It is a device of business men to put the opponent off his guard before attacking him, and thus to conquer by being defeated: they dissemble their desire so as to attain it. They put themselves second so as to come out first in the final spurt... And if the other puts himself second so to hide his plan, put yourself first to discover it.
Baltasar Gracián, 1647 (tr. Joseph Jacobs, 1892)
A cunning move is to appear to lose in order to win: to downplay your interest, concede early, seem the lesser party, precisely so the other side relaxes and you take the real prize at the end. The maxim warns you to watch for it. When someone conspicuously puts himself second, hides his desire, or concedes with surprising ease, the attention should sharpen rather than relax, because the visible retreat may be the setup for the real advance. The counter is to stay alert exactly when the other party seems least threatening, read the pretexts he offers, and, where useful, let him know you see the game, since a maneuver observed loses much of its power. The retreat you were not meant to notice is the one to watch.
Practice
- Sharpen attention when an opponent concedes easily or downplays his interest; the easy retreat is often the setup, not the surrender (maxim 13 waits for the second intention).
- Read the pretexts; a person aiming at one thing while pointing at another reveals the real target in what he keeps steering toward.
- Where useful, signal that you see the game; letting a maneuverer know you understand often defuses the maneuver.
Use this when
- Use this in negotiations and competitive dealings, where feigned indifference and strategic concession are standard tools.
- Use it when a deal feels too easy; the surprising concession is exactly the moment to ask what it is setting up.
Ignore this when
- Don't read every concession as a trick; sometimes people genuinely yield, and treating all goodwill as strategy poisons real dealings (maxim 193 checks the motive without paranoia).
- Don't play the feigned-retreat game with allies; on your own side, hidden agendas break the trust the side runs on.
A picture of it
In a negotiation, the other side concedes the point everyone expected them to fight for, and the room relaxes, ready to close. One negotiator does the opposite of relaxing: the easy concession makes her ask what it is buying, and she finds the real target two clauses down, where the surprising generosity was designed to speed an agreement past scrutiny. She slows down exactly where she was meant to speed up, and the buried clause gets the attention it was engineered to avoid. The feigned defeat was the whole plan, and noticing it was the entire defence.
When a rival plays himself down, look up. The retreat you were not meant to notice is the move that matters.