How to use the card deck for serious strategy planning

Games to play with the card deck

 Robert Cantrell, the author, is a professional strategist and a client of Atchity Editorial/Entertainment International

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.