Partner Challenge Philsophy

Basic Philosophy

I am going to speak from the perspective of having a single account, but if you have an alt (or many alts), the same philosophy for me applies. I am also going to assume, for the sake of the discussion, that you can find partners after the challenge has begun. If you don't use Facebook groups, discord groups or wiki groups. then what I am saying here may not apply. 

I am also going to assume that you are seeking someone who will do 50/50. In my case, I am sometimes content to "full carry" one or more of the slots. There are definitely win/win reasons to do this, but that goal is a different discussion. 

Typically, I would not take on more than two partners at a time. Once I have done close to my part, or it is evident to both sides that I will, on the two partners I have, then I take on a third. I do this because I don't want my partner thinking "he is not doing anything." It is likely to make them feel bad about the partnership, and I don't want that. In my case, I think everyone has complete confidence that partnering with me is a guarantee that at least 50% of the work will be done by their partner. That is the spot you want to be in. 

You can be very good intentioned and loyal and take on four partners, but most people do not have the resources to work all four at once, so you inevitably leave someone hanging. So, when would you take on four partners:

• You have loyal, reliable and consistent partners, and you don't want someone else to gobble up the slots. Everyone trusts everyone and delays in productivity is not a concern. 
• You took a chance on two partners (because you had no choice), and there is no indication that one of them has any intention of doing anything. In that case, he may have not gotten around to it yet, or he may have no intention of ever contributing. You should then do some of your part, maybe 20,000 tokens, or 25% of the total, and then move on and take another partner. 

When would you not take on four at once: 

• When you are taking on people you do not know will do 50/50. Unless you are OK with that, you never take a chance on another partner and leave them hanging.
• If you do this, it becomes a game of wits, where each of you is using your resources on other partners, waiting on your chance partner to do his part. Even when both partners end up producing, the approach does not engender confidence, and usually one of the two will run out of resources in the end if you use this approach. 
• When you get in games of wits with partners,  you are both burning up the clock through inaction. 
• Or, you are taking on reliable partners you know, but  you cannot communicate with any of them. They are just past monopoly partners. This is a risk because if you take them on and do not work, they make take it very personally. 

There is no need to fill are four slots up, some with strangers. This just leads to angry strangers. It is better to fill two and then once they are in control, carefully fill a third. If you are adding strangers anyway, you will not run out of them. They are everywhere. 

Note: my basic rule is no more than two partners at a time. However, I will sometimes break the rule and take on more if I am in daily communication with partners 3 and 4, for example. In that case, I simply tell them I am going to do at least 50/50, but not immediately. I verbally let them know and they understand. The reason I would do this is so they do not partner up with others instead, people who may not take care of them. 

One last thought about partnering: if you have the resources to full carry slots and if you intend to go deep into the main events and the side tournaments, then there is little reason not to do it. It helps those carried quite a bit and costs you very little, for reasons I explain below. 

Full Carry

We recently finished the Hot Rod challenge. I will speak in those terms. Some people think full carry means someone has four accounts and they will complete all four of your cars, one on each account. However, if you look at full carry posts, they are all promising a single car, not four. This makes sense. Almost no one on planet earth has four fully functional and fully funded accounts that could fully carry a partner. Therefore, I will assume that full carry means your partner does your 50% of a single hot rod. 

People who offer full carry service on Facebook, discord or wiki's charge different amounts. I will discuss in terms of the common fees. I will discuss them in today's currencies, based on the Hot Rod Event and Valentines Partners Event (Cakes) that preceded it. 

• Two Five Star Cards
• This is the standard fee if the grand prize is 5000 dice and a Wild Pack (or galaxy pack), and the prize for completing a hot rod is a purple pack.
• One Five Star Card
• This is the standard fee if the grand prize is 5000 dice and a purple pack, and if completing a cake gets you a Blue Pack or a purple pack if very lucky. 
• Free
• This is sometimes offered in the final hour. Many of these offers are scams, but not all of them and the same scam detection logic applies to these offers as applies to sticker trading. 

