The thrill of being thrashed by the Monopoly masters
The other Friday I challenged Sir Stuart Lipton, chairman of Stanhope, the private real-estate group, to a game of Monopoly. The plan was to beat him and then gloat to anyone willing to listen that I had defeated the most influential property developer of the late 20th century at his own game.
However, this plan was undermined by a number of factors: (1) Sir Stuart turned out to be rather good at Monopoly; (2) Jim Pickard, the Financial Times's property correspondent, who accompanied us, turned out to be rather good at Monopoly; and (3) I turned out to be rather poor at Monopoly.
Indeed, as soon as we sat down to play, and Jim remarked that the greatest achievement of his adult life had been “winning a game of Monopoly with hotels on the green set”, I knew it was not going to be a walk in the park.
“Of course, everyone knows that the greens are the least profitable on the board,” he added. “The ratio between the cost of houses and their turnover is the worst of the sets. The oranges are the most financially productive.”
Even Sir Stuart seemed a little taken aback at the depth of this analysis. But he responded in kind, making a comment that showed he had also thought deeply about the world's most popular board game: “The odd thing about Monopoly is that you get such high income from the hotels in actuality hotels don't pay much income, they pay capital. Anyway, shall we play?”
We picked our counters. Sir Stuart chose the hat because, he said, it was “something that anyone could wear” and he was “keen on property projects having a social function”. Jim chose the boot because, he said, he was going to give our “arses a kicking”. I chose the dog because it looked cute.
Within minutes our unique tactical quirks had become apparent. Jim's approach was high-risk: he focused entirely on buying the purples and oranges. Sir Stuart and I, meanwhile, adopted a low-risk strategy: we bought everything we could, although, unlike Sir Stuart, I avoided the utilities,a tactic he clearly considered insane.
“The utilities are on prominent locations on the board and
that is an important thing in
property development,” he reasoned.
I was glad he made the analogy. On the way to meet him it had occurred to me that the biggest flaw in my plan was that there might not be a comparison between playing Monopoly and developing property. Of course, they involve similar things managing money, brokering deals, going to jail but maybe beating Sir Stuart at Monopoly would be like beating Michael Schumacher at a Formula 1 computer game: satisfying, but entirely inconsequential.
Fortunately, Sir Stuart, who had huge success in the 1980s when his company built the City of London's Broadgate development, and who fell to earth when his company skirted bankruptcy in 1992, and who then recovered in the 1990s, was not dismissive of the comparison between his business and Monopoly.
As he tock-tock-tocked his way around the board, he elaborated on the similarities. Both were not governed by logic (“development involves a touch of madness”), both depended on timing (“it's no longer location, location, location but timing, timing, timing”), both involved a degree of luck and in both it was essential to build a diverse portfolio.
On the board, meanwhile, Jim was demonstrating a fair amount of the necessary madness but none of the necessary diversity. Forty-five minutes into the game, he had staked everything on the oranges and purples. Sir Stuart, meanwhile, was being diverse: he had two blues, two greens, two reds and a nice selection of utilities.
He offered Jim some advice: “One of the great necessities of property is to be a long-term player and not to overreach.” Jim, whose proficiency at Monopoly was demonstrated by the fact that he could teleport tokens without counting along for each dot of the dice, replied: “Yes, but I'm in a pretty perky position if I land on Vine Street.”
As he said this, I landed on Vine Street. Ignoring Sir Stuart's sombre plea not to do so, I sold the street to Jim for a profit. Frankly, I should have listened to the multimillionaire property developer. Within a couple more rounds I was bankrupt and was listening to Jim remark: “I can see why you chose that counter. It was a dog!”
I spent the next 30 minutes watching Sir Stuart and Jim compete, which was a little like watching two Russians play Bezique: impossible to follow. “I'll buy Fleet Street from you if you give me 10 per cent above the board price,” said Jim. “But I paid a 37 per cent premium when I bought it in the first place,” protested Sir Stuart.
The arithmetic almost made my brain melt. Throughout, it seemed as if Sir Stuart was going to win. But then, suddenly, Jim's high-risk strategy began to pay off. I knew Sir Stuart was in trouble when he admitted, in his slow, serious, English voice: “You have a quality pitch, Jim.”
Becoming nerdier by the minute, Jim then declared: “Mathematically, you're lined up for defeat, because the most common dice roll is seven.” Sir Stuart rolled his dice. The dots added up to seven. “Do you play this nightly or weekly, Jim?” asked the 62-year-old developer, conceding gracefully.
All in all it was an entertaining way of passing a Friday afternoon. But a bit of a failure as far as my plan was concerned. Saying that I challenged the most influential property developer of the late 20th century to a game of Monopoly but was annihilated by him and the FT's property correspondent was not quite the gloat I was
aiming for.
