There’s a man in Hindustan, or maybe it was Iowa, who claims to have participated in a Monopoly game that ended. If he’s telling the truth, he’s part of a rare crowd.

     Has anybody of your acquaintance, or have you yourself ever seen the end of a Monopoly game? More likely, when one of the players lands on Park Place and gets wiped out, the landlord says something like, “Well how about if I lend you a little money?
     Some people will use a priori reasoning to explain that the word “monopoly” means one (mono) in control of many (poly), but it’s actually a Sanskrit word for “a game that won’t end in your lifetime.”
     But rather than go into the rules of Monopoly — rules that make absolutely no sense and which violate some 37 common-sense and commerce principles — I wish to discuss some observations on gamespersonship as it applies to various forms of competition.
     We all have heard the expression “poor loser” or “bad sport” to describe someone who can’t stand to lose. What is this over-developed sense of competition that compels people to try to win at all costs? There are poor winners too, those to gloat while losers sulk.
     And there are people like me, who’d much rather preserve a friendship if the consequences are destined to be so deleterious. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
     I was playing a game of Monopoly with two neighbor friends, all of us around age 12. It was heading toward extra innings, several of us having to bail out an opponent who landed on our prime property. I think the game had gone on for six hours, or about as long as an average Italian aria or a Mother’s Day sermon.
     Suddenly, one of the players got up to meet curfew. Who wants my money?” The other remaining player claimed it all. “And who wants my property?” “I want that too.”
     Not being quick enough, I was suddenly one-on-one with someone who’d more than doubled her wealth. I tried to explain that if anything, the money, properties and hotels ought to go to the bank, but immediately I was faced with the “What’s the matter? Can’t take it?” treatment.
     Well, I was on the verge of making Monopoly history, of ending the game, walking away because we weren’t playing by the rules. I came close to using the “c” word, which was one term Mom and Dad told us we must never employ: “c” as in “you’re cheating.” So I simply told the other person, Corrine, I needed to go home. Thereupon, she began a tirade what I thought might become violent. She shook a generous wad of Monopoly money in my face and said, “It’s just a game, Mannie (my nickname). If you don’t believe me, take some of this money to the store and see where it gets you.”
     She had a point: it wasn’t legal tender, but I made a point too. I told her that merely classifying something as a game doesn’t exempt the participants from abiding by agreed-upon rules.
     Years later, I extended that logic to many walks of human interaction. Because Little League baseball is just a game, do we throw out the rules? Because boys and girls enjoy playing organized high school basketball games, do we fail to keep score, ignore personal fouls, and forget about stats and standings?
     Did I over-react to Corrine’s haranguing? Is it possible that experience tempered my view of competition in the form of parlor games and other pastimes involving my own kids and grandkids?
     Playing Old Maid or Joker with our sons invariably featured invoking the “c” action, though not the word. The cheating I did was on their behalf. I enjoyed the glow of a kid who’d beaten his old man for the seventh time. When we play Joker with small kids, we quickly learn the rapidity with which certain cards get mutilated. So I’d generally know which was the Joker and try to rig the game so one of my sons would win. My rigging the rules in their favor may have caused more harm than good.
     Quickly they caught on. One of them said, “You don’t have to do that anymore, Dad.” That’s when I started trying to beat them in earnest, but by that time, they had gotten better. And for more advanced games like Scrabble, they did all right.
     The fact that I remember the game with Conqueror Corrine tells me I must still be perplexed over the win-at-all-costs mentality of some people. Surely being able to claim all the marbles in Monopoly in 1950 couldn’t have been all that fulfilling. When someone wins a game — and everybody in the game knows that person cheated — isn’t the victory hollow? And a benefit to winning honestly is the knowledge that the other participants are aware of all having abided by the rules. There’s a plus in sharing good fortune.
     My attitude toward fairness in competition and in being gracious, win or lose, was crystallized when I heard the anecdote of an employee who worked for a braggart blow-hard golf-playing boss. The employee prayed that justice would be done. Within minutes he heard a voice from Heaven saying, “Don’t worry. He’ll get what’s coming to him this afternoon on the golf course. Just watch.”
     That afternoon the employee watched indeed, as the boss, all by himself, sank three consecutive holes in one. Not even Tiger Woods could manage that. Crestfallen, the employee asked the Deity, “Is THIS how you handle my inconsiderate boss, by allowing him to make three holes in one?”
     The voice answered, “Yes, he did make three holes in one, but was there anybody around to SEE him do it?”