Get Others to Play with the Cards you Deal

The best deceptions are the ones that seem to give the other person a choice:  Your victims feel they are in control, but are actually your puppets.  Give people options that come out in your favor whichever one they choose.  Force them to make choices between the lesser of two evils, both of which serve your purpose.  Put them on the horns of a dilemma:  They are gored wherever they turn.

Make your Accomplishments Seem Effortless

Make your Accomplishments Seem Effortless -Law30
Your actions must seem natural and executed with ease. All the toil and practice that go into them, and also all the clever tricks, must be concealed. When you act, act effortlessly, as if you could do much more. Avoid the temptation of revealing how hard you work – it only raises questions. Teach no one your tricks or they will be used against you.

Plan All the Way to the End

Plan All the Way to the End

The ending is everything.  Plan all the way to it, taking into account all the possible consequences, obstacles, and twists of fortune that might reverse your hard work and give the glory to others.  By planning to the end you will not be overwhelmed by circumstances and you will know when to stop.  Gently guide fortune and help determine the future by thinking far ahead.

Enter Action with Boldness

Law 28 Enter Action with Boldness

If you are unsure of a course of action, do not attempt it.  Your doubts and hesitations will infect your execution.  Timidity is dangerous:  Better to enter with boldness.  Any mistakes you commit through audacity are easily corrected with more audacity.  Everyone admires the bold; no one honors the timid.

Play on People’s Need to Believe to Create a Cultlike Following

People have an overwhelming desire to believe in something. Become the focal point of such desire by offering them a cause, a new faith to follow. Keep your words vague but full of promise; emphasize enthusiasm over rationality and clear thinking. Give your new disciples rituals to perform, ask them to make sacrifices on your behalf. In the absence of organized religion and grand causes, your new belief system will bring you untold power.

Keep Your Hands Clean

Law26-Keep Your Hands Clean

You must seem a paragon of civility and efficiency: Your hands are never soiled by mistakes and nasty deeds.  Maintain such a spotless appearance by using others as scapegoats and cat’s-paws to disguise your involvement.

Re-Create Yourself

Law 25-Re-Create Yourself
Do not accept the roles that society foists on you. Re-create yourself by forging a new identity, one that commands attention and never bores the audience. Be the master of your own image rather than letting others define if for you. Incorporate dramatic devices into your public gestures and actions – your power will be enhanced and your character will seem larger than life.

Play the Perfect Courtier !

Law 24-Play the Perfect Courtier
The perfect courtier thrives in a world where everything revolves around power and political dexterity. He has mastered the art of indirection; he flatters, yields to superiors, and asserts power over others in the mot oblique and graceful manner. Learn and apply the laws of courtiership and there will be no limit to how far you can rise in the court.

Concentrate your forces

Law23- Concentrate your forces:

Conserve your forces and energies by keeping them concentrated at their strongest point. You gain more by finding a rich mine and mining it deeper than by flitting from one shallow mine to another-intensity defeats extensity every time. When looking for sources of power to elevate you, find the one key patron , the fat cow who will give you milk for a long time to come

Use the surrender tactic: Transform weakness into power

Law 22-Use the surrender tactic: Transform weakness into power
When you are weaker, never fight for honor’s sake: choose surrender instead. Surrender gives you time to recover, time to torment and irritate your conqueror, time to wait for his power to wane. Do not give him the satisfaction of fighting and defeating you –surrender first. By turning the other cheek you infuriate and unsettle him. Make surrender a tool of power.

Play a sucker to catch a sucker

LAW 21-Play a sucker to catch a sucker-
No one likes feeling stupider than the next person the trick then is to make your victims feel smart and not just smart but smarter than you are. Once convinced of this they will never suspect that you may have ulterior motives.

Do not commit to anyone

Law 20-Do not commit to anyone
It is the fool who always rushes to take sides. Do not commit to any side or cause but yourself. By maintaining your independence you become the master of others-playing people against one another, making them pursue you.

Know who you’re dealing with do not offend the wrong person

Law 19

There are many different kinds of people in the world, and you can never assume that everyone will react to your strategies in the same way. Deceive or outmaneuver some people and they will spend the rest of their lives seeking revenge. They are wolves in lambs clothing. Choose your victims and opponents carefully, then never offend or deceive the wrong person.

Do not build fortresses to protect yourself

Law 18 Do not build fortresses to protect yourself- Isolation is dangerous

The world is dangerous and enemies are everywhere, everyone has to protect themselves. A fortress seems the safest. But isolation exposes you to more dangers than it protects you from it cuts you off from valuable information, it makes you conspicuous and an easy target. Better to circulate among people, find allies, mingle. You are shielded from your enemies by the crowd

Keep others in suspense: cultivate an air of unpredictability!

Law 17-Keep others in suspense: cultivate an air of unpredictability
Human are creatures of habit with an insatiable need to see familiarity in other people’s actions. Your predictability gives them a sens of control. Turn the tables: be deliberately unpredictable behavior that seems to have no consistency or purpose will keep them off balance, and they will wear themselves out trying to explain your moves taken to an extreme this strategy can intimidate and terrorize.

Use absence to increase respect and honor

Law 15- use absence to increase respect and honor
Too much circulation makes the price go down: the more common you are seen and heard from , the more common you appear. If you are already established in a group, temporary withdrawal from it will make you more talked about even more admired. You must learn when to leave….create value through scarcity.

Law 15- crush your enemy totally

All great leaders since moses have known that a feared enemy must be crushed completely. (sometimes they have learned this the hard way.) if one ember is left alright, no matter how dimly it smolders, a fire will eventually break out. more is lost through stopping halfway than through total annihilation: the enemy will recover and will seek revenge. Crush him not only in body but in spirit.

Pose as a friend Work s a Spy

Knowing about your rival is critical. Use spies to gather valuable information that will keep you a step ahead. Better still: Play the spy yourself. In polite social encounters, learn to probe. Ask indirect questions to get people to reveal their weaknesses and intentions. There is no occasion that is not an opportunity for artful spying 

When asking for Help

when asking for help, appeal to people's self-interest never to their mercy or gratitudeif you need to turn to an ally for help, do not bother to remind him of your past assistance and good deeds. He will find a way to ignore you. Instead, uncover something in your request , or in your alliance with him , that will benefit him, and emphasize it out of all proportion. He will respond enthusiastically when he sees something to be gained for himself

Use selective honesty and generosity to disarm your victim

One sincere and honest move will cover dozens of dishonest ones. Open-hearted gestures of honesty and generosity bring down the guard of even the most suspicious people. Once your selective honesty opens a hole in their armor, you can deceive and manipulate them at will. A time gift- a Trojan horse- will serve the same purpose