I WAS BACK! I HAD BEATEN hundreds of other hopefuls to get to the finals and was now representing Queensland (of all places) in the Australian Monopoly Championships, held last month on the vertiginous 88th floor of Melbourne’s Eureka Tower.
My last shot at the title, back in ’91, when I was South Australia’s best, had been not quite good enough. Since then, I had spent 18 long years waiting, biding my time, distracting myself with the law, and all the while honing my skills in negotiating deals, managing risks and, of course, most important of all – fighting dirty.
My start was not strong. I bought enough properties to keep in the game, but, after all the properties had been sold, the real estate was scattered and no player had more than one property from any coloured set.
A deal sparked up! Filled with fluster and desire to acquire something of substance, I participated in a messy three-player deal. I secured the green set with a growing sense of unease. The green set is for suckers. Greens might have high rents, but they come with a low ROI. I invested in houses, leaving myself little cash, and hung on. It was time to move to the next stage of my game. Time to speed up the play.
Whenever it was my turn, I rolled the dice fast to deny others time to collect themselves or place houses in my path. I then moved my token with sleight so it would go unnoticed when I landed on the properties of my foes. And then, I would needle the next player to hurry up and roll the dice. In this way, I managed to avoid paying a great deal of rent (because the rules say once the next player rolls, it is too late for anyone to collect). When the other players did demand rent, sometimes I would acknowledge the debt and simply not pay. This actually works. In Monopoly, just as in life, there are some rogues against whom debts must be enforced.
I certainly made sure to collect all my rent. And then some. At one point (this is for the true fans) I charged 10 times the dice total for Water Works when, not only was the property mortgaged, the Electric Company was owned by somebody else!
It was Monopoly at its dirtiest and best and, in my view, all of it legal (or at least all of it in the true spirit of the game!). The rules of Monopoly make it very clear that each player must police their own interests. I honour the game and would never stoop so low as to steal notes from the bank, but in championship Monopoly one must take every opportunity to diddle.
With my ill-gotten, yet ill-retained, gains, I managed to build enough houses to deliver a fatal blow to any player who came my way. But fate was against me. In the entire game, I had only one visitor (whom I bankrupted) while the other players kept going to jail.They would fall just short of my properties and land on ‘go to jail’, while in some cruel karmic twist I did not enjoy one moment of peace in the cells. I was always out ‘free’, roaming the streets.
When the clock ran out in the one-hour match, I was still in the game, but only just. I had lost all my houses. I had one un-mortgaged property – Bond Street – and $32. It was not enough to save me from being knocked out.
It felt like ’91 all over again. As we handed back our properties and notes, the banker broke his silence on the tactics he had observed me using in the game. The look on the face of my main victim was a consolation, and, in my only gentlemanly act of the day, I shook the guy’s hand. And gave him my card.
The eventual winner, Leon Hechtmann, a project manager (of all things) was the reigning champ and could do nothing wrong. Monopoly had already taken him to Tokyo and he will now go to Las Vegas to compete in the World Championships again.
So now I am back, hard at work. The World Monopoly Championships take place every four years and I will
be staying in every Saturday night, training, until 2013. If you fancy yourself a chance for ‘the Worlds’, my advice would be to work part-time to get the right Monopoly/life balance, read the rules and always, always, make sure you pay attention to the game – especially if you ever come up against me.