So yesterday I see this big splash for the Tycoon Cookout event in Monopoly GO, right? Promises like “get rich fast!” and “mega dice rolls!” plastered everywhere. Honestly, it looked awesome. Dice are like gold in this game, any chance to score more instantly grabs my attention.
Jumping Straight In & Facing Reality
First thing, I fired up the app. Boom, the event screen pops up, all flashy and exciting. They’ve got these partner slots – you’re supposed to team up and cook dishes together to hit milestones and get rewards. Sounded cooperative, easy dice. Wrong. Here’s what actually happened:
- Checked my gift box. Found a couple of free oven mitt tokens (used to start cooking). Felt like a small win, used ’em immediately. Got a tiny amount of progress and maybe 10 dice back? Barely a dent.
- Saw the tournament. Looked like another way to score mitts. Spent maybe 50 dice rolling like crazy, managed to land in the top 10 for a hot second. Earned a few mitts… great! But then burned through them cooking one dish. Progress felt sluggish.
- Looked at the partner slots. THIS is where things got frustrating. You need partners to fill those slots to cook effectively. Problem: None of my so-called “friends” in the game sent invites. Seriously. Zip. Nada. Zero. Just empty slots staring back. Totally stalled my progress. Felt like a scam.
The “Win Big Fast” Method Crash & Burn
The whole pitch was joining forces. But my experience? Pure solo slog. Used the pitiful mitts I got from freebies and grinding the tournament. Started cooking solo dishes. The progress bar crawled. We’re talking needing thousands of points per dish, solo cooking giving maybe 30-40 per hour? Crazy slow.
- Realized the partner thing is broken. It either requires real-life buddies constantly glued to the event, or maybe joining Discord servers? No thanks. The in-game friend system felt worthless. Like yelling into a void.
- Started dumping dice into the cook-off. Figured I’d brute force it. Spent about 100 dice rolling just to get ingredients tokens faster. Ended up with maybe 1 or 2 mitts. Used them… maybe got another 150 progress points towards a dish? Totally not worth the dice investment. My dice went bye-bye fast.
Accidentally Kinda Winning (By Lowering Standards)
Honestly, I got disillusioned quick. That “win big fast” tagline felt like a cruel joke. So, I dialed WAY back. Focused purely on the solo cooking and accepting whatever tiny rewards dripped out. How?
- Completely ignored partner slots. Wrote them off as a dead feature.
- Checked in every few hours. Just collected the solo dish progress.
- Took whatever puny milestone rewards came. 5 dice here, 2 mitts there. Tiny stuff.
- Stopped chasing high rankings. Didn’t stress about climbing the tournament leaderboard anymore.
Result? By playing super passively and ignoring the core “team-up” mechanic (which just doesn’t work reliably for many players), I actually snagged a few hundred dice and some random stickers over the couple days. Did I “win big”? Absolutely not. Did I get something without stressing myself out? Yeah. Did I feel the event delivered on its hype? Lol, not even close. The real method? Lower your expectations dramatically and accept crumbs. That’s the actual “win” strategy for this stupid event. Don’t trust the marketing.
