Intro to STRATEGIC THINKING:
While both sense-based AWARENESS & COMMUNICATION skills in general (sending, receiving & interpreing) provide individual organisms, groups & lifeforms improved odds for making intelligent (i.e., beneficial) choices, STRATEGIC THINKING (the process of identifying, evaluating, & adapting potenial responses) improves one’s odds again, taking the potential for preferred outcomes up one or more levels, for individuals &/or their groups. Situations themselves constrain & provide frameworks that more or less define available choices. Whether in a game, business, politics, international or personal relations, participants identify, evaluate & choose possible responses, simply seeking better, more advantageous outcomes.
Note that outcomes tend to be both initial & longer term. Indeed, effects from possible moves very often involve overlapping time-frames, the immediate effects of a move, as well as those longer term over one or more time-scales. There are many situations in which an immediate advantages a move likely gives are more than offset by the scale of its longer-term costs, as well as vice versa, longer-term advantages from short-term costs. Effective strategic actions often involve trade-offs, commonly including time-frames.
It is hard to think of a game that doesn’t depend on the use of strategic thinking, from tic-tac-toe (or even rock-paper-scissors) on. Yet the same can be said for most meaningful decisions, choices & actions we make in our lives, where “meaning” derives from the differences made. From its beginning, game theory sought not just to study what & how people made real-world decisions, but also how use of game-framed simulations of interactive situations might improve players’ strategic choices in practice. Whether preparing to make choices in business, national defense or as a commercial airline pilot, simulations are likely part of one’s training, providing hands-on experience of likely outcomes without the associated real-world costs.
Arguably, the single most basic strategic guidance has always been PAY ATTENTION, as refined & elaborated by the particular situation. The advantages conveyed by AWARENESS can hardly be over-stated, starting with sensory information, then supplemented by COMMUNICATION, i.e., strategically useful information conveyed by others &/or drawn from our own observations over time. The strategic mind, culturally, socially, biologically & psychologically shaped, is simply how we try to achieve better rather than worse results in any situation, with advantages for the individuals &/or their groups.
From time immemorial, people have invented, shared & played games that exercise strategic thinking, long before Johnny von Neumann’s pioneer mid-20th Century work on Game Theory. From the simplest board-, bean-, & card games to backgammon, checkers, chess, & go, poker, bridge, fish & rummy, war-games, Monopoly & Bod Library’s own market & exchange inventions, playing has focused, exercised & informed strategic thinking. The relationship between “play” & “strategic mind” seems inherently natural, as fundamental as “playing alternatives out in the mind” simply by identifying available choices & trying to select the best by imagining the likeliest effects of each.
In many or most strategically significant situations, and in essentially all classic games, imagining effects of one’s choices tends to mean “on other players,” moving from the heart of a general theory of mind to specifically anticipated responses. What are other players thinking, holding, seeking, doing, planning…? How will they react, respond to moves being considered? Strategic thinking seeks refined anticipation, in other words. In itself, it is not necessarily competitive, seeking personal advantage at the expense of (or in relation to) others.
In games, that’s usually another matter, as game-forms tend to introduce their own competitive frameworks, in which playing WITH involves playing AGAINST, albeit without malice. In wild tiger culture, for example, litter-mates may tussle together in mock (even loving) combat, striking with retracted claws. Both parties tend to draw pleasure from the play, & comradeship from the relationship, any urge to win &/or show strength not at all an urge to hurt. Indeed, “friends” may strengthen their shared sense of comradeship playing “against each other” together.
The kinds of strategic thinking encouraged by most games tends to be quite specific to the particular game, as shaped by its format, rules & unwritten constraints. Although we may suspect some effect on ability to perform other strategic challenges, the development fostered by practice in one game may not necessarily transfer to other strategic games or situations. A skilled poker player may flounder at Fish, Chess & Go, for example. Evidence for strategic transfer is probably spotty, but still likely there, given the tendency for exercised muscles to develop more general abilities.
The point of strategic mental activity, from the most basic imagination & play on, is simply the search for better outcomes, i.e., more advantageous choices. Note that the concept of advantage doesn’t itself necessarily mean “over others,” but only “over other alternatives,” whether from one’s own personal perspective on better & worse or from that of a larger point-of-view, e.g., one’s team, family, enterprise or other group. A particular game framework may provide its own way of determining & measuring “better & worse,” e.g., points or runs, as well as the rules for earning them & becoming the over-all “winner.”
