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  • OK, so when do you play Monopoly?

  • I have not played Monopoly since I was, like, ten.

  • So

  • Now I play it when I'm at my parents' house, if there's a big family gathering.

  • I don't ever play Monopoly.

  • Basically, you played Monopoly when you were a kid or when you were stuck inside.

  • So, I talked to somebody who played Monopoly in a ballroom in the Venetian hotel in Macau.

  • I'm Brian Valentine.

  • I was the United States representative to the Monopoly World Championships in 2015,

  • where I finished third amongst the 28 competitors.

  • He taught me all the right ways to play Monopolyand even make the game a little shorter.

  • All the rules, odds, and strategies that can actually help you win.

  • This is a Monopoly board from...

  • ..Target...but I took it with me to Macau and asked all the players to sign it for me.

  • Just as a keepsake.

  • I'm almost getting into sports cliches talking about Monopoly, but tt was very humbling to

  • have made it that far against players who are the best in their country and who are

  • fantastic people.

  • And this Monopoly genius, he knows heatmaps and housing arbitrage and strategybut

  • he just wants you to follow the rules.

  • OK, what happens on free parking?

  • Do you, like, collect money from people?

  • There's no money under free parking, I guess that's the biggest.

  • You don't put money under free parking, people see as a chance to equalize the game

  • that's stacked against them.

  • If you keep putting money in the game, it stops the progress.

  • People don't play the game by the rules.

  • If they did, it wouldn't take quite so long.

  • Do you auction stuff off?

  • No.

  • I remember reading it on the back of the card, but I don't remember — I remember that

  • always feeling a little over my head in terms of play.

  • If you land on it and don't want it, it's got to go up for auction on the spot.

  • Somebody can buy it.

  • You can start the bidding at a dollar.

  • I've seen it happen, and I've seen someone take Boardwalk for 20 bucks.

  • Once you have the rules in order, you've gotta go with the strategy.

  • What's the best spot in Monopoly?

  • Oh, I'm sure it's like Boardwalk.

  • It's funny because that's the glamour, that's the trademark of Monopoly, it's

  • Boardwalk - you gotta get it.

  • The object of the game is to take everyone's money and be the only person left in the game.

  • While Boardwalk certainly offers the prospect of that — $2000 when you get a hotel on

  • itthink about what it costs to get there.

  • You've got to buy each of the two properties.

  • Then it's 200 dollars, per house per property, until you get to that level.

  • So that's another thousand dollars on each one to then get $2000 back.

  • And there are only two of them, right?

  • Most of the other Monopolies have three spaces that you can hit and then draw rent.

  • If you are building up Boardwalk and Park Place before anybody else has built Monopolies

  • up against you, hell yeah, go for it.

  • But if you're in a situation where other folks have Monopolies on that hot side of

  • the board, and you're waiting to throw the haymaker, if you will, on Boardwalk and Park

  • Place, that's a loser more than it's a winner.

  • You can go on any website and learn the basic parlor trick that the oranges are the best

  • Monopoly to have.

  • Are you gonna now show a chart of the Monopoly board with a heat map?

  • I'm sad to say that I will.

  • I knew that existed.

  • The reason that that is so is because jail is one of the most often landed on spaces

  • in the game.

  • The fact that the common role is 7, then 7 from jailwhile not an actual property,

  • it's Community Chest — 6 and 8, the next most likely numbers, are St. James and Tennessee

  • Avenue.

  • So you know that the oranges are likely to get hit on.

  • And also, by extension, the section between jail and go to jail that side's the side

  • you want to be building on.

  • It's feast or famine on the other side of the board.

  • So there's a couple more strategies that are on the practical, not so mathy end.

  • If you get to jail early, go ahead pay up, get out of there.

  • You can also use your houses as weapons to control the game.

  • You have 32 houses in the game.

  • You've got to build houses before you can build hotels.

  • The houses have to be physically present to be bought, which is why, in a lot of circles

  • you'll hear people say about creating a housing shortage.

  • You want to get to the four house level so you can pull the trigger and get hotels if

  • you need to, or you can sit on the four houses and keep other people from having them.

  • OK, so final question.

  • So when I say what is the right way to play Monopoly, how do you respond?

  • The right way to play Monopoly is just...don't play it.

  • Don't steal from the bank.

  • And that goes out to my cousins when we played when we were ten.

  • I would say, is it just like, to win?

  • How to win?

  • With honor.

  • It's almost, sometimes, you feel like you have this Renaissance era sense of honor and

  • dignity.

  • Not that we're going around slapping each other with gloves having duels or anything

  • like that.

  • But...that's the thing that keeps coming to me is honor.

  • Playing Monopoly allows you to get to know people in a way that formal introductions

  • or being coworkers, or whatever, doesn't quite show.

  • Because in an hour and half, two hour game, you're gonna see how people handle adversity,

  • you're gonna see how people handle success, you're gonna see, bundled in this short

  • format, that allows you to see who a person is.

  • Ahhh...shhh….it's Monopoly, we're talking about Monopoly.

OK, so when do you play Monopoly?

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