wws@whuxlm.UUCP (Stoll W William) (08/13/85)
Has anyone else seen the book "100 Ways to Win Monopoly Games"? My brother has a 10 year old copy. I used to think Monopoly was 90% luck -- now I think it is only about 5% luck, 80% skill, and 15% finding mature opponents (that is, opponents who won't give up easily). I only get to play about once every year or two (only a 4 player game counts as a game), but I haven't lost since I read that book. It would be great to play monopoly by e-mail, but I think making deals might take two or three months. Does anybody want to give it a try anyway? Bill Stoll, ..!whuxlm!wws
eli@cvl.UUCP (Eli Liang) (08/14/85)
> Has anyone else seen the book "100 Ways to Win Monopoly Games"? > My brother has a 10 year old copy. I used to think Monopoly > was 90% luck -- now I think it is only about 5% luck, 80% > skill, and 15% finding mature opponents (that is, opponents who > won't give up easily). I only get to play about once every year > or two (only a 4 player game counts as a game), but I haven't > lost since I read that book. > > It would be great to play monopoly by e-mail, but I think > making deals might take two or three months. Does anybody want > to give it a try anyway? > > Bill Stoll, ..!whuxlm!wws Sure would. I'm almost ashamed to admit it but Monopoly is still one of my favorite board games. Sounds like I have to find a copy of that book. I've have a book on Monopoly and have done some statistical analysis and was working on a Monopoly "adviser" (program) for a while but put it aside to move onto other things. If anyone would like to discuss some of the things that came out of my mathematical analysis of the game, I'd be happy to dig up the results of my investigations. They must be lying around somewhere... -eli p.s. Anyone out there interested in the game of Risk? -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Eli Liang --- University of Maryland Computer Vision Lab, (301) 454-4526 ARPA: liang@cvl, liang@lemuria, eli@mit-mc, eli@mit-prep CSNET: liang@cvl UUCP: {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!cvl!liang
matt@oddjob.UUCP (Matt Crawford) (08/14/85)
I have an ancient battered copy of that book. I found it in a used-book store. One thing I notice about playing Monopoly now is that the games are much MUCH shorter than when I was a kid. Then they could last all week, now it's just an hour or two. I think the difference is partly attributable to not hoarding the cash but spending it all on properties. (And partly to the lack of a Fre Parking jackpot!) I don't think monopoly by email is practical. Too many players and too many turns per player. _____________________________________________________ Matt University crawford@anl-mcs.arpa Crawford of Chicago ihnp4!oddjob!matt
albert@harvard.ARPA (David Albert) (08/15/85)
> Has anyone else seen the book "100 Ways to Win Monopoly Games"? > It would be great to play monopoly by e-mail, but I think > making deals might take two or three months. Does anybody want > to give it a try anyway? I have a copy of the book that I bought maybe five or six years ago. Incredible book. I can never find anyone to play with, though. I tried playing with some kids once, but the five-year-old did everything his eight-year-old brother told him to do, and no one would make any deals with me (the 8-year-old was pretty shrewd, and ended up winning). I'd be happy to try e-mail if someone can figure out a decent method. Probably, we would need a moderator, as in Diplomacy, to tally the results of each round, and to roll the dice for us. I'd be willing to do that, too, if other people wanted to play. -- David Albert ihnp4!seismo!harvard!albert (albert@harvard.ARPA)
rjnoe@riccb.UUCP (Roger J. Noe ) (08/15/85)
Speaking of Monopoly games, is it standard for the Chance deck to have TWO identical "Advance token to the nearest railroad and pay the owner twice the rent which he is otherwise due" cards? If not, please mail to me the sixteen cards in what should be a standard deck. Thanks. -- Roger Noe ihnp4!ihopa!riccb!rjnoe
jeffh@brl-sem.ARPA (the Shadow) (08/15/85)
>> It would be great to play monopoly by e-mail, but I think >> making deals might take two or three months. Does anybody want >> to give it a try anyway? >> >> Bill Stoll, ..!whuxlm!wws > >Sure would. I'm almost ashamed to admit it but Monopoly is still one of my >favorite board games. > >p.s. Anyone out there interested in the game of Risk? > >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >Eli Liang --- Yes to both questions. I would seem that the best thing to do would be to have a mailing list of the people interested in the game of choice. It might be good to have a moderator to keep everyone honest and to arbitrate disagreements about rules. I would even be willing to moderate one ( oh, no -- what have I gotten myself into? ) as long as i was able to play the other game. Any takers? Maybe we should move this over to net.games.pbm? "I attribute my success to intelligence, guts, determination, honesty, ambition, and having enough money to buy people with those qualities." the Shadow ARPA: <jeffh@brl> UUCP: {seismo,decvax}!brl!jeffh
eli@cvl.UUCP (Eli Liang) (08/21/85)
> Speaking of Monopoly games, is it standard for the Chance deck to have TWO > identical "Advance token to the nearest railroad and pay the owner twice > the rent which he is otherwise due" cards? If not, please mail to me the > sixteen cards in what should be a standard deck. Thanks. > -- > Roger Noe ihnp4!ihopa!riccb!rjnoe I've hit many, many Monopoly sets, and I've never seen otherwise. -eli p.s. (for those people that sent me mail concerning the "The Theory of Probability" and how it concerns Monopoly, I've yet to find time to look around at home, but I'll get to that and post or send the results... soon :-) -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Eli Liang --- University of Maryland Computer Vision Lab, (301) 454-4526 ARPA: liang@cvl, liang@lemuria, eli@mit-mc, eli@mit-prep CSNET: liang@cvl UUCP: {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!cvl!liang
dat@hpcnof.UUCP (08/22/85)
