SIKESTON MAN HEADED FOR NATIONAL MONOPOLY TOURNAMENT; STEVE MILLINGTON WILL REPRESENT MISSOURI

SIKESTON -- Steve Millington doesn't really play Monopoly that much any more. He played it a lot when he was a child, he says, and every year when the Sikeston Optimist Club has its annual tournament, he's bent over the board, but that's about it.

That was enough, though. The 38-year-old Sikeston man collected the highest score in the state and will go directly to the National Monopoly Game Championship Monday and Tuesday in New York City.

Millington will represent Missouri in the tournament, one of 43 players competing for the national title. The winner gets to represent the United States in the international championship in Monte Carlo next year.

He says he started competing in the Optimist Club tournaments because it was a fun way to raise money for a good cause. And earlier this year when the club had its tournament, "I got lucky and I won the thing," Millington said.

The Optimists sent his score in to Hasbro, manufacturers of the game, and Millington was notified he was state champion.

"It's all been a little bit of a shock," he said. "I started playing when I was a kid. I don't really play anymore. It's not like it's something I do on a regular basis."

He said he really likes the Optimists' tournament games because "they only last 90 minutes. At the end of the 90 minutes, they count up your assets and figure out who won."

Everybody has a Monopoly strategy. Some go for the utility companies. Some go for the railroads. Millington goes for it all, buying everything he can get his hands on.

"With a limited time game like that, you just buy and buy everything as fast as you can and deal with the other players as fast as you can and hope you're lucky," he said.

He usually picks the thimble as his board token.

"The only reason I pick that is most people don't want it and it's easy to remember, so nobody moves my piece by mistake," he said.

Millington said he and his wife, Julie, are looking forward to the trip as "we've never been to New York."

Preliminary rounds for the national championship will be held at the Empire State Building. The top four finishers will play the final round at the FAO Schwartz toy store.

If he makes it to the international championship, "I will be totally surprised," Millington said. "It would be great. I've always wanted to go to Monte Carlo."

Carol Steinkrauss, a spokeswoman for Hasbro, said this year's tournament is being held in honor of the game's 60th anniversary. Since Monopoly hit the market in 1935, she said, "over 160 million games have been sold worldwide. That's a lot of games."

The Millingtons have lived in Sikeston for about 12 years. Steve Millington is senior vice president and manager of First Midwest Bank, and yes, he said, the job does include "some real estate transactions."

The Millingtons' children, ages 6 and 7, play Monopoly, he said, "but with modified rules so it doesn't get too terribly confusing or too terribly long. It gets boring if it lasts too long."