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| duunnn dunnn… duuuunnnn duun… duuunnnnnnnn dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnn dunnnn |
Like the tense final act showdown between Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) and the shark (Bruce), our Jaws-themed Monopoly evening came down to a protracted test of wills between Clare and I.
We each dominated two sides of the board and while, for a long time, it had looked as though I had things in the bag, we kept landing on each other's properties and so large sums of money were just moving from one bank account to the other.
Eventually, with midnight looming, we called it a day and agreed to declare the game a tie.
On her Three Beautiful Things substack, Clare elaborated this morning:
"Tim and I have a nice little Monopoly ecosystem: he has eaten the other players and owns everything except for six well developed properties of mine. He lands on them just often enough that I can survive another turn around the board. I feel constantly off balance, though, and I'm only really coping because of some lucky rolls, a few turns in jail so I don't have to land on his properties, and some helpful chance cards. We end with a draw, because it's getting very late."The first Monopoly Club meeting of 2025 used Pete's Jaws-themed board, where the properties were a bizarre mix of locations (I, for instance, owned "the ocean" for the entire game, which I thought was hysterical), objects, and people... including the shark-attack victims!
The chance and community chest cards were "repairs" and "rewards", with most sporting a quote from the film, although there were no illustrations as we have seen in other sets, and the houses and hotels were replaced by "boats" and "workshops" respectively.
There was minor disappointment round the table that the boats weren't actually little plastic boats, so we agreed that the "green houses" should be placed on their rooves to, at least, vaguely resemble something sea-worthy.
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| Our chosen playing pieces for the evening's battle |
At the start of the game Rachel chose the Lilo as her figurine, Pete was The Orca (Quint's boat), Clare was the oxygen tank, and I took the oil drum.
Rachel had abandoned her usual cautious approach and came out of the gate on a spending spree... which unfortunately saw her bowing out of the game first.
Pete didn't last much longer than that and then it came down to the final hour (or so) that was the duel between Clare and I.
I had plumped for my usual tactic of trying to own - and develop - the properties either side of "Go" and that certainly worked this time, with the high value "shark" and "The Orca" (obtained by some natty horse-trading with both Pete and Clare) and the inexpensive to develop "ocean" and "Amity Island" soon under my control.
Rachel had abandoned her usual cautious approach and came out of the gate on a spending spree... which unfortunately saw her bowing out of the game first.
Pete didn't last much longer than that and then it came down to the final hour (or so) that was the duel between Clare and I.
I had plumped for my usual tactic of trying to own - and develop - the properties either side of "Go" and that certainly worked this time, with the high value "shark" and "The Orca" (obtained by some natty horse-trading with both Pete and Clare) and the inexpensive to develop "ocean" and "Amity Island" soon under my control.
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| Mine, all mine! I rule the ocean and control the shark! Bwahahaha! |
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| My property holdings for the final act |
Clare had tried to persuade me to concede soon after Pete went out, but I was utterly convinced I could win this, because of my massive portfolio of property (most of which I'd inherited from Pete when I drove him to bankruptcy).
Which I did, sort of. An agreed draw between two players gains us both "four points" in our ongoing league table (see below), instead of the "five points" for a clear winner.
I'm still hanging in there at second place overall, with Clare nipping at my heels, but Pete's five-point lead is going to take, at least, a couple of sessions to wear down.
I'm still hanging in there at second place overall, with Clare nipping at my heels, but Pete's five-point lead is going to take, at least, a couple of sessions to wear down.
Despite some short-comings in its design (for instance, some of the property images on the board were quite indistinct) and no exciting "bonus rules", Jaws Monopoly was really enjoyable to play, so we communally agreed to rate it as an eight out of 10, which currently places it as eighth in our rankings (see below).
This was our longest game of Monopoly and so we've also agreed, for the future, to place a timer of sorts on our sessions - calling time at 11.30pm, regardless of how everyone's doing.
Next month is scheduled to be a James Bond theme, which we felt was quite topical in light of the recent announcements of Amazon taking over the Bond franchise (Pete - a massive Bond fan - was not happy about this news and didn't want to talk about it!)
This was our longest game of Monopoly and so we've also agreed, for the future, to place a timer of sorts on our sessions - calling time at 11.30pm, regardless of how everyone's doing.
Next month is scheduled to be a James Bond theme, which we felt was quite topical in light of the recent announcements of Amazon taking over the Bond franchise (Pete - a massive Bond fan - was not happy about this news and didn't want to talk about it!)