Solution - High Rollers

by Craig Kasper

Answer: Click here to reveal

Solving the crossword with the aid of the rules listed which the crossword follows yields the answer grid below.

Pondering the set of shaded letters (LMNOPY) and scrutinizing the grid, where the corners contain the letters FREE, JAIL, GOJL, and GO, and each side has an RR bigram in the middle row/column, should suggest to you that this is a Monopoly board. With this knowledge, the list given below the clues can then be interpreted as a list of rolls and rents. The list can be re-ordered into a single chain of moves starting at GO, and with all 1-house rents paid before 2-house rents, 2-house rents paid before 3-house rents, and 3-house rents paid before 4-house rents, as shown in the table below.

Order    Roll    Rent    Property (US version)
1 8(30)Vermont (1 house)
2 11(80)New York Avenue (1 house)
3 10(120)Marvin Gardens (1 house)
4 10(200)Boardwalk (1 house)
5 11(N/A)Jail (Just visiting)
6 11(250)Kentucky Avenue (2 houses)
7 10(390)Pacific Avenue (2 houses)
8 9(N/A)Go
9 6(90)Oriental Avenue (2 houses)
10 10(200)St. James Place (2 houses)
11 10(800)Atlantic Avenue(3 houses)
12 11(1100)Park Place (3 houses)
13 12(300)Connecticut Avenue (3 houses)
14 10(600)New York Avenue (3 houses)
15 12(1100)Pacific Avenue (4 houses)
16 8(1700)Boardwalk (4 houses)

By using the number of houses on a property to index into the area in the center of the board, letters can be selected in move order, with the non-property squares acting as spaces. (The squares selected thusly are identified on the board diagram below.) This produces the message CALL IN MADEWELL. MADEWELL is the answer to the puzzle.