For bullets one and two above, the offer is usually a win/win. It is better to find a full carry partner than it is to partner with a stranger because you are likely not to complete the event, and the event completion has grand rewards. I will use the One Five Star Card example to explain why it is a win/win:

• As the carried partner, you pay a Five Star Card. You are guaranteed one five star back in a purple pack, plus a ton of dice. It is true that you may get a duplicate five star golden in the bullet one scenario above, but even then the dice you get is worth a five star card. At worst, you break even, and at best, you make out like a bandit. 
• The carrier cannot use your "help" completing hot rods. It does nothing for him at all. He has tons of resources and he is going to finish the main event at the top and the side tournaments, and those will give him more tokens than he needs to complete the hot rods. Once they are complete, he continues to collect tokens, tons of them, and they end up getting converted to cash or dice at the end of the event, and not many. He has no reason not to carry you, as for him carrying you is virtually free. If you pay him a five star card for the carry, then he got a five star card, and he finished the event, whereas he would have nearly nothing if he just hangs on to the tokens. 
• When someone carries for free at the end, it is because they need a partner and have no time to find a paying partner. Again, they don't need your help. They have already collected a surplus of tokens that are about to be wasted. They do need partner, though, or they cannot build a hot rod. Again, it is a win/win to carry you for free in this scenario. 

I Request the Following Features to Be Added to Monopoly Go!

• Allow you to claim a mini game/feature by clicking a button, not automatically when the game loads. 
• Do not close an album automatically. Have the user click a close button to close the album.
• Allow some form of chat. 
• Allow a reward to be declined, such as the cash grab, even for less. 
• Allow you to throw away progress and abandon a partner in a challenge. I understand why you should not just allow a challenge to be transferred to a new partner. This would be potentially unfair to the existing partner and also would allow people to use the transfer method to get new partners to each do a little, while they contributed nothing. 
• Allow safe exchange of stars for stickers. 
• Allow a safe exchange request to be aborted. The abort button could lock both sides and abort five minutes after the request if there is concern that it will be in progress as it is aborted. 
• Allow you to decline to heist a friend. I generally would not do this, but there are times when I would. 
• Allow dice transfers. 
• Allow transfer of unused Peg-E tokens, Pick axes, etc. 
• Allow you to share  a list of duplicate stickers you have with other users. 
• Currently if I send five stickers to George and George has already received 50 stickers today, my cards will be returned to me. However, my sends (trades) are still burned. This is not fair because I had no way of knowing that George was maxed, so I request that you can see how many cards someone has received so far when you send. If you don't want to do that, at least give people a buffer, perhaps fives trades, that can bounce and you don't deduct sends for them. 
• There should be a log of what stickers you sent recently and who you sent them to. This would help resolve disagreements and would help people recover from mistakes. (Me and Fenechka)
• There should be a log of what stickers you received recently and who sent them to you. This would help resolve disagreements and would help people recover from mistakes. (Me and Fenechka)
• Do not control my max dice rolls. It should be limited to the number of dice I have. (Fenechka)
• Do not auto open sticker packs. Allow them to be saved and opened as desired (Fenechka) 

Winning Tournaments

I  do not try to win tournaments. You almost always lose dice when you try to win a tournament. If you don't lose dice, the best case scenario is usually breaking even and the worst case scenario is running out of dice. I don't play monopoly to break even. Therefore, I rarely care about first or second place in a tournament. I do sometimes care about third place, because you sometimes get purple packs for that. 

I do, however, care about getting resources out of a tournament, and this can create the illusion that I am trying to win it, as I coincidentally take first place. 

Tournaments rarely, if ever, yield enough rewards to pay for the dice rolls. I see them as vehicles to support the main event. Therefore, I rarely, if ever, try to get rewards from a tournament on its own merits alone. I try to pair the tournaments with rewards in the main event (the top event), and have the tournament help pay for the rolls I am spending on the main event. 

Also note that early in the main event and tournaments, they will often return more than they cost. However, later, near the middle and the end, the rewards become "inverted" and they cost more than they return in dice. The reason one would keep going is to get the more valuable sticker packs we find near the end of main events. Whether it makes sense to go for those is a judgement call. 

The Power of Levers - Why You Should Not Spend Your Cash

I am maintaining this blog primarily for me. I have not told people about it and I don't think anyone has stumbled upon it. However, I am sure if it were read by others, this would be a controversial post. 

I use the term "pulling a lever" to mean something you can do to get resources when you find yourself in sudden need of them. 

