For decades, executives have been taught to think of business strategy as chess. A logical game. Clear rules. Perfect information. If you anticipate your rival’s moves and think a few steps ahead, you win.
But here’s the problem: business is not chess. It’s poker.
Chess assumes the board is visible, all pieces known, and the outcome determined by calculation.
Poker is built on incomplete information, hidden motives, and probabilities.
The truth is: markets behave more like poker tables than chessboards.
In chess, the environment is stable.
In poker, it changes with every card drawn, every bluff played.
Strategic planning that treats markets like chess underestimates uncertainty.
Leaders cling to five-year forecasts as if they were blueprints.
But the real world is fluid, opaque, and unpredictable.
Consider telecom.
Airtel played chess: strengthening towers and spectrum as if competitors would follow the same playbook.
Reliance Jio played poker: it went all-in with free data, disrupting pricing psychology, and forcing the entire industry to fold or re-shuffle.
The Currency of Advantage
In chess, advantage comes from position.
In poker, it comes from psychology. The ability to read signals, calculate odds, and act decisively under ambiguity.
Business leaders often overvalue analytical certainty and undervalue narrative, perception, and timing.
But in poker—and in business—the story you tell is as important as the hand you hold.
Strategy as Probabilistic Play
Chess rewards mastery of rules.
Poker rewards mastery of judgment.
Strategic decisions today are less about optimizing what you know and more about navigating what you cannot know.
This requires three disciplines:
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#Optionality: Keeping more than one path alive.
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#Asymmetry: Taking small risks with the potential for outsized returns.
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#Resilience: Managing losses so you stay long enough at the table to play the next hand.
A New Mindset for Leaders
Executives raised on chess-like thinking believe they can out-analyze uncertainty.
They cannot. The board is not fixed. The pieces are not visible.
And the game does not pause for deliberation.
The strategist of tomorrow must master probabilistic thinking, behavioral insight, and the courage to bet without full information.
Because in the end, strategy is not about playing the perfect game of chess.
It’s about surviving and thriving at a table where the rules change, the cards are hidden, and the players are bluffing.
So the real question for leaders is:
Are you still polishing your chessboard while your competitors are already shuffling the deck?