as important as how you roll, and in my opinion much more so. Unlike rolling, how you trade is totally within your control, and there is a certain tactic that, if used properly, makes victory a near certainty.
At the beginning of the game, your simple goal is to acquire as much property as possible. Indeed, the first 5-10 rounds are nothing more than a giant property grab. You buy everything you land on, and the person who owns the most is the one who is perceived to be winning the game. Only after most of the properties have been bought do people begin seriously considering trades. If you’re playing with reasonable, intelligent people, the trades will basically play out so that all the properties are united with their like-colored fellows, each player securing as many monopolies as possible. Since the ultimate value is, in most player’s minds, still placed on property, they’ll want to get 2 monopolies if possible, or even 3. After all, they’ve spent the whole game up to that point trying to accumulate as much property as possible and being jealous of players who have more. Oftentimes they’ll offer you twice a property’s value in cash, money having not been nearly as desirable up to that point. See, until all the monopolies are meted out, no one is in any real danger of losing all their money. They might land on someone else’s space, but the most that’ll cost them is $50, and it usually costs much less. Collecting rent is fun, but not of great importance to the game. Money is seen as a means of acquiring property, nothing else.
Of course, you won’t want to accept that cash for your property. It’s been sitting in front of you for some time, its been in your plans; its become precious to you. And if you sell that property without getting another in return, you’re putting yourself at a disadvantage, right? Wrong!
Once you get to trade mode, you gotta change that mindset. Money is now of the utmost importance. Because property doesn’t matter anymore, all that matters now is buildings. Once the trades have all gone down, you need to be sitting there with more money than anyone else. Let the others stockpile monopolies. You only need one. And if you get houses up on that one monopoly before your colleagues have a chance to, that game is yours, regardless of how many more properties everyone else has. You should only really be looking to build on one monopoly initially anyway. You don’t want to nickel and dime, you’re going for the knockout punch. If one of those greedy, monopoly collecting bastards lands on your only one, you want it to break their back. That’s not to say you need Boardwalk and Park Place. Far from it. Almost any monopoly will do*. It’s not about the space, its about what you can put on it.
*Except, of course, Baltic and Mediterannean. The light blues are arguably too small as well, but they’ll do in a pinch if you can get hotels up on them in a hurry.
You might eventually need another monopoly to seal the deal. But why waste resources trading for it when you can take it from one of those poor suckers who lands on your lone juggernaut? Somoene about to be knocked out of the game will happily trade you one of their monops for below market value if it keeps them afloat. And then you start building on that, and the game is over before anyone can even figure out what happened.
Sound easy, right? It actually kind of is. You can’t shout your strategy from the rooftops or anything, but if you have a property someone needs take a lesser property in return and have them throw in a couple hundred bucks. Then trade that lesser property to someone else for a few hundred more. As long as you’re reasonably sure you can secure the one monopoly you need, all the rest of your properties should be seen as nothing more than a means to an end*. And while the idiots you’re playing with are greedily hoarding properties, you can enjoy a quiet chuckle as you watch their cash stockpiles dwindle, effectively rendering those properties useless.
*Except the railroads. If you can get those, do it. They’ll provide you with a ready cash source to fund further construction. The same is not true for Electric Company and Waterworks, however. As soon as you get one of those turn to the person with the least amount of property and offer it to them for $300. They’ll take it, and it’ll be well worth it. Even if they have both, whats the most thats gonna cost you if you land on one? $120? Peanuts.
All right, enjoy. When you’re gloating over your fallen victims, tell ‘em Hatt sent ya
