This troper is fond of playing Chessmaster in various card games, exploiting loopholes in non-aggression pacts and loaning decks to opponents to make them considered as high-risk opposition to the other players. I am also fond of informing them that they are being manipulated, for various reasons...

Seconded. This troper uses the same strategy and often invents new card games in which chessmastery can be abused (such as the ''Evil Hearts'', a version of the standard Hearts game in which you just ''can't'' win without cooperating with others and backstabbing them when they have no purpose anymore). He also loves to tell his opponents that they're being manipulated, ''and that they've got no choice but to follow his plan despite knowing that.'' Once, I told my friend and opponent something akin to "Well, you've got a choice of three cards to play. If you play one of those three cards, you're doomed to lose, and I'll lose with you. If not, you'll lose anyway, and I'll be victorious. But I know that if you want to keep enough points to survive, you must choose to make me win. How tragic." The friend muttered something about me being a manipulative jerk and - of course - made me win. Unsurprisingly, people often jokingly ask me about what I'll do when I'll rule the world.

That's strange, in that situation I would probably make you lose seeing how I would lose anyways...

In the version of Monopoly this troper's family plays (the same as regular Monopoly except if you decline to buy a property, it doesn't go up for auction), he often played chessmaster, gently and unobviously persuading the other players to not buy certain properties that were beneficial to him, and then buying them himself later. He only stopped because his family started noticing that he was winning unusually often. Now, he just waits until people start trading properties, and persuades people to make trades with him that are more favourable to him than to them. This often works better, as he tends to bankrupt people faster.

I once controlled all but a single tiny corner of the board. Nothing could stop me! (Cue evil laughter)

Wait since when has a property not purchased gone up for auction? That's definitely not in the rules of my admittedly 30 (at least) year old set.

As I said, it's a house rule.

This troper frecuently recommends to his friends games he'd like to play but hasn't the money to buy, with the intention of borrowing them later. Bonus points for explaining someone the plot of MetalGearSolid without sounding confused ''and'' making it sound appealing. Got me to play Snake Eater.

ThisTroper is a skilled player of competitive {{Pokemon}}, 75th place on the leaderboard at the time of posting this (out of 14,000+). For those not familiar with the game (or the competitive field of the game), good prediction of your opponent's moves is arguably the most important thing for a competitive battler to have. It's essentially two players of XanatosSpeedChess. Which is precisely why I routinely make completely erratic and nonsensical moves. Most people either assume that they're facing a {{Noob}} or have their sense of prediction completely thrown off by this, allowing me to make the most crucial moves while hiding under a veil of ObfuscatingStupidity. As if that weren't enough, 5 out of my 6 team members are not in the standard tier, which is about as far as most players' knowledge of the individual Pokemon tactics stretches. Literally the only difference between the standard and Borderline tiers is popularity - there are some real gems in Borderline if you look hard enough and know what you're doing.

This Troper did this the last time he played his family version of risk (normal rules but if you have fifty troops on one territory you can nuke a whole continent at the troops expense) he cunningly played on his families traits and encouraged them to eliminate his enemies for him, and because he expected a nuke on his only continent He ensured that he had a safe area on another continent. Then he cashed in his cards to gain an army of 45+ troops and proceeded to take over South America while his "ally" (his father) eliminated one of his brothers from the competition. He chose that moment to direct his "ally" to attack his other brother by telling him that his cards (as no more were available) wouldn't benefit him. This was the truth actually but he said it in a temporarily convincing manner that would motivate his father to turn on him later. However he had known from the moment the nuke was launched that he would not win and made sure that his father's only chance of victory was his cards being of value. Thus when this troper was eliminated, his death was a XanatosFuneral intended to end the game. He had also been told earlier by one of his brothers in the same game that if he had a plan, it scared him. All in all it went Just as Planned. This Troper is also an accomplished chess player at his school and uses similarly devious plans both in game and on his classmates.

This troper enjoys Age of Empires 2 (conquerors) Once, I was able to Ally everyone with me (secretly or otherwise, but not necessarily with each other) While feigning that I could not acquire enough resources to properly field an army against my best friend (and secret ally) while everyone else tried to take him. He had the defensive position, and was holding out well enough. He was able to deal with much of the armies, then I reneged on nearly all my alliances and destroyed the remains. My friend and I then systematically destroyed the shattered alliance one by one.

This troper's ineptitude at RTSs? His sweet and polite demeanour? His diabolical inner monologue? Yup, ''Xanatos Speed Chess'' is just one of the many games I play!

This troper does this on Civ 4 alot. He started practicing with the AIs. He would give them gifts and resources until they respected him as an ally, then ask for open borders. From there it was a case of building up an army without causing suspicion. I also play the mindgame "Ghost". Which often turns into me tricking the other player into working towards a word that will cause him to loose.

I have a level editor. I make hard levels. My friends are too scared to play these hard levels. I play with their expectations and persistance until they play the hard levels. For instance- I trained myself to beat the hard parts incredibly quickly, making my level look really easy and fun. When they try it, they fail. Again and again, and just like any challange the friends were obsessed with beating the level. Ah. The fun of it. It's more fun when I start applying my manipulation skills to actual level design just to be cruel. If you expect to start by going right, you won't get very far at all.

