I’m Addicted to Monopoly

Lately I seem to find myself playing a game or two of MONOPOLY on my Kindle almost daily. I’m not really sure why, since I never really cared all that much for the board game when I was a kid. My working hypothesis, though, is that when I play on my Kindle against computer AI opponents, no one runs off crying when they go bankrupt. (I can just stay where I am and cry, since there’s nobody to see me.) Anyway, I’ve been playing enough now to get to the point where when playing against 3 expert AI opponents I win almost as often as I don’t.

For anyone else playing who is getting frustrated, here’s a tip: if at all possible, make almost any trade if it will get you the set of “orange” properties (St. James Ave., Tennessee Ave., and New York Ave). They consistently give the best return on investment, for a couple reasons. Firstly, any property set that is the second one on a given side of the board gets more rent for the same house-building price as the first set on that side. Much more importantly in this case, however, is that those properties are the most likely to be hit on the first roll of any player getting out of jail. (Since 7 has the best odds of coming up on two dice versus any other number, then 6 and 8, then 5 and 9, these three properties cover 3 of the 5 most common dice rolls: 6, 8, and 9.) They also are more likely to get landed on than higher priced properties, since the further you go around the board, the more likely you are to hit a Chance/Community Chest card that sends you to “Go”, the Reading Railroad, or Jail.

Another more general tip is, if another player offers a trade of one property plus cash for one of your properties, it’s better to see if you can get him (her? it?) to substitute a second property instead of the cash.

Well, that’s all for tonight. I have to go play my daily game of MONOPOLY now.