Monopoly: Strategies to winning

A lot of people argue there is no real strategy to Monopoly, simply it requires a certain amount of luck each game and from there on to simply wait out under you bankrupt each other. However there are people who suggest such strategies, or simply ways in which make it easier to win. They are strategies nether the less.

Mr.Moneybags
(A.K.A. Mr.Monopoly)

http://www.amnesta.net/other/monopoly/

(This based off the American Edition of Monopoly, so the names for the properties are different but the colours remain the same.)

How to win at Monopoly – a simple strategy:

Notation: Side 1 of the board is the first side you move through after passing Go: Mediterranean/Baltic/Oriental, etc. Sides 2-4 follow in order. 

• Always buy Railroads; never buy Utilities (at full price)^*
  • For every other property type, only buy them to complete a monopoly or to prevent opponents from completing one. Often this may mean buying as many properties as you can early in the game, but watch your cash reserves.
• At the beginning of the game, focus on acquiring a complete C-G [Color Group: all 2 or 3 properties of the same color] in Sides 1+2, even if it means trading away properties on Sides 2+3. After acquiring one of these C-Gs, build 3 houses as quickly as possible: no more houses, no less!
• Once your first C-G starts to generate some cash, focus on completing a C-G and building 3 houses in Sides 3+4.
  • Note: 3 houses is the "sweet spot" in the game as shown in Table 1 below. That’s where you’re making the best use of your money.
• Single properties are the least good investment if you don’t build on them.
• The only exception to the above rules are when you need to acquire stray properties to prevent your opponents from completing their Color-Groups to accomplish the above strategy.
• Jail can be good. Stay in Jail as long as you can if an opponent owns a monopoly – at that point in the game, moving around the board will likely lose you money. Until that happens, though, pay the $50 and leave Jail as soon as possible: you need to be in the property acquisition race and collecting your $200 salary.
• One interesting exception: Do you need St. James or Tennessee Aves to complete your C-G? Then stay in Jail and try to get out by rolling doubles: doing so will increase your chances of landing on those squares by about 25%.

Side 1+2 is bottom and left, 3+4 top and right

The 5 best starting positions are – in order:

1. All 4 railroads
   • One reason why this is the best starting point: the revenue flow from railroads is much more constant over time whereas some of the other properties may have the same ROI but they come with bigger payouts over longer time spans. Owning 3-4 railroads is a cash cow: it will bring a continuous flow of money that can fund your monopolies.
2. 3 houses on each of the orange Color-Group (St James/Tennessee/New York)
3. 3 houses on each of the light blue C-G (Oriental/Vermont/Connecticut)
4. 3 houses on each of the light purple C-G (St Charles/States/Virginia)
5. A hotel on each of the dark purple C-G (Mediterranean /Baltic)
   • This option gives by far the worst return of the 5 starting positions; in fact, until you get 4 houses, this C-G is the worst investment in the game!
   • However, his option does have 2 advantages: it is the cheapest of the 5 and it only has 2 properties so owning the entire C-G may be easier, especially in large games.

* I’m assuming all properties sell for close to their listed price. This is usually true, but sometimes properties can be auctioned off or traded much more cheaply or expensively; this will change how worthwhile they are to acquire.

The table below shows you the sweet spots for your first purchases, if you are to make any which you can get the biggest returns on the fastest.

...Thus we get the best starting positions given at the very top of the page (the top 3 are circled in Table 2). You can get all of those 3 options for less than $1500 and, on average, you will recover your last investment in them over and over again every 13 rolls of your opponents’ dice – or better. So if you’re playing against 4 other people, this means about every 3 turns. In 6 turns, you’ll have doubled your last investment, and be well on your way to building a monopoly.

There are more, but I decided to post about this strategy because it's the most sound one out of the lot, the rest are mostly tips & tricks which doesn't help to much in a game of luck. One such example below.

http://micahi.hubpages.com/hub/monopoly-stratguide

Inspired by the strategy above, I decided to play a game with friends and mark down in the length of our game each spot we landed on each time and from this I created a tally chart.

Our mid game. (With Alex in Jail) We landed in it a lot.

SIDE 1:

Old Kent Road - 3
Whitechapel Road - 4

KINGS ST. - 6

Angel Islington - 1
Euston Road - 2
Pentonville Road - 6

SIDE 2:

Pall Mall - 4

WATER UL. - 4

Whitehall - 5
Northumberland - 4

MARY ST. - 2

Bow Street - 4
Marlborough Street - 7
Vine Street - 4

SIDE 3:

Strand - 6
Fleet Street - 1
Trafalgar - 1

FENCH ST. - 6

Leicester - 3
Coventry - 3

WATER UL. - 1

Piccadilly - 2

SIDE 4:

Regent Street - 4
Oxford Street - 2
Bond Street - 1

LIVERPOOL. ST - 4

Park Lane - 3
Mayfair - 3

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From this it's easy to say that buying into the SIDE 2 is easily the most profitable and strategic. This is because of Jail. Once you get out of jail, you have to get past the whole of SIDE 2, whoever controls the Orange and pinks is clearly going to win if the other plays land in Jail a lot. This coincides well with the information from the website I found. The train stations are also landed on a lot due to been in the middle of each side.

But.  Owning SIDE 4 with a few houses on will easy knock anyone out of the game very fast due to how high the rent is when you land on them.