"No, Mr Bond, I Expect You To (Roll The) Die!"

With the iconic music from the movies playing out of our smart speaker, we sat down last night to play the James Bond-themed Monopoly board.

For movement counters, Pete chose the Lotus Esprit (from The Spy Who Loved Me), Clare picked Rosa Klebb's dagger shoe (from From Russia With Love), I took Oddjob's bowler (from Goldfinger), and Rachel was the 007 logo/pistol.

Instead of properties, this set allowed players to buy up the various films in the Bond franchise, marked out on the board in chronological order, starting with Dr No just past 'Go' right round to No Time To Die and M16 being the two most valuable squares.

Oddly, this meant that - while the "utilities" were two variations of Q Branch - the "stations" (from the traditional game) were just whatever film came at that point, which felt a bit strange given the wide variety of signature vehicles associated with the character of Bond over the years.

While there were no special rules for this set, some effort was made to personalise it to Bond by having the houses and hotels as "safe houses" and "headquarters", and chance and community chest cards were "allies" and "enemies".

I started off poorly, never really recovered, and was the first to go out - bankrupted by my own wife.

After that there was a bit of a lull when it looked as though several people were on the verge of being knocked out, when suddenly the game got its second wind and a spate of house building ensued, upping the threat level enormously.

That's a lot of headquarters on the board!

There was definitely something in the air last night that meant everyone was slightly befuddled and possibly not bringing their a-game to the table, with a mixture of tactical errors and minor rules mistakes (such as forgetting whose turn it was or forgetting to take property cards when you made a purchase). 

Everyone was tired - and slightly distracted - for various reasons, meaning their minds weren't always focussed 100 per cent on the game. There was even a distinct lack of Bond-related punning, which with this franchise is always an open goal no matter the situation.

Nevertheless, the final three fought on heroically, with Rachel's property portfolio and cash reserves eventually being whittled down until it was just Pete and Clare remaining in a tense head-to-head showdown.

As 11 o'clock drew closer (now our official "end time"), Clare chose - in the dying seconds of the game - to concede to Pete, taking second place rather than sharing the glory of joint first.

She explained her reasoning on her Three Beautiful Things Substack today, and while it was good sportsmanship, I breathed a slight sigh of relief as it meant points-wise Clare only drew level with me, instead of sliding ahead of me (see table below).

Of course, she still, historically, has a game in hand on the rest of us (having missed our Scooby-Doo game, subbing in Nick in her stead).

Monopoly guru Pete continues, frustratingly, to pull away at the top of the table with another win, while Rachel's third place finish this week did little to help her close the gap on Clare and I.

In judging the theme of the evening, we all agreed that while the James Bond set was well made, when you dug down there were issues - from the plastic insert in the box not being geared to double as a bank to some of the 'property' names and cards being difficult to read at a glance.

Also Rachel's chosen token (the 007 logo) was so narrow that it was surprisingly hard to spot on the board when its thin edge was pointing towards her.

"You're Going To Need A Bigger Table!"

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.

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.

Mine, all mine! I rule the ocean and control the shark! Bwahahaha!

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.

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!)