An eight or a 10 and it’s over. I’m sitting pretty on my homeland, good ol’ Marvin Gardens, but profits are down and my fiercest competitor (the Race car) has hotels up on Park Place and Boardwalk — a $2,000 price tag I can’t afford.

A lucky seven puts me on Chance. I’m in the clear.

“Advance token to Boardwalk.” OK, maybe not.

Monopoly. The most complex board game ever.

A game so fascinating it can be played three times in one night and have three completely different results.

Once a week last summer, three friends and I gathered for a long night of boasting, begging, trading and manipulating. Similar to the New York Stock Exchange, it was a no-holds-barred, every-man-for-himself battle for bragging rights.

On opening night, we played three games in seven hours, an amazing feat to the millions who have never even finished an entire game.

By the end of the summer, we played over 20 games of Monopoly.

We became so obsessed with the game that each of us had the exact amount of every piece of property memorized, including the mortgage values and costs of houses and hotels ($450 for hotels on Mediterranean and Baltic Avenues).

We each had our signature styles. I was partial toward the Dog, but also found luck in the Shoe. Yellows were my favorites, and I always passed up the blue-collar utilities.

The Hat liked the greens and the Race car traded anything for the tans. The blues were Big Dogs and could put the competition out of the game with one land, but took a lot of investing to build up and often scared away the smart thinker.

Like any hobby, there was a certain lingo to go along with our play. The purples and light blues were the slums. Virginia Avenue was nicknamed Virgin, Community Chest was Community Breast.

Our rules were a little advanced. If a player chose to pass up purchasing a property, it was put up for auction (but must be bid on in multiples of five).

A $500 bill was always kept in Free Parking with all Chance and Community Breast fees going in the pot.

Trades made the game exciting and anything was acceptable (but favors from players’ moms were usually discouraged). Free stays could be used in trades, but stayed with the player and not the property.

Players had to do all purchasing before they rolled. If a player failed to ask for their $200 after passing Go and before the next person rolled, no money was awarded.

If someone landed on your property and you didn’t catch them before the next person rolled, they did not have to pay. If you pointed out someone else landing on another player’s property, you had to pay the fine.

And last, but not least, each player had to pay a $50 fine toward the Free Parking pot after every third passing of gas. This rule was strictly enforced. In fact, so much so that the Hat was put out of the game for this violation.

The best games usually came down to the wire and involved one or more players handing over their assets with tears.

Although many argue Monopoly is a game of luck, the members of this particular league were convinced the game is 75 percent skill, 25 percent luck.

Of the 75 percent, 40 percent was the ability to talk your competitors into doing trades that will, of course, benefit them more than it will you.

So how do you know when your Monopoly addiction has gone too far? My high school buddy, the Race car, has two boards, an extra set of money and houses, and carries around the Parker Bros. 1-800 number in his wallet.

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Corey Moss is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Urbandale.