I used to spend cash as soon as possible, so it would not be heisted. Now, I estimate as much as 25% of my cash is heisted and I do much better than previously. It is fine if 25% of your cash is heisted, so long as 75% is spent well. If you get below 10% heisted, but the other 90% is spent in such a way that it yields few returns, then overall your cash was not that valuable, but at least you got to keep the cash you rendered useless.

What good is cash? I will list my opinion in order of importance

• It provides the ability to get resources when you need them.
  
• Once spent, it increases your net worth. However, whether or not an increase in net worth is valuable is a whole subject unto itself. I will assume it has some value here, though, for the sake of the discussion. 

The main use of cash is to support getting resources when you need them. You can only do this if you have not spent it until a good opportunity arises. When it it good to spend cash?

• When you need resources. For example, a sticker season is about to end and you need 200 stars to open your vault and close your album. You have one day to get them. You are probably screwed if you don't have cash. If you have cash, you can build. After building your second map, hotels will start coming off your board and they will be converted to Wheel Spins. The wheel spins give you tons of stickers. I saw someone actually do this. It seemed impossible for her to get the stickers she needed on the last day of the sticker season. She did it with ease. She knew how to use cash. 
• When you can get tons of dice or stickers. This happens when combinations of the following happen at the same time
• Landmark Rush (generally gives you 50 extra dice for each map you finish).
• Board Rush (generally gives you 30 extra dice for each map you finish). 
• Sticker Boom - Gives you 1/3 more stickers for each sticker pack opened. 
• Wheel Boost (gives you 2x Wheel spins for each hotel set you clear on your monopoly board. 
  

I either wait until I need dice or stickers to spend cash or I wait for an opportunity where two or more of the above situations are in play at a time. 

Having Cash on Hand has saved me over and over again. It has allowed me to keep third place in tournaments and get the purple pack, helped with partner challenges and gave me dice when I deemed that to be important. If you spend cash as you get it, so it will not get heisted, it is basically near useless. 

Additional Notes

Closing sticker sets is similar, but not the same exactly. You should not close sticker sets that will close just to get them closed. It is better to have lots of sets that could be closed, and then close them when you need resources, such as the scenarios I discussed above. If you close them all immediately and spend all your cash, then when something comes up, you have no levers to pull. 

I do not use cash to try to win tournaments. You almost always lose dice when you try to win a tournament. If you don't lose dice, the best case scenario is usually breaking even and the worst case scenario is running of dice. I don't play monopoly to break even. Therefore, I rarely care about first or second place in a tournament. I do sometimes care about third place, because you sometimes get purple packs for that. 

Power of the Prestige Album From a Dice Perspective

Update 11/17/2024 

The below analysis was written before Scopely made the albums gold-heavy and also took away useful vaults, replacing them with purple back vaults. Unless Scopely fixes those two issues, the best strategy is to not attempt to close your album, but instead only roll under favorable conditions. If you do this, your first album will probably close, but closer to the end of the season. You will get 15-20k dice on top of what you already had, and your account will be almost guaranteed to grow by 15-20k dice per season with no real effort on your part. It is a more boring way to grow dice for sure. 

If you try to close the album, you will be chasing cards and each one will cost a thousand dice here, four thousand there, and you will end up paying 50k dice for an album with sets worth 11k and a grand prize of 15k. This is a very good way to always be out of dice. 

Original Summary

In Monopoly GO the Prestige Album is the one you get once you complete the first album. It has more sticker sets than the first album had. It has all of the original sets, but each with a higher dice reward, plus it has new sets that have very large dice rewards.

I used to tell people that no matter how many dice I have, I will always spend down to zero (note: I never run out of dice anymore). Historically, that has always been true. Once my main account had 26k, and within a week or so, I had spent down to zero. I also claim, for better or for worse, that stickers are the most powerful currency (then dice, then stars, then cash). 

At the time of this writing, I have been playing fully for two sticker seasons. The first, Heartfelt Holidays, was basically a bust. I closed my first album, but did nothing with the second album, the Prestige Album. The Prestige Album, it turns out, is the money maker. 

For Monopoly Origins, the second season I played full time, I closed the first album, closed the Prestige album and pulled tons of dice out of the second prestige album. Once I was fully engaged with the Prestige albums, I never "spent down to zero dice" again during the season. 

