End game?_其他_趣味英语-查字典英语网

End game?

Good thinking, except that without a clear and coordinated strategy, you expose your own forces to danger from all directions.

Anyways, when the opening moves are make, the real battles begin with each side aiming to penetrate enemy defense from a specific direction. If you play your cards right (a poker term), you may be able to win without too much battle (or bloodshed in a real war) because, after all, the aim of the game is to capture the opponent’s king, not to slaughter all of its troops.

After major battles are fought, of course, we come to the end game, where advantages and disadvantages are now clearly seen. If no mistakes are made, advantages one side has accumulated from the middle game will soon morph into final victory.

If mistakes are made, then the results can be different. Of course. This often happens, as a matter of fact. That’s why some people are good at the end game; some are not. And when they say you don’t have an end game, they mean to say you’re not good at playing the last moves. For instance, after moving wrong pieces or moving them in a wrong sequence you may end up drawing a winning game, or losing a game when you are positioned for a draw.

By extension, if they say you don’t have an end game in business negotiations, they mean to say that you are poor at closing deals. You’re good at making initial contacts, perhaps, to start the ball rolling, and you may even be good at bargaining, but when it comes to closing deals (putting pen to paper and sign names on the dotted lines), you somehow fail to deliver. Salespeople, for instance, often brag about how such and such a big client is on their radar, being closely targeted or right there for the taking, but the big fish somehow always contrives to escape at the very end.