Cluemeister's Corner
March Puzzle: Playing with Pennybags
The final puzzle to be plucked, like a plum from a pie, out of this questionable corner pertains to the 76-year-old game of Monopoly, the world's best-selling board game. In the Cluemeister's opinion, Monopoly is a highly flawed game that can yet be very fun when approached with the right attitude. If you aren't having fun, he postulates, it's because the deals you're forging aren't frequent or creative enough! Still, some people complain that Monopoly takes too long, and they may have a point.The Cluemeister therefore took to wondering: What is the shortest possible game of Monopoly?
One friend suggested that it could last for zero turns, if everyone were to immediately concede victory to one player and go to do something else. But this would not be a complete game. In a complete game, everyone but the winner is bankrupted. While Monopoly begs for house rules and the Cluemeister has never even heard of anyone outside of a tournament following the rulebook to the letter, we will stick to the rules as written for simplicity's sake. Moreover, while the game box says "2-8 Players", there would be little point in two-player Monopoly, and we thus conjecture that three players--Alan, Bob, and Charlotte--are participating. We measure the length of a game in player turns, which is to say the number of turns taken by all players put together, as opposed to the number of times around the table or the number of die rolls. Finally, for fun, we include several sets of stipulations...
Alan, Bob, and Charlotte are playing Monopoly. What is the shortest possible number of player turns in...
1) A complete game?
2) A complete game with no trades?
3) A complete game with no trades or auctions?
4) A complete game with no trades, auctions or mortgaging?
Note that trades, auctions and mortgaging are not removed from the game rules for parts 2, 3 and 4--the conditions simply ask for the shortest possible game in which these specified events happen not to occur.
This is your last chance to play Little Jack Horner! Send answers, partial answers and comments to thorin (dot) tatge (at) pobox (dot) com until March 30th. Or check out the answer to February's riddle.