My friends refuse to play any game more complicated than checkers with me, mostly because last time we played Clue, I convinced everyone that the three cards in the ''Confidential'' envelope were three cards from my hand, then three different cards, then three cards in someone else's hand, then one card from each person's hand. I won. We played Monopoly, Risk, and Chinese Checkers with the same results, and after that they learned I am way too good at persuasion. Now imagine what I would do in power...

Oh yes. Imagine

I used to play a browser based game called tribal wars, and this was basically all you did. One particularly sinister example was when our tribe was invited to join a group of allied tribes... who then proceeded to plot against and attack us with outside forces! We ended up getting nuked by our own side and the new group. Needless to say, this was the point where I established that HumansAreBastards at least in the gaming world.

this troper loves playing mind games with her friends in chess, apart from the one who is actually too bad at chess to be messed with. She also has a bad habit of manipulating everyone she meets for the fun of it.

Mitadake High is a game where the entire game is pretty much everyone being manipulated, or manipulating in an attempt to either kill everyone or find the killer. As it turns out, I'm actually quite good at coming up with lies on the spot. I can never plan too far ahead, people are too unpredictable, but... Just as an example, it was Deathnote mode. I was playing as a CloudCuckooLander who often ran around writing notes and declaring the notes as art while making random references to superheroes. Simply because of the notes I often wrote, people thought I was Kira. And I kept "accidentally" giving people information that would help them find Kira and the Shinigami eyes.

Though my favorite was probably one game when I was locked in a freezer to stop me from killing everyone, as I'd pretty much admitted it. It didn't matter that I couldn't get out and they wouldn't get in, I just had a pleasant conversation with them... That convinced some of them into killing everyone else. Again- They knew I was the killer, they knew I was completely insane, but I managed to convince them to kill everyone else. Unfortunately I was death noted and some people survived the round.

A literal chess example. This troper moved his pawn forwards, right in the open where several much more powerful pieces could take it. I then held out my hands in a sort of "Go for it" gesture. The other player gave me a funny look and avoided killing the pawn. There was actually no plan for when he took out the pawn, I just didn't want him to. The pawn proceeded to reach the end of the board when all was clear and became a Queen, trapping his king in checkmate and winning the game.

This Troper is not actually that good at Risk. However what he is good at is "advising" other players to do moves that would "benefit them." Or, at least they would at the time. MWAHAHAHAHA!

Fate Abelcudus from a Tales of Symphonia rp, with a XanatosRoulette you would have to see to believe. He, the human traveler in Mithril's group, killed Martel, knowing it would drive Mithril down the current path, escaped his doom with a crystal, although it did de-age him to age 10. He instigated the rise of Ratatosk to make sure that the heroes have something to do, as well as slowly driving the world toward ruin. He effortlessly manipulates a person from our arth who recognizes Collette as someone else, uses said Earthian(Connor) to make sure Lloyd and Kratos are dead by the time his Roulette hits a crucial part...in fact, there is ''nothing'' that has happened in the story that Fate has not planned out. This has actually caused one RPer to leave this PM, "FUCKING FATE ABELCUDUS!!!!!!!"

The game Neptune's Pride seems to actively encourage Chessmastery. This troper's first game had her A) Declaring war on a neighbouring faction, via a secret alliance that forced the enemy player into a 2-front war. As soon as that finished, part B started: she made friends with the second-most powerful player, and tore apart her former ally (weakened by the fight). Then she managed to convince the second-most powerful player to ''let her win''. It's a lovely, warm feeling, marred only by occasional bouts of paranoia. It also kind of burned her out, and it took her one year before deciding to play another game.

Hum... It is obvious that I bear ''some'' similarities with a certain Light Yagami. For my friends to buy me a DeathNote for the simple sake of me being a chessmaster is enough of a proof, isn't it ? ''No it isn't.'' Because, besides that little gift my friends dared me to trick my own parents - resolutely anime/manga-haters - into buying me another one, because of their "One Death Note, you're a Death Note User. Two Death Notes, you're Light Yagami" saying. The problem's, now, I don't know what the heck I should do with those 2 Death Notes in my possession (I have no faithful minion / obsessed fangirl by my side.)

In a game of Risk, this troper managed to hold onto Asia for fourteen consecutive turns by manipulating the yellow player, who controlled the Americas, by baiting the blue guy who had Europe and Africa to stockpile troops in Western Europe, making himself look more threatening than me, as my troops were deployed diffusely, while England had a fortress guarded by 20+ armies. I did this by attacking Russia every turn and then pulling back, stockpiling cards. When the yellow guy broke into Europe and had exhausted his armies, I deployed twenty-one stars worth of troops, plus the bonus troops, to Kamchatka and tore through the Americas and Africa. The blue player managed to get to Ural, but I still had Australia. The next turn, I recovered Asia and completed my conquest of Africa.

This troper entered a grade 7 chess tournament at his jr high and came out undefeated with the $20 prize. The other 4 contestants never knew what hit them.

This troper tends to be able to beat people in tough situations using her wits alone, much like TheChessmaster. The best part: I fail at chess.

You sound like a female version of me

In the program I go to (enriched high school for science, math etc.) everyone, including me, has a bit of chessmaster in them. It makes convoluted-even-normally highschool social interactions even worse.