> > Has anyone else seen the book "100 Ways to Win Monopoly Games"? > > .... I only get to play about once every year > > or two (only a 4 player game counts as a game), but I haven't > > lost since I read that book. > Sure would. I'm almost ashamed to admit it but Monopoly is still one of my > favorite board games. Sounds like I have to find a copy of that book. I > have a book on Monopoly and have done some statistical analysis and was > working on a Monopoly "adviser" (program) for a while but put it aside to > move onto other things. If anyone would like to discuss some of the things > that came out of my mathematical analysis of the game, I'd be happy to dig up > the results of my investigations. They must be lying around somewhere... (three levels deep now...) I've read the '100 ways to win Monopoly' book from the Public Library (plug: visit 'em!) and wasn't all that impressed with it. Most of the stuff they talk about is either common sense or I had already figured out with a program I wrote which: - had the complete board internally, including all the cards and the actions that each card had (like 'go to jail'). I let it run over the weekend once and came back to a terrific list of how many times each property had been landed on after 5 MILLION times around the board (or some other ungodly huge number like that!) with the same results that the book were so thrilled about. IT was pretty darn interesting, but most of the stuff is pretty darn intuitive - like the fact that Jail is the most landed on square, and that the Community Chest after Jail is the next most landed on square, and THEN that the Illinois (7 again further) is actually the MOST landed on square on the board... Anyway, I'd like to some day (when I have TIME!!) write a program that not only supervises a game (which has been done before by (?) Ken Arnold) but actually have it PLAY the game. Anyone have what they consider a good "computerizable" strategy, speaking of which?? (uh oh - would this note go in 'net.games.comp' or 'net.games.board'??) (both!) (no - net.games.both!!) I too would be interested in not only a pbm monopoly game (if such a thing is possible!) but also would be willing to try pbm Risk, although I ain't too good at that game. -- Dave "Killer Land (slum) lord" Taylor Colorado Networks Operation ..ihnp4!hpfcla!d_taylor
ekblaw@uiucdcsp.Uiuc.ARPA (08/24/85)
I echo the Shadow's sentiments. I, too, love to play both Monopoly and Risk, and wouldn't mind playing them by E-mail. I tend to agree that Monopoly might be too time-consuming, but I'm willing to try it! P.S. Those gamers out there who agree with me about a list of "games of choice" to play-by-E-mail, see my notice in the 'games.pbm' notesfile. I am attempting to compile such a list and perhaps start a game or two (or three or more). Read the notice and then write back to me if you are interested. Robert A. Ekblaw, ekblaw@uiucdcs. "Games expand the mind. Mine's already grown two inches!"
rjnoe@riccb.UUCP (Roger J. Noe) (08/27/85)
> ... I've read the '100 ways to win Monopoly' book > from the Public Library (plug: visit 'em!) and wasn't all that impressed > with it. Most of the stuff they talk about is either common sense or I > had already figured out with a program I wrote which: > > - had the complete board internally, including all the cards and the > actions that each card had (like 'go to jail'). I let it run over > the weekend once and came back to a terrific list of how many times > each property had been landed on after 5 MILLION times around the > board (or some other ungodly huge number like that!) with the same > results that the book were so thrilled about. > -- Dave "Killer Land (slum) lord" Taylor There's a better way to do that. First of all, write a program to assemble the probabilities of getting to each state (defined as combination of square one is on and how many doubles rolled consecutively so far) given that one is in each of the other states and assemble these "state-transitional" probabilities in a square matrix. Then this square matrix multiplied by the "steady-state" probabilities of being in each state must equal the same vector of steady-state probabilities (one probability for each state). So subtract the identity matrix from the transitional probabilities and do a simple Gaussian elimination on this sparse matrix. Add the resulting values corresponding to the individual squares and you have the overall probabilities of being on each square on the board. I did this years ago (as have others) and took the problem farther, to calcu- late expected income and return on investment (per token move) for each property on the board. Then one can find optimum points of development for each property group (yes, it's usually but not always hotels) and relative profitability for each group. There are some surprises in the results that no amount of intuition will indicate. I'll mail these results to anyone interested. If there's a ridiculous amount of interest I'll just post it here. I seriously doubt anyone wants to look at the programs . . . -- Roger Noe ihnp4!ihopa!riccb!rjnoe
wws@whuxlm.UUCP (Stoll W William) (08/29/85)
> > > > - had the complete board internally, including all the cards and the > > actions that each card had (like 'go to jail'). I let it run over > > the weekend once and came back to a terrific list of how many times > > each property had been landed on after 5 MILLION times around the > > board (or some other ungodly huge number like that!) with the same > > results that the book were so thrilled about. > > -- Dave "Killer Land (slum) lord" Taylor > > I did this years ago (as have others) and took the problem farther, to calcu- > late expected income and return on investment (per token move) for each > property on the board. Then one can find optimum points of development for > each property group (yes, it's usually but not always hotels) and relative > profitability for each group. There are some surprises in the results that > no amount of intuition will indicate. Both of these approaches were taken in the "1000 ways..." book and results were put in the tables in the back. Not bad for a book published before the computer explosion (printed in 1975). I think there are some other tables as well, but I don't have the book in front of me! Bill Stoll, ..!whuxlm!wws