So, I did an analysis of the relative values of the albums. Here it is: 

Monopoly Origins First Album

• 17,200 dice
• The total dice you earn from closing all the sets in Monopoly Origins Original Album was 17,200. 
• 15,000 dice
• You get 15,000 dice for closing the album. 
• 32,200 dice
• The value of the original album is a little over 32k.

Monopoly Origins First Prestige Album

• 51,125
• The total dice you earn from closing all of the sets in the Monopoly Prestige Album
• 20,000
• You get 20,000 dice for closing the first Prestige Album. 
• If you close the second album, you get 30,000 dice for that. 
• 71,125
• The value of the first prestige album is a little over 71k dice, which is well over twice the value of the first album. 
• The value of the second prestige album is 81,125k dice, because the grand prize goes from 20k to 30k. 
• The total value of the last six sets alone in the Prestige album is 30k, even if you do not close the album. This is roughly the total value of the entire original album when you do close it, and closing an album is difficult. Again, if you do not close the first album, then its value is capped at 17k dice, making the last six sets of the Prestige Album worth nearly twice the total value of the first album. 
• I found that my reckless spending down to zero stopped when I was well into the prestige albums. Too many dice were thrown at me. 

References:

• Monopoly Origins

Discord Monopoly Channel - How to Spot a Scammer

This post will discuss things as it relates the main Monopoly Server, the one with over half a million users. There are more than a half a dozen servers. They are all similar, but not identical. 

This article applies to trades that primarily involve trust. Safe Exchange is "usually" safe. There are exceptions. I will go over those in a separate post later. I usually trust a Safe Exchange. 

Generally speaking I use three main red flags to detect a possible scammer. If a trader has any one of them, I will typically avoid them unless we are doing safe exchanges. If they have the first one, or more than one, I will usually avoid them, even if they want a safe exchange. 

I believe I have made over 200 trades now, probably more than half involving me trusting the other person in some way. So far, I have not been scammed. I am sure I will be, but it has not happened yet. 

Many of my trades are "stickers for stars." For example, I will pay 12 stars for the four star card you have that I want. In this case, the one giving the stars is generally expected to send first. Some servers have "rules" that say lowest rep sends first. However, people are not going to send the one card you want in hopes that you will then send four three star cards (and I don't think they should). 

Here are the Red Flags That May Indicate a Scammer

• A new Discord account. The is the worst red flag. 
• If you message them, "Hi," and then click on right click on their avatar and go to their profile, it shows you the age of their discord account. Most scammers accounts are less than five days old. They get reported, and open a new account. Do not trust anyone with a new discord account. I know we all had to have a new account at one point, but most people trading stickers for stars on a new discord account are scamming.  
• I generally give them a 'red flag' for any account that is less than a month old. If the account is less than five days old, I will not even do a safe exchange with them. 
• They make an offer that sounds too good to be true. 
• When Spot Rebel was trading for 60 stars or 2 fives, scammers were offering it for 25-30 stars. Invariably, if you checked the age of the Discord account, it was almost always new. They make the offer for the rarest card about half the time, another red flag. 
• There were a few occasions where someone offered a five star card for half its value or for a four star and they did not have a new discord accord. In the case of the four star offer, I usually gift them the four star and get them to promise not to do that again. The future them will look back on that trade with deep regret when they have the four star cards they need and they are then trying to get five star cards. While they are not scamming, I do consider it exploitation and a little unethical to make the trade with them. It would feel very scammy on my part to trade under those conditions. 
• They do not have legitimate rep. (Just Checking Rep is Not Enough)
• I consider around 30 points to be safe; however, I will trade if they have less than 30, but the other two red flags are not present. 
• Not all rep is legitimate. They can have 30 rep. but mostly from the same user. This is a scam. 
• To check rep. do not enter "-rep" on the server and check the number. That is exactly what many scammers are hoping for. Instead, search user mentions and you can verify that the reps are coming from different users, not one or two. Additionally, if someone has accused them of scamming recently, that too will be in mentions. 
• Correct way to check mentions: 
• Right click the user's avatar and go to their profile. You see the users display name. Under that, you see their discord ID. Double Click the ID, and then copy. 
• Then go not to direct messages, but to a main channel, such as five star trading. Once there, if there user id is tuenis_soref, for example, enter this in the search box:
• mentions:tuenis_soref

• Once you are satisfied with mention, if you double click the most recent rep in user mentions, it will take you the reputation channel where the rep was given, and that will show you the number of reps they currently have. 