与房产大亨玩强手棋
有一个周五，我向私人房地产集团斯丹诺普(Stanhope)的董事长斯图亚特?利普顿爵士(Sir Stuart Lipton)发出挑战，要和他玩一局“强手棋”(Monopoly)。我的计划是先打败他，然后在所有愿意听我吹嘘的人面前炫耀：我打败了这个20世纪末英国最有影响力的房产开发商，而且是在他自己拿手的领域。
然而，这个计划遭到了很多因素的破坏：(1)事实证明斯图亚特爵士相当擅长强手棋；(2)事实证明陪我们玩的《金融时报》房产记者吉姆?皮卡德(Jim Pickard)玩强手棋也很在行；(3)其实我玩“强手”很差劲。
实际上，我们一坐下开始玩，吉姆就说，他成人之后最大的成就是曾“凭借在绿色区域建旅馆而赢了一局强手棋”。当时我就知道，玩这局游戏不会像在公园散步那么简单。
“当然，所有人都知道绿色区域是棋盘上最无利可图的地方，”他补充说，“这里房屋收入与成本之比是所有区域中最低的。橙色区域是最能赚钱的。”
就连斯图亚特爵士看上去也对这种深奥的分析有点吃惊。但他的回应毫不逊色，因为他的评论表明，对于这种全球最流行的棋类游戏，他也曾有过深入的思考：“强手棋的奇怪之处在于，旅馆为你带来这么高的收入，但在现实中，开旅馆赚不了多少钱，而且还要耗费资金。不管它了，我们开始玩吧。”
我们选择了自己的筹码。斯图亚特爵士选择了帽子，他说帽子是“人人都会戴的东西”，而他“很喜欢具有社会功能的物业项目”。吉姆挑了靴子，他说准备把我们“踹出局”。我选了小狗，因为它的样子很可爱。
几分钟之后，我们各自独特的战术癖好已经很明显。吉姆的方式风险很高：他集中购买紫色和橙色区域。同时，斯图亚特爵士和我采用了一种低风险策略：购买一切能买的东西，但有一点我和斯图亚特爵士不同，我不买公用事业，他显然认为这一战术很愚蠢。
“公用事业在棋盘上处于主要位置，而且在地产开发中也非常重要，”他解释说。
我很高兴他做这样的类比。在前去见他的途中，我曾想到，我计划中最大的缺陷，就是在玩强手棋和地产开发之间也许没什么可比之处。当然，两者涉及一些类似的事：管理资金、实施交易、入狱。但在强手棋上击败斯图亚特爵士，或许就像在一级方程式赛车电脑游戏上战胜迈克尔?舒马赫(Michael Schumacher)一样：令人志得意满，但完全不合逻辑。
幸好，对于把他的生意与强手棋进行比较，斯图亚特爵士并未不屑一顾。他在上世纪80年代取得了巨大的成功，当时他的公司建造了伦敦金融城的Broadgate开发项目，而在1992年，他的公司濒临破产，他也一败涂地，然后在90年代结束前，他又东山再起。
当他拿着棋子在棋盘上“笃、笃、笃”前进时，他详尽阐述了地产开发与下强手棋之间的相似之处。两者都不受逻辑支配(“地产开发带有一些疯狂的色彩”)，两者都取决于时机的把握(“再也不是选址、选址、选址，而是择机、择机、择机”)，两者都涉及一定的运气，而且在这两件事中，建立一个多样化的投资组合都是必不可少的。
而此刻的吉姆在棋盘上展示了相当程度的必要疯狂，但他没有显示出任何必要的多样性。在游戏进行了45分钟后，他把一切都押在橙色和紫色区域中。与此同时，斯图亚特爵士则一直进行多样化投资。他拥有两个蓝色区域、两个绿色区域、两个红色区域，还有一些精选的公用事业。
他给了吉姆一些建议：“做地产生意非常必要的一点，是成为一个长线运作者，而且做事不要过头。”吉姆回答说：“是的，但现在如果我落在葡萄大道(Vine Street)上，我会非常开心。”吉姆可以不按骰子点数逐格行进，就直接把棋子放到目标格，这个事实证明了他非常精通强手棋。
当他说这话时，我落在了葡萄大道上。我把这条街卖给吉姆赚了点钱，虽然斯图亚特先生郑重规劝我别这么做，但我没听他的。坦率的说，我真该听这位百万富翁地产开发商的话。不出几个回合，我就破产了，只听吉姆说：“我知道你为什么选狗做筹码了。它确实差劲！”
随后30分钟，我看着斯图亚特爵士和吉姆比赛，这有点像看两个俄罗斯人玩伯齐克牌戏(Bezique)：不可能看明白。“如果你接受，我就以高于棋盘上标价10%的价格从你那里买下舰队街(Fleet Street)，”吉姆说。“但我最初买进时就付了37%的溢价，”斯图亚特爵士抗议说。
这种计算几乎让我想破脑袋。自始至终似乎都是斯图亚特爵士要赢了。但突然之间，吉姆的高风险策略开始有了回报。当斯图亚特爵士用缓慢、严肃的英格兰口音说，“吉姆，你真有办法，”我就知道斯图亚特爵士有麻烦了。
这时吉姆发了一会呆，接着他宣布：“从数学角度看，你输定了，因为骰子掷出最常见的点数是7点。”斯图亚特爵士掷了一下骰子，点数加起来正好是7。“吉姆，你是每晚上都玩，还是每周玩一回？”这位62岁的开发商一边优雅地认输，一边问道。
一般说来，用这种方式来度过周五下午很愉快。但就我的计划而言，这是个小小的失败。我向20世纪末最有影响力的地产开发商发起挑战，和他玩了一局强手棋，但却被他和《金融时报》的地产记者彻底打败，这可不是我原想到处炫耀的事。
