Sloan lawyer gets squeezed out in Monopoly wheeling-dealing
U. S. champion finishes third in world match
Like so many before him, Richard Marinaccio ran out of luck Thursday in Las Vegas.
The 26-year-old corporate lawyer from Sloan, who was crowned U. S. Monopoly champion in April, couldn’t hit the jackpot at the board game’s world championship in Caesars Palace, where he finished third behind competitors from Norway and New Zealand.
Trying to become the first U. S. international champ since 1974, Marinaccio entered the finals on a roll. After losing the first two games of the preliminary round, which started with 41 entrants, he stormed back in the third and “squeaked into” the semifinals in 14th place.
Marinaccio then rode a victory in “probably the most dramatic game I ever played” to the Final Four, where he was matched against eventual winner Bjorn Halvard Knappskog, a 19-year-old Norwegian student; 25-year-old Geoff Christopher of New Zealand; and Oleg Korostelev, 24, of Russia.
Knappskog was the only player without a monopoly after trades gave Marinaccio the magenta property group, Christopher the oranges and Korostelev the more expensive greens.
But the game turned when Korostelev swapped the Norwegian a cheaper light
blue property to gain the red property group, giving Knappskog an inexpensive monopoly with cash to develop.
The move surprised Knappskog and the others because Korostelev couldn’t afford to build on the property group and didn’t negotiate for cash.
Even lucky T-shirts made for Marinaccio by three Blasdell Elementary School students—his cousin Ryan Hughes, Trey Patrum and Amanda Ruiz — could not get him out of Jail this time.
“I thought I was in such a great position,” Marinaccio said. “I didn’t see that coming, and I don’t think New Zealand saw that, either.
“It was a quick turn of events. I went from being really positive, to out of the running, pretty quickly.”
Was he disappointed?
“Yes and no,” Marinaccio said. “The whole thing was a lot of fun. After the first two rounds, I wasn’t expecting to make it that far. So I was glad to get to the point where I had a chance to win.”
Knappskog took home $20,580 in real money, the same as the total amount in the bank for a standard Monopoly game. Marinaccio and the other runners-up were once again out of luck. They received no prize money.
When he went to the gaming floor at Caesars Palace afterward, Marinaccio had to use cash he brought from Buffalo to play the slots and the Money Wheel.
“So far I’ve lost $12,” he said Friday. “I’m not much of a gambler.”
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