Note: here is an example of someone who had decent rep if you just check rep, but if you check mentions you find that he got it all at once, mostly from a single user, probably himself under a different name.

Which Stickers in the Next Album Will Be Rare?

What I Think I Know So Far

I started playing in October 2023. There have only been two albums that I was a aware of. 

These are the rarest stickers in the Making Music album if the prior pattern continues.

Set 9, Karaoke Night, has Sweet Duets.

Set 13, Music Festival has Monopoly Tunes.

Making Music (starts in two days)

Four Star Sweet Duets

• This will appear in Set 9, karaoke Night.
• It will be the first four star to appear in the album. 

Five Star Monopoly Tunes

• This will appear in Set 13, Music Festival 
• It will be the first five star to appear in the album. 
• Finishing this set will earn you Rock Star Mr M. Board Token.

Monopoly Origins

Four Star Room to Rent

• This appeared in Set 9, Maximum Occupancy.
• It was the first four star to appear in the album. 

Five Star Spot Rebel

• This appeared in Set 14, Free Parking.
• It was the first five star to appear in the album. 
• Finishing this set earned you, the Fancy Duck Token.

Heartfelt Holidays

Four Star Farewell

• This appeared in Set 6, Nutcracker Dreams. 
• It was the first four star to appear in the album. 

Five Star So Proud

• This appeared in Set 7, Sweet Home.
• It was the first five star to appear in the album. 
• Finishing this set earned you, Mr. Frosty, the snowman token.

References: 

• Making Music Album Sets
  
• Monopoly Origins
  
• Heartfelt Holidays
  

Events - What Rewards to Target (Inverted Rewards Concerns)

We are currently in the middle of a Partner Challenge. You collect steering wheels. If I land on a wheel with a 100 multiplier, I get 100 wheels. 

Early in the main event, I hit an electric company, which gives rewards in the current main event. Here is a screenshot: 

Notice that I got 650 steering wheels. 

Near the end of the tournament, the points / reward change. It could be that I would spend 800 points and only then get 300 steering wheels. They cost far more than the 1:1 dice/wheel ratio that you get when you land on a wheel. They cost significantly more than than they did when I was in the early stages of the tournament. 

Generally speaking, the further you go in the tournament, the more "inverted" the rewards. In other words, you get fewer rewards at higher cost as you advance into the tournament. 

So why do people go past the middle of an event or tournament? That is where the blue and purple packs are, and stickers are best of the currencies in monopoly. 

So, if I have the funds to go get those packs, I do. However, if I don't, I take the cheap goods and wares near then front of the tournament, and then go into a time out. 

You Tube Tutorials

 I have watched a ton of these to learn from them. Here is what I have learned:

• I estimate upwards of 90 percent of these tutorials are published by people who have no clue what they are talking about. The data they give is not useless. "Useless" would imply that the effect is neutral. The effect is not neutral. If you listen to them, you lose at monopoly. 
• Of course, I could be just like them, only with different bad information. How would I know? Do not believe anything anyone says about monopoly without confirming it. It is hard to come up with a larger body of people spreading misinformation. 
• All of that said, I have come across a few really good tutorials for a beginner/intermediate level. I will start linking them on this site when I encounter them again. 
• And also, if you are a rank beginner, then the data they give may be of value. Even though it is largely bogus, the 20 percent that may be accurate is 20 percent more than you have now. 

