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♟️
YOU PLAY · STRATEGIST

The Opponent

Nothing here is scripted. They are running a model of you, and it updates.

🎲 13 decisions ⏱️ ~14 min Advanced 🆓 No sign-up

The brief

You take a seat opposite one counterparty for a whole session. Nothing is pre-written: every payoff is drawn when the round is dealt, and their move is computed by an agent that is modelling you. It opens shallow — someone who takes the payoffs at face value and is there to be exploited. But their reasoning depth climbs every time you beat them, so the guess that won the last round loses the next one, the pattern you fell into at matching pennies gets read back to you with the probability they assigned it, and the field you shaded against starts shading too. Twenty hands of prisoner's dilemma play out for real. A common-value auction reveals the truth after you have bid. Playing the textbook answer every round keeps you alive and gives up most of the edge.

How you play it

Thirteen games solved live against an agent that raises its reasoning depth every time you beat it.

♟️ The job: Strategist — Working out what the other side will do — in a negotiation, an auction or a market — and choosing accordingly, knowing they are doing the same to you.

What a strategist actually does →

What you're judged on

Every decision is marked to market server-side. These are the meters that move — run one to zero and the simulation ends there.

💰
BankrollReal chips. Every round settles against it at whatever the arithmetic says. Zero → you are out.
📈
EdgeYour payoff versus what the textbook equilibrium move earns in the same draw. 50 is break-even.
🧠
ReadHow close you came to best-responding to their actual reasoning depth. Zero → you are the one being played.
🎯
ExposureHow far past the safe play you committed, decayed each round. Past 100% one bad call costs you.

What it tests

No trivia — the simulation only asks what the chair actually has to know.

Where you learn this

The Opponent is the finale of Game Table, waiting past Level 24 — The Final Showdown. You can sit down right now and find out how much of it you already know; the course is there for the parts you don't.

Play Game Table →

Other chairs

🌐 Chair of the emergency committee

The Weekend

Sixty-two hours to Tokyo's open. You cannot save everyone — and one of them you cannot lose.

🧮 Structured products structurer

The Structurer

Every note is a bond plus options. Pick the wrong shape and the client finds out at maturity.

🏛️ President — head of government

The President

Every policy has two halves: what you do, and who pays. The bond market grades the second one.

🏦 Hedge fund CEO

The Fund

Your product is returns. Your business is assets. They want opposite things.

🗓️ Yourself, one year out of school

The First Year

Twelve months on your own. No perfect month — only wiser and poorer ones.

📰 Data editor on the news desk

The Newsroom

One shift on the data desk. Every story is a stats trap in disguise.

🚀 Flight director

Mission Control

No options to pick — do the math, key in the number, bring them home.

🏛️ Chair of the central bank

The Policy Chair

You are the central bank. One rate, every quarter, a whole economy on the line.

🏢 Chief Financial Officer

The CFO's Chair

You run the firm's capital. Ten board meetings, one question every time: where does the cash go?

🎛️ Options book runner

The Pit

You run the book. The tape moves, the Greeks bite, margin is real. Survive the session.

🧠 An investor with your own brain

Your Own Worst Enemy

The market can't hurt you. You can. Ten moments, one enemy — the one making the decisions.

📖 Market maker

The Quote

Your quote is two numbers. Everything that happens next is arithmetic.

⚙️ Quant developer

The Hot Path

Nothing is scripted. The workload is drawn, the cost model is real, and the best answer changes every interval.

🏦 Head of a derivatives desk

The Desk

Run a derivatives desk for one week — it does not stay calm.

🗂️ First-year analyst on rotation

Rotation Day

Ten desks, one stack of cards each. Sort them right — and never, ever misfile ethics.

⚖️ Expert witness on the stand

The Expert Witness

Ten regression tables enter evidence. The significant one is usually the trap.

🚨 Chief Risk Officer

The War Room

The VaR says you're fine. The tail says otherwise. Ten audits — read which one is lying.

← All 18 live simulations