On Saturday February 16, 2019, over 70 people of all ages descended on Tynedale Golf Club, Hexham, with their Monopoly game faces on. The aim; to challenge each other in a knockout-style tournament, with three 45-minute rounds deciding this year’s King or Queen of the game.
First prize was a very impressive engraved silver trophy (complete with a fantastic hand-made Mr Monopoly), second prize was a Game of Thrones Monopoly set, and third prize was a copy of Monopoly Deal.
Three large rooms were packed with tables of people and board games, with the opening round featuring a whopping 16 sets:
- Standard UK Monopoly
- Coronation Street Monopoly
- WWE Monopoly
- Hobbit Monopoly
- Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug Monopoly
- Sonic Boom Monopoly
- Perth Monopoly
- Dundee Monopoly
- London Underground Monopoly
- The Simpsons Monopoly
- English Heritage Monopoly
- Roald Dahl Monopoly
- Star Wars: 40th Anniversary Monopoly
- Disney Monopoly
- Thunderbirds Monopoly
- Christmas Monopoly
The Monopoly Tournament
To keep the rounds lively and ensure a full game could be played in 45 minutes, a number of house rules were employed. These included being able to buy property straight away; the opportunity to trade cash, cards or unimproved property for other properties; and the use of the Speed Die that was first introduced in Monopoly: The Mega Edition. The Speed Die is added to players’ rolls after a full trip around the board and provides extra benefits, for example increasing the total number of spaces a player could move or allowing an advance to the next vacant property.
With the first round concluded, the winner from each table advanced to the next round. Those unlucky enough to be knocked out at this stage had the chance to settle any scores by playing the other tabletop games on hand, ranging from Donkey Kong Jenga to Harry Potter Trivia Pursuit.
In-between the second and final rounds, the raffle winners were drawn for the amazing range of prizes generously donated by local businesses. There was also a chance to win a Star Wars: Solo Monopoly set if you could guess the number of Monopoly tokens in the jar (despite my best efforts, I didn’t come even remotely close to the correct answer; it turned out to be surprisingly difficult!).
The third and final round was a tense showdown between the last four players standing with the deciding Monopoly game being played out on the Disney Edition. In the end, the younger generation emerged victorious but there were stellar efforts from all involved!
Money Raised
Thanks to the huge amount of work put in by the founder of the Monopoly Tournament, Andrew Pert, logistical assistance from friends and family, and the amazing generosity from everyone attending, the event raised an amazing £1050 for local charity Wag & Co!
Every year a different charity is chosen to benefit from the Tournament; Andrew chose Wag & Co this year as their work is close to his heart:
Wag & Co were thrilled with the donation and thanked everyone involved for helping them to carry on their work in the local community.
Overall, it was a fantastic evening, and a great celebration of the wide and wonderful world of Monopoly. Andrew has recently added Monopoly set number 197 to his collection: Kinder Surprise Monopoly, which he is currently busy translating (at present this is only available in the native German). He will no doubt accumulate more before the 2020 Monopoly Tournament – perhaps next year’s competition should be guessing the new total!