These are topics I intend to discuss in the future

• More advanced topics
• What rewards mean:
• The point value of the rewards
• The cost of rewards in the event. How inverted to they start out? 
• The likelihood of scoring points when you roll (adjusting multiplier. 
• Examples
• tokens usually give on 2 points, but a railroad event can give as many as 7 (2 for chance + 5 for railroad). However, the rewards in the railroad event are more inverted, so
• If you have a 14 in 36 chance of scoring, what does it mean? If they rewards are tokens and already inverted somewhat, then if you get the best scenario, score every time, you still may lose dice. Therefore you lose even if you score. it is time to time out. 
• If you have a14 in 36 chance of scoring on a railroad even (if that is even possible), that would be huge. You should always use the highest multiplier possible, because even if the rewards are inverted, and even with the misses, you will gain dice on average so....
• Don't worry about whether you will lose dice on the next roll, or on the next several rolls. It hardly matters. What matters is that your play matches a winning strategy. 
• Also, discuss how to weight and calculate odds. 
• Adding odds of strikes together. 
• Factoring in point values, which really matters on partner event and utility events. 
• Factoring in partner tokens, which I treat as shields as they are worth less than 1 die to me. 
• Factoring in sheilds
• Factoring in the jail, which has a 42% breakout rate, but what does that mean? If you breakout with double ones, it is way different than if you break out with double sixes. 
• Intro. Who I am
• A relative novice. 
• A Strategy buff 
• Discord
• What it means to be banned. 
• How to detect and avoid scammers. Three Red Flags
• Account is less than a few weeks old. 
• Offering hells of deals. 
• Has low rep, not rep, or recent rep given by a few users. 
• When to avoid someone.
• There are thousands of options. If I am doing stars for stickers or any other non safe exchange, I reject anyone with a single red flag. 
• I have done over a hundred trades at the time of this writing, most unsafe, and I have never been scammed. 
• I believe as many as 25% percent of unsafe offers are scams. 
• Trading Ethic
• Each person, when they learn more, do not look back on the trade with regret.
• The reasons this matters. 
• The power of Trading Partners and Relationships.
• 1:1 vs 2:1
• When it is logical to get stars vs getting fives. 
• Favors, why it is OK to ask and perhaps good. 
• Granting or receiving a favor engenders trust. 
• I often say, if you agree to this, it will establish mutual trust and create a trading partnership that benefits us both in the future. 
• Monopoly Strategy
• Peg E
• Multipliers. 
• They DO NOT increase your odds if you auto roll. They make it go faster and make it more likely that you will
• A. Bust and get nothing or 
• B. Get a big win. 
• Odds - 6, 7, 8, etc. 
• 
  
• Tournaments
• Inverted rewards
• Roll of 100 at the top of an event
• 730 tokens in partner challenge. 
• 350 dice
• 4 sticker packs
• cash 
• Why competing to win is almost always a mistake. 
• And why those you think are you competing with you likely are not. 
• When to time out. 
• How do know what is in them? 
• How to know if it makes sense to pursue the next milestone. 
• How to live with time outs. 
• Why Winning does not matter, but, if ego matters, 
• How to win
• How to play
• Token based
• Railroad / tax / community chest based
• Four Corners 
• Currencies
• Stickers
• Dice
• Cash
• How to not lose opportunities. Levers you can pull. 
• At least two accounts
• 
  
• Shut down relationships and partnerships. 
• Altruism
• Pay it forward
• How it self servers. 
• The ego/feelings. 
• The connections
• Cash
• Why it is good 
• Why should you allow it to be heisted. 
• Shut downs
• Why they are OK
• Friends List
• Why they are OK, the more the merrier. 
• Community Chest
• Why you should open immediately 
• Partner Challenge
• How to finish 
• Required ethics for success. 
• Who should you "help" first? Those you cannot communicate with. 
• How many should you take? 
• Full Carry and why it is mutually beneficial. 
• Levers. I need dice. What do I do? What did I do that got me in this pickle?
• Spending Cash I should have saved. 
• Cash Spending
• Heists e
• Board Rush
• Landmark Rush
• Wheel Boost
• Sticker Boom
• The Vault
• When to open. 
• Why opening early throws away your stickers. 
• Why opening at the next sticker boom is useless and throws away your stickers. 
• Multiple accounts
• The best options: 2Accounts
• The worst Options. Blue Stacks. 
• Golden Blitz
• What people want
• When it begins
• In the middle
• When it ends. 
• What I think is a fair approach. 
• Altruism
• Mutual benefits 
• trading relationships
• antidote to greed: you have completed your prestige album. Why are  you trying to complete another? 
• Ethics
• Transparency and honesty
• Admission of mistakes and making it right. 
• The benefits to you. You don't want to have to remember something or feel like you are going to get caught. It is not worth it. Feel good about yourself and others will feel good about you. 
• Reputation. 
• Always look for win/win. You can win and the other person lose, but that hurts you also in other ways, trading partnerships, reputation, and the chance that someone will take care of you in the future when you need it most. 
• Ethics are good for others, feel good and are also self-serving. 
• References
• Contacts