The Art Of Being Unpredictable - Winning Board Games Part 3

In my post “5 Basic Tips For Winning Board Games” I outlined high level strategies that can be used in just about any board game. The 3rd tip in that post focused on being difficult to predict. It’s a pretty straight-forward concept, but I figured I could outline a few details here.

Switch Up Your Strategies

Okay so this seems like an obvious thing to say, almost as if I’m telling you, “You wanna be unpredictable? Well, just be unpredictable then!” But it can be trickier than you think. Switching up strategies can sometimes be more damaging than good, especially in games where you need to stick with one strategy from the beginning if you want to succeed.

Switching up strategies really works well with opponents that you play with frequently, people who start to notice there’s a specific way you approach every game. The key in situations like these is to switch it up each match. Sometimes it’s worth intentionally losing a couple of games just to get people to assume you play a certain way so you can start switching to better strategies while remaining unpredictable.

Set Up Red Herrings

This tip was mentioned in “The Art Of Blending In” but it’s a piece of advice that is worth saying again. One of the best ways to hide a good strategy is to mask it behind a fake one. Make your opponents believe you’re planning one thing while secretly focusing on something else. For example in Risk you might consider attacking North America repeatedly to draw attention away from the big army you’re growing in Japan.

All in all, being unpredictable can give your game a strong competitive edge. Switch up your strategies and keep your opponents on their toes. Often times it can be a deciding factor in who wins.