The Standard

With my parents in town, we had Liz's parents over to watch the Vikings Seahawks playoff game. Thom and Carol also brought over Ida and Jack. A little past halftime, Ida got tired of playing Mario Kart and wanted to play a board game. She picked out...

Monopoly: The Simpsons 2-6 players
At one point in time I had this, Scooby-Doo Monopoly, and 2 regular monopolies. I cleared everything out, but kept this one to match my Simpsons version of Clue. I'm not a big fan of this game. I tend to win, but that's not the weird part. It's that I seem to piss everyone else off and turn all the other players against me when doing so. I've seen players dump their entire fortune on other players just so someone has a chance at taking me down. I don't get it really. It's not like I'm spitting on them as they go broke in my lovely hotels. With all the junk rules everyone throws into this game, it's largely luck based. I've never actually played with the written rules. In fact, I've never read the rules. Well this time, it's different. None of this crap at free parking and I instigated the auctions on lots that aren't purchased. Let's see if this game can be fun or at the very least interesting.

Ida was a little put off by playing with the actual rules but she went with it after sticking her tongue out at me. About mid way through the game, I was able to strike a quick deal with Liz to trade a light blue property she just got for a green one I had. Without much thinking she took it. I then had the first monopoly of the game. By the time all the properties were claimed, I had at least one of every thing except the rails and the dark purples. I purchased a purple from Ida to clinch the only monopoly on the board. After a number of rounds with not too few people landing on my monopoly I started negotiations with Liz. She got the monopolies in purple and green and I got monopoly in magenta. Liz having little money meant she could only afford to put houses on the cheap purple ones. I quickly went to hotels on my gain. Soon enough I bankrupted Liz and claimed all she had. A short while after that Ida fell too. I think Ida took the defeat a little better than Liz.

I have to say that I do prefer the real rules to the usual house rules. It moves the game along at least. The auctions also allow for a bit more strategy. It's still one of my lower ranked games though.

Much later in the day, after they Vikings lost and we went to a Winterhawks game, Liz, my dad and I played a rematch of Cribbage. I was able to keep pretty close to my dad this time, but he still beat me. Liz actually got skunked. We finished out the day by getting mom in on a game of Qwirkle. It went well. I was going mad with points by the end. Mo scored a few Qwirkles, but my dad scored none.

Tally: 163/183  Bonus: 42/50