Strategy Sparring™
A game to increase the pace and agility of your strategic
thinking.
Strategy Sparring™ is a new
game developed with a Foreign Services officer. Just like physical
martial arts sparing, there is no winner per say in this game. The goal
is to improve the thinking skills under fire of both participants. You
use the cards from the Art of War: Sun Tzu Strategy Card Deck to
exercise your mind and develop real-time strategic agility on your feet.
Shuffle the Art of War: Sun Tzu
Strategy Card Deck, and draw five cards each. Decide who goes first.
Draw another card from the deck and place the card face up on the table.
In less than 10 seconds, have the first player select a counterstrategy
from his card deck, place that card face up on the table, and draw a
replacement card from the deck. In less than 10 seconds, have the second
player select a counter strategy to the first player’s card, place that
card face up on the table, and draw a replacement card from the deck.
Continue this sparing cycle until you go through the entire deck. (If you
have a chess clock or two stop watches, you can use them to keep up the
pace and make the sparing more competitive.)
For example, if one player places the
Queen of Hearts...
...the next player might play the Ten
of Spade to call the bluff.
The first player might respond to
that move by playing Jack of Clubs to expand the scope of the
engagement...
... which the first player could
answer by playing Seven of Clubs to gain more influence and reach.
A given response is not necessarily
right or wrong, but should come with a plausible explanation.
After a few round of this game, you
should notice that the pace of your strategic thinking has increased. In
any competitive situation, that could give you a decisive edge.