By Junior Indy Behr
I asked the Blog Staff to share their special skills. Indy, unbeknownst to most of us, is a skilled Monopoly player and student of the game. If he pulls a Monopoly board out during Scarefest, think twice before accepting his challenge to play.
Blog Advisor Zachik
I am an avid fan of Monopoly. I have over 20 sets and have many strategies to help me win. Keep in mind that a lot of people use “house rules” when playing, but this article will go with the assumption that you will be playing by the true rules. This means no Free Parking Money, and no getting extra money for landing on Go. I am going to show you how to create a housing shortage, how to stay in jail for your own benefit, why railroads are not good, and why rolling a seven is so important.
The Housing Shortage Strategy
One of my favorite strategies for winning at Monopoly is the housing shortage strategy. Now you have to really nitpick the rules to discover this one, but it’s very effective. If you get two full-color sets of a property, I say that you should always buy four houses, and do not upgrade to a hotel. This is because in order to build a hotel, you need four houses, and those houses need to be physically present. As such, if you have two full-color sets, you can build 24 houses when only 32 come in the box. This means that no matter how many color sets another player gets, they can only build up to eight houses or one hotel. You’ve created a housing shortage, to your advantage.
The Jail Strategy
This one apparently is pretty popular among professional Monopoly players, but I figured this one out on my own. By letting other players go three times while you avoid ever having to hit any of their properties, you can both save and make a hefty amount of money. Though some house rules freeze imprisoned players’ assets, this is not actually a rule. This means that if you stay in jail, you can get potentially thousands of dollars from other players while you never even move. There is, however, one flaw to this method: you are forced to roll each time the dice come to you, and if you roll a double, you will be forced against your will to leave jail rather than paying $50 at the end of your sentence.
Utilities and Railroads
Many people don’t know this one, but utilities are pretty much never worth your time, and it’s often the same with railroads. A world Monopoly champion has stated that there is only a 3% chance that someone is actually going to make a profit off of these properties. After all, with utilities, the maximum you can get is $120 when it costs $300. With railroads, it is incredibly difficult to make a profit. If you only get one, you need someone to land on it eight times to break even. If you have two, you still need eight. And, you can’t build houses or hotels on them!
The Rule of Seven
I found this strategy probably five years ago, and though it only works in specific circumstances, this trick has easily become my favorite of them all. I am not a math expert by any means, but what I do know is that when rolling two six-sided dice, you are most likely to roll a seven. This is where this strategy comes into play. If someone is exactly seven spaces away from a property of yours with a color set, move every house to it immediately. You can switch it back right after, but this gives you a high probability of draining all of their money. You can also use this trick to your advantage in other ways, like not buying something significant if you are seven spaces away from a $200 tax.
So, now you know a few surefire ways to beat your opponents the next time you play a game of Monopoly.
Monopoly anyone?