Monopoly: Truly a Type-A Personality Game

My house warming party on Friday night was a huge success. I believe that fun was had by all. At least a dozen people showed up. Seriously fun.

And this evening I had the most entertaining Monopoly experience in my life. I think I'm done with that game, as any future games I play will only be disappointing. There were five players.

I bought a railroad and Atlantic Ave., and then ended up in jail. Shortly after I got out of jail, the rest of the property was purchased leaving me with only those two.

The other three railroads were held by three other people so they didn't posses much value to any single person. I did an "even swap" for a second railroad, giving away Atlantic Ave., completing this other player's set-of-three-yellows along with a "rental agreement" (is that legal?), which allowed me to land on any of those three yellow properties without having to pay rent, ever.

I ended up buying the other two railroads for cash (to facilitate deals that other players were negotiating, where they needed cash to close the deal) as little bits of money slowly trickled in from passing Go and from people landing on my two railroads.

Only the player with the three yellows added "improvements" to his properties early on. He put up hotels before anyone else had added even a single improvement - and I was immune to this rent.

I survived with just these four railroads for at least 75% of the game - largely because there were no large rents that I could possibly have to pay (due to a lack of improvements), and yet I was still getting steady income from the railroads. Eventually I bankrupt a player and inherited some property and quickly built up hotels. Meanwhile, the guy with the original three hotels was bailing out the other players (just call him "sugar daddy") from the fines that they owed me, to keep them from having to sell back their improvements, which would benefit me (by reducing the rents I might possibly have to pay). And while doing this, he nearly bankrupt himself.

So, while he was "being nice" to the three other players, I was forcing them to liquidate their hotels to pay rents, and eventually acquired all of their properties plus a large sum of cash. And I put up a long row of hotels.

And then the one remaining opponent saw the truth of the situation: he had very little cash, and what improvements he did have (those three hotels on the yellow properties) were not a source of income from me - due to the original rental agreement. And there it ended. Three and a half hours later.

From a railroad and Atlantic Ave., to everything.

I think I'm done with Monopoly.