A Ruthless Attempt to Establish Monopoly

A boy, a train ride and a game of Monopoly.

Can it get any more Americana than that?

UC Irvine grad student Matt McNally isn’t exactly a boy (he’s 24), but he’s full of youthful exuberance as he awaits the national Monopoly Championship Oct. 16-18. I can’t remember any interview subject who laughs as often and as easily as young Mr. McNally, a drama major who will match wits with 47 others in search of $15,140 in first-place winnings.

And why not? The preliminary rounds will be played aboard an Amtrak train rolling along between Chicago and Atlantic City, where the final round will be held in a casino on (where else?) the boardwalk.

No wonder man-child McNally is having a ball talking about it.

“It’s going to be a great event,” he says Thursday between classes. “People hear you’re going to a national Monopoly championship; I can’t tell you the number of them that have said they didn’t know there was such a thing.”

The first was in 1973. Since 1995, it’s been held every four years.

Like most of us, McNally first played the game as a kid. “Usually, my dad would kick my butt,” he says. A few years ago, he set his sights on the tournament, in which players qualify either by playing in previous tourneys or by scoring high on an online test of knowledge about the game.

Fun and games? Sort of. “I’m assuming that a lot of [the players] are like me, and it’s going to be pretty ruthless,” he says, laughing. “That’s the competitive nature in me. We’re all there to have a great time, but we’re all going there to win it. We all want to know how good we are and share a couple days with people who share the same interest. You don’t get that in everyday life.”

McNally notes that a big part of competitive Monopoly is sizing up your opponents. “I find it really interesting how you have to collaborate with people you’re eventually going to try to take out of the game,” he says. “And they’re doing the same thing against you.”

Because a player rarely scores a natural monopoly -- snagging all properties of one color -- you must wheel and deal. But unlike family games when you bribe your 5-year-old sister with a lollipop if she’ll trade you Boardwalk for Baltic, these tourney players require more finesse.

“You have to be friendly enough that people want to trade with you,” McNally says, “but at the same time you have to watch how other people are judging you .... You don’t want to become too powerful too quickly, or they won’t want to deal with you.”

He says it also helps to know that a 7 comes up once every six rolls of the dice, as opposed to a 2 or 12, each of which comes up only once every 36 times. Depending on your board location, knowing those probabilities can help you decide on buying or trading before your next roll.

Snagging the first monopoly “puts you in good position on the board,” McNally says. “And choosing a certain time to make your move or your trade is crucial to the game.”

McNally will bring several potential strategies, some obvious. “All experienced players are going to want to capture the orange-colored group,” he says, “just because they have a high probability of being landed on. They’re rather cheap to build houses on, so you can invest into them quickly and get a nice return on them.”

So many things to ponder, and we haven’t even discussed which game piece to choose (“the race car,” McNally says).

McNally says he recently won a poker tournament in Las Vegas. I ask if he expects a similar adrenalin rush from playing Monopoly for money.

“Oh, I think so,” he says. “And it’s cheaper too.”

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821, at dana.parsons@latimes.com or at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626.