Chess and negotiation/Applying negotiation tactics on chess games

Chess and negotiation/Applying negotiation tactics on chess games

Matthew Hui, Yilin Liu, Dominic Pearson

Real-life negotiation shares many similarities with chess because they both involve a mental battle between opponents who need to see ahead, strategize, and adapt. This analogy holds a real-world purpose beyond its poetic nature. Chess is more than a game, it is also a model for how power, patience, and psychology play out in negotiations.

The connection between negotiation and chess extends back through many generations. Chess served as a metaphoric framework within medieval poetic literature to analyze social arrangements and power structures. Bienert (2009) finds a notable example from de Cessolis (1474) which states that chess pieces correspond to the medieval social order. Each piece  (kings, nobles, bishops, knights and peasants) stands for a particular estate with particular value and limitations. Like chess, political negotiations have a structure that reflects the need of knowing the value and influence of every participant (player). A good negotiator must identify who owns which resources, know their own Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement (BATNA- we will discuss this more in the following sessions), and predict their likely moves to complement a more overall strategy.  

Aside from the poetic metaphor, the metaphor is used in real-world situations as well. Kyriakide (2023) used the metaphor in their paper about secret negotiations for the British Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus. Sir Hugh Foot defined the negotiation process as "a  longdrawn-out game of chess." The extensive dialogue between the UK and Cyprus took place from the London  Agreement in 1959 until the Republic of Cyprus became established in 1960. The two sides performed strategic movements during this intense chess game as the UK sought to keep 170 square miles but Cyprus refused to surrender more than 36. The final agreement of 99 square miles was reached after a long period of positional bargaining (such as Cyprus maintained to be in “semi-sovereign" and "placed under the thumb" of the UK). Cyprus's success in limiting the size of the retained areas was credited to their “tactical diplomacy”, which resembled strategic piece placement in chess. A chess player would strategically position their weaker pieces on the front lines to make sacrifices that result in strategic benefits.

The strategic nature of chess is mirrored explicitly in business negotiations as well. According to Luca (2007), success in both fields relies heavily on foresight, planning, and targeting weaknesses.  A good negotiator adopts the same approach as an expert chess player by anticipating the opponent’s responses and builds a position gradually, using smaller moves first ("pawns")  to lead into larger gains at the end. A strategic long-term chess approach focuses on "eating" more pieces over time, and it requires attention, patience and capitalizing on the opponent's mistakes and inattentiveness. This is similar to a business negotiation focused on gradual market dominance or accumulating smaller gains.

The chess metaphor also appears in general negotiation research. Kaupins & Johnson  (2011) use direct analogies between negotiation tactics and strategic chess moves to explain several typical negotiation gambits. According to Kaupins & Johnson (2011), one such gambit involves postponing the discussion of difficult topics until later. A negotiator avoids challenging matters in the beginning, and instead chooses to handle simpler points first to construct momentum while building goodwill. This is compared to controlling the center of the board and developing your pieces in chess before engaging in complex tactical battles. Just as central control strengthens later attacks in a match, early rapport can provide leverage when harder issues eventually come up. Another strategy mentioned is automatically rejecting the first offer. When a negotiator rejects the first offer, they demonstrate their unwillingness to accept unfavorable positions like an aggressive chess response to an opening move. Through this approach the other party must modify their offer while the negotiator gains powerful status that disrupts their opponent's initial strategy to force a complete reevaluation of their plan.

Beyond theory, here are some more real-world negotiations in which we think reveals these chess-like dynamics:

Queen Trade: U.S.-Soviet INF Treaty (1987) (Kühn & Péczeli, 2017)

In chess, trading queens simplifies complex positions while maintaining balance. This directly parallels the INF Treaty negotiations where both superpowers eliminated their intermediate-range nuclear missiles - the strategic equivalent of queens in their arsenals. The U.S. destroyed Pershing IIs while the USSR scrapped SS-20s, demonstrating how sacrificing high-value assets can reduce tensions. Like chess players accepting balanced outcomes to avoid worse scenarios, this mutual concession created lasting stability, showing how “queen trades” in negotiations can transform adversarial relationships through carefully calculated compromises.