The Ultimate Advantage Game borrows its framework from one of the most studied game-forms in game-theory history, but radically reframes its conceptual premise. The Ultimate Advantage Tournament, in particular, is designed to advantage you, by shedding light on strategic applications across scales–e.g., move, match, & tournament groups. Unlike strategy games that offer extremely limited real-world transfer value, if any, perspectives gained from an Ultimate Advantage Tournament may inform unlimited actual applications.
the MATRIX: MOVE, MATCH, & TOURNAMENT
The object of. the game (whether Match or Tournament) is to come as close as possible to the “Ultimate Advantage,” as measured in Advantage Points gained each Match & for the tournament as a whole.
Each player receives a copy of the following Point-Matrix, along with as many Match Scoresheets as there are other players in either the playing group or, if not sub-divided, the tournament as a whole. Groups of up to more or less 50 may play Open Tournaments in which each player plays a 5-round Match with every other player, or the group as a whole may be sub-divided into playing groups of 6 or 11 members each, introducing the possibility of particular sub-groups being given somewhat different preliminary advice or instructions.
Each MATCH includes 5 ROUNDS, played in sequence (not all at once). For each round, players must choose either To COOPERATE (write “C” for that Round) or To Go For an added Advantage at the other’s expense (write “DC” for Double-Cross). Both players reveal their choices at the same time & then record points for that round. SCORING RESULT: If both have chosen C (to cooperate), each gets 3 points for that round. If one has chosen C & the other DC (Double-Cross), however, the first gets 0 points & the double-crosser gets 5. If both have chosen to double-cross, each gets 0 points for that round.
you | other. = __#__points
C C = 3 (you), 3 (other)
C. DC = 0 (you), 5 (other)
DC C. = 5 (you), 0 (other)
DC. DC = 0 (you), 0 (other)
Points for all 5 rounds are added & entered for each player at bottom of each Match Scoresheet.
For an Open TOURNAMENT, each player moves on from match to match with a new partner, until all other players have been played with once. Players should then total their individual scores from all matches, as well as scores from all played with. If played in smaller groups of 6 or 11 players each, all sub-groups should be the same size, so individual totals will be equally comparable, along with sub-group totals, adding total points gained by all members of that Group. [Additional directions may be given in “Immediate FOLLOW-UP.”]
Rounds ~~~~~ ~~~~# Points
~Your Move/ Other’s|| You, Other’s
1. _____. ______. ______. ______
2. _____. ______. ______. ______
3. _____. ______. ______. ______
4. _____. ______. ______. ______
5. _____. ______. ______. ______
Match Total Points: _______. _______
# of Matches_____; Total Points All Matches:
~~~You______, + Others_____= BOTH_____
Immediate Follow-up & possible conclusions:
Who were the highest individual scorers & what were their strategies?
Who had the highest totals for themselves & their “partners” together (strategies)?
How did your totals stack up for each above, better or worse & why?
Did you speak & try to reason with your partners, & if so, to what end? (If not, why not?)
What accounts for your results & hose of your group?
Tournaments as a whole: If you played as member of a sub-group, how did your group do–e.g.,
total points scored by all members of the sub-group? How did results compare with other groups?
Did the group or any of its members receive special directions or advice, &, if so, what (& with what effects)?
{If playing groups were of different sizes, group results may be compared best by first converting totals to Average Point Total per Match, whether for each player or the sub-group as a whole.]
Note that WINNING was not pre-defined by the given structure & rules. We may define it here as having gained the most total points as a partnership (adding one’s own + those earned by playing partners). If played in sub-groups, the WINNING GROUP may be designated as that sub-group whose members as a whole gained the highest number of advantage points.
[SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS &/or ADVICE that may be privately given to one or more members of particular sub-groups (chosen at random) may include:
# When starting a match, tell your playing partner that “There’s no rule against talking with each other to negotiate for best advantage for both of us. I’ll tell you up front what I’ll do, and you can choose your move accordingly. I’m going to start by COOPERATING & then, the next move, do whatever you did this time. We’ll both do best by Cooperating every move, ending up with 15 points each after 5 rounds.”]
DRAMATIC HISTORICAL EXAMPLE:
In an Open Tournament played with a large group of about 50 players at a summer camp, one player scored more than every one of his partners, so thought he’d been 50-0 in Matches, but Matches were not scored that way, and in fact, that player actually came in dead last, ending up with the LOWEST number of total points for all players. In fact, this camper was known for always going for some personal advantage at the expense of others, a sure recipe for poor overall performance. The hope was that results would trigger a personal reform, encouraging better outcomes in life going forward.]