Post by Maria C.Post by Chuck RiggsWhen Pennsylvania, much less Reading, was a faraway place about which
I knew little, Monopoly players set me straight on the correct
pronunciation of Reading. I was probably eight or nine.
I wasn't sure (yes, I could have just taken your word for it), so I just
called my best friend (since age 10) who was born in PA, went to school
in Mich., and then moved back to PA. She says "Redding" for both the
town and the railroad.
If I ever play Monopoly again, I'll have to remember that. I've always
said "reeding." Live and learn...
If you play with the big boys the next time around, the general method
I learned from my aunt, who was a master, is to immediately
concentrate on obtaining the game's first three-property monopoly,
ignoring acquisitions of the Railroads, which are far too expensive in
the beginning of the game, the Utilities, which aren't worth
diddley-squat, the overpriced Broadway and Park Avenue pair beginners
like so much and the Baltic Avenue slums. then start the process of
depleting everyone's funds as quickly as possible by building house
after house, followed by those lovely hotels, even before your
opponents know what hit them. A detail is that the properties towards
the end of each row are slightly better buys than the ones at the
beginning, but sometimes you have to take what you can get.
If you don't play cutthroat and you're up against intelligent players,
a game will drag on for days, so my advice is to go for the jugular.
--
Regards,
Chuck Riggs
Near Dublin, Ireland