 

BATNA & Prophylaxis: Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) (Allison & Zelikow, 1971)

Chess masters use prophylactic moves (action that anticipates and blocks the opponent's threats before they materialise) to limit opponents’ options, just as Kennedy’s naval blockade created negotiation space during the Cuban crisis. By rejecting immediate strikes (like avoiding premature attacks in chess), this measured response allowed both sides to evaluate their BATNAs: nuclear war versus geopolitical humiliation. The resolution - Soviet withdrawal for secret U.S. concessions - mirrors chess endgames where players accept draws to avoid losses, proving how anticipating worst-case scenarios enables crisis resolution through restrained, strategic thinking.

 

Piece Coordination - Microsoft’s LinkedIn acquisition (2016) (Kumar & Kumar, 2019)

In chess, coordinating pieces (like bishop + knight) creates synergistic attacks. Similarly, Microsoft's $26.2B LinkedIn acquisition showcased masterful negotiation by aligning both parties' assets. Microsoft didn't simply absorb LinkedIn - they negotiated autonomy for LinkedIn's team while integrating its data with Microsoft Cloud, creating mutual value. This reflects chess-like strategic planning where negotiators combine resources to achieve 1+1>3 outcomes, unlike one-sided traps. 

The comparison of negotiation and chess stands across different fields and time periods as they both need logical reasoning combined with anticipation and timing. From medieval symbolism to geopolitical diplomacy and modern business deals, the chessboard is more than a metaphor, it is a mirror of the strategies we use in real-life power struggles.

While the above examples show how negotiation mirrors chess, here are some practical examples of how negotiation tactics are used on the chess board:

Chess and negotiation tactics and properties of the Queen sacrifices

Queen Sacrifices in chess are common, with the queen being the most powerful piece in chess, it is often the last thing a player wishes to lose and oftentimes losing your queen early into a game usually results in a resignation from the player. Due to the value of these pieces, when a player's queen is trapped, it often results in a queen trade, in which the player opts to lose their queen in exchange for the enemy queen as the last option. One could compare this to a BATNA for each player - sometimes their best alternative is to sacrifice their queen, the best possible alternative to limit loss is to sacrifice both queens or to gain an advantage. I will demonstrate an example below

Below we can see an example of a famous game between Efim Bogoljubov and Alexander Alekhine. Black (Efim) moves and decides to trade queens in this position. We can show why using what we have learned about negotiations. By playing this move, white's BATNA is to trade his queens, while each side has lost the same material in each, making this move protects the white king from the dangerous bishop and queen diagonal attack from f6 and e5. White’s aspirational price would be for Black’s queen to retreat into its structure and lose its powerful diagonal protecting its queen

This however would be Black’s reservation price and create a zone of possible agreement. However white has a problem: its reservation price and BATNA are the same, losing his queen. For Black, however, the queen trade has become its aspirational price. By trading queens white loses its ability to attack diagonally and with a king in a corner position this is deadly.

After accepting this offer, the black position “wins” the negotiation (got a better advantage in this negotiation) and in the end wins the game, chess is often a series of offers and declines which is why one could compare it to a constant game of negotiation, parallels between chess and negotiation are common throughout and we will demonstrate more below.

Price anchoring and the opening game

One could often draw similarities between price anchoring and early game strategy. Price anchoring is the act of each side in a negotiation setting an anchor with its first price, slowly the buyer and seller will work towards a price within the middle. One could compare this similarity to selecting an opening within chess. An opponent selects an opening with

usually his first three opening moves. At this point each side in chess slowly responds to one another's offer, working through their openings to build the opening of the game, for example opening with the king's pawn (the Sicilian Defence) is met with the Caro-Kann Defence, as pictured below.

Similar to price anchoring, each side plays through a series of moves and sequences threatening one another's pieces until eventually one player or another is satisfied with their “price” in material and eventually begins to trade in line with the chess theory, and thus the opening game is complete.

Above demonstrates a game using the King’s Indian Defence and its counter defence, (used for ease in demonstrating the similarities in negotiation), this position demonstrates what would be the end of our price anchoring phase, as you can see by the green arrows, each piece protects the centre of the board in some way and is protected by another, yet a large number of pieces are threatened and protected with each move it takes to get to this stage, each player essentially offering a price of material to one another until we see the trade below.

In the picture above, each side has essentially agreed on a price, the pawns have traded and the white knight takes the surviving black pawn and the trade has been made, resulting in essentially a negotiation and agreement between two sides white has taken an advantage over black when it comes to material (the unique assigned value of the pieces) but black has received a more developed centre game and option for a queen trade. However, while there is a large similarity between price anchoring and the opening game, it is important we do mention that the “agreement” is only initiated by one player, so while it is similar to a negotiation in terms of anchoring price it is also like betting in a way.

