When I was a kid I played Monopoly with my brothers. I’m sure that sounds pretty tame. I can assure you that there was nothing tame about the style of Monopoly we played, nor the fierceness of the competition. Usually my older brother (Drax, here on CC) and I played with a friend we called “Hatchie” (his real name was “Charles” or something like that…). We’d usually play at his house since our house was overrun with all the siblings our parents had thrown into the world. We all lived on the air force base and so a typical summer morning would begin with us trotting over to Hatchie’s place where we’d instantly morph from grungy barefoot boys into world-striding corporate robber barons. There were few rules, other than no cheating. Finagling and trading were not only allowed, but were strongly encouraged. Buying a piece of property was as much a move to thwart the other players as to advance your own goals. We viciously employed the “crab rule”, although we didn’t call it that at the time. What’s the crab rule? If you put crabs in a bucket, you don’t have to put a top on the bucket, if one crab starts to crawl out, the other crabs pull him back down. That’s how we played Monopoly. It was always two against one, but the two and the one shifted like the shadows under a willow tree. The only goal was to make sure nobody was able to dominate. Because of this our games did not last the 2-4 hours of most Monopoly games. Our games were more like 2-4 MONTHS.

It’s interesting to look at the strategies we employed in playing the game. My strategy was dirt simple. All I wanted to own were the dark green properties (Pennsylvania, et. al.) all four railroads, both utilities and one more set of properties, preferably the orange ones, althouth the dark purple ones were OK. The key was to get the railroads, utilities and dark green properties. I’ve never mathematically analyzed it, but I am convinced the dark green properties were the best in the game. My next favorite were the orange properties because players getting out of jail increased the chances of players landing on that row. Boardwalk and Park Place had all the glamour and cachet, but opposing players had a 50% higher chance of landing on one of my dark green properties each pass around the board. Owning the railroads and utilities was nice because it was a potential to make cash on every other player’s turn, plus there were cards that forced them to go there.

Our games would last so long because we kept anyone from winning, so the cash just built up. Also we played with the rule that any fines or fees were paid directly into the “free parking jackpot.” That included the income tax proceeds, which grew as our wealth grew. It was not uncommon to receive thousands of dollars from free parking as our game advanced, which also tended to keep losing players in the game.

Eventually we would run out of money and have to print our own. Losing one of those games was an ego-destroying experience, but winning one was a dopamine rush of epic proportions. Cries of “Mwuhahahahaahaa!” could be heard for blocks around.

During those games one of the best things that could happen was to be sent to jail. Because while you were in jail, your opponents could land on your properties, but you couldn’t land on theirs. If there had been a way to deliberately get put into jail, we’d have done it. Early in the game when properties were still up for sale, that wasn’t the case, but once the board was set, and hotels were on every property… jail was the best place to be. As the money in the game soared, we’d set higher values for passing go, just to make it meaningful.

I wonder if kids today still play Monopoly at all? I suspect if they do it’s only when their parents drag it out, and they mostly wish they were on the computer playing World of Warcraft or something….