Another function of chess as a negotiation is stalemates

Draws are a big function of competitive chess, they occur for a number of reasons from anything to passing the 50 rule limit, having insufficient material for a win, e.g, only king pieces on the board, or they can be for repeating the same move three times. However draws in competitive chess also happen for another reason, mutual benefit like in a negotiation. Offers of draws can be made accepted and declined at any time. In FIDE-rated tournaments of grandmasters, it is referred to as a grandmaster draw and is not entirely uncommon. These mutually agreed draws are often made for a number of reasons.

Political decision: Grandmasters are each rated individually with a FIDE rating score (commonly referred to as Elo), most chess federation matches are rated however open unrated tournaments are often held in which grand masters play against up and coming international masters (a rank below grandmaster), for some grand masters in these types tournament they will offer a mutually beneficial draw in order to save face, as long drawn out matches against lower ranked players might be seen as reflection of their skills.

Whereas IM are incentivised to draw against a grandmaster as it will be seen as a victory/achievement.

Speed chess: Speed chess is a form of chess with altered time controls. Instead of the standard 3 hours in tournaments time controls are set at anywhere between 1 minute to 10 minutes. Oftentimes players reach a mutually beneficial draw as running out of time on one's clock leads to defeat, in complicated positions where time is low for each player the game essentially becomes a toss up/ 50-50, players will offer a draw in order to ensure a draw for both and neither receives a loss. This could be compared slightly to the prisoner's dilemma, where 2 prisoners have either the choice to stay silent or report one another. If neither prisoners talk, they will only receive one year of prison (“Draw” in our comparison) and if one confesses one goes free and the other doesn't, if they both confess both will receive a large sentence.

One person reporting in this situation would be similar to playing on where one of them could end up with a loss and one ends up with a win. And electing to draw would be similar to both prisoners staying silent and receiving a lower sentence

Why is it important that we draw comparisons between chess and negotiation?

It is important for us to note the similarities as the two parallel one another, learning chess can help us in our negotiations and learning negotiation techniques can help us in playing chess, when it comes to opening games, trading and drawing. Chess is a game played face

to face with an opponent. It is a game of strategy but also wits and responses. The same can be said about negotiations, so applying one to another is important to consider. Chess is essentially a 3D negotiation on a 2D board.

References

Allison, G. T., & Zelikow, P. (1971). Essence of decision: Explaining the Cuban missile crisis (Vol. 327, No. 729.1). Boston: Little, Brown.

Bienert, J. (2009). “Diu küneginne rîche streit dâ ritterlîche.” Chess as an Impetus for Female Agency.

de Cessolis, J. (1474). The book of chess.

Chan, K. (2022, December). Google Appeals $4.3B Android Antitrust Fine. Newsmax. https://www.newsmax.com/finance/streettalk/google-antitrust-lawsuit-eu/2022/12/01/id/1098687/

Kaupins, G., & Johnson, M. (2011). Problems in Negotiation Gambit Research and Practice. Advances in Business Research, 2(1), 238–246. https://journals.sfu.ca/abr/index.php/abr/article/view/76

Kühn, U., & Péczeli, A. (2017). Russia, NATO, and the INF Treaty. Strategic Studies Quarterly, 11(1), 66-99.

Kumar, B. R., & Kumar, B. R. (2019). Microsoft’s Acquisition of LinkedIn. Wealth Creation in the World’s Largest Mergers and Acquisitions: Integrated Case Studies, 235-241.

Kyriakides, K. A. (2023). “A Longdrawn-Out Game of Chess” and the Camouflaged Partition of the Island of Cyprus that followed on 16 August 1960: A Review of Achilles C. Emilianides, A Longdrawn-Out Game of Chess: The Secret Negotiations About the British Bases (1959–1960) (Nicosia: Hippasus Communications & Publishing Ltd., October 2021). Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 25(6), 1075–1097. https://doi.org/10.1080/19448953.2023.2167354

Luca F. A. (2007). Chess and hard negotiations in business. Studia Universitatis Moldaviae (Seria Ştiinţe Exacte Şi Economice), 8, 260–262. https://ibn.idsi.md/vizualizare_articol/21927