Chaos & Order War Games

Who moves first?

Markets move when somebody has to make a decision.

Who is under pressure? What can they actually do?
What would force their hand, and what happens when they move?

See the current board

On the board

Make the calls before the outcome is known. Mine are locked too. Then reality settles the board.

Entries closed

Who blinks first? Diesel

Europe blinked first on 2 October, when the G7 agreed to release diesel stocks. Entries are closed; four calls stay open until the board settles on 3 November.

See the board
European gas
Next on the board

European gas this winter

Storage, weather and the winter curve. Who discovers they are short when it matters? Coming soon.

How it works

A full war game turns a live market problem into a sequence of decisions. Teams play the actors, not commentators watching from outside.

PressureThe world as it stands, and what squeezes each actor.
ChoicesThe moves each actor can actually make, within its constraints.
MovesEach team decides what its actor does this round.
ConsequencesPrices, flows and politics respond, tested against how markets and governments really behave.
Next moveThe board has changed. Everyone moves again.

The point is not to guess one future correctly. It is to expose where choices narrow, which assumptions the scenario depends on, and what could force the system away from the market's base case.

Why war-game it?

Constraints

Headlines describe possibilities. The game forces each actor to choose from what is actually available to it.

Reactions

One actor's solution becomes another actor's constraint. The useful information often appears in the second and third move.

Hidden assumptions

A decision makes assumptions explicit: about prices, politics, physical supply, timing and how other actors will respond.

Go deeper

Play

Public games

Fast, open scenarios. Make your calls before the outcome is known, compare them with mine and the crowd, then come back when reality settles the board.

See the current board
Join

Live war games

Facilitated sessions for Chaos & Order readers and subscribers. Take a role, make the decisions and see how the board changes when other players move.

Join the list
Commission

Private war games

A bespoke scenario built around a team's real exposures, assumptions or strategic problem. Designed for funds, trading desks, utilities and corporate risk teams. For example:

  • An energy supply shock
  • Sanctions or trade disruption
  • A commodity shortage
  • A policy intervention
  • An infrastructure constraint
Discuss a scenario

What the exercise produces

A typical live game runs for around ninety minutes. The structured debrief turns what happened on the board into things worth carrying back into the real world.

Critical decision pointsWhere options narrowed, which decisions mattered and when the pressure changed.
Assumptions that failedThe beliefs the scenario depended on, and which ones did not survive contact with other players.
Indicators to watchThe observable signals that would suggest the real world is beginning to take the same path.
What would change the viewThe developments that would invalidate the working view or force a different decision.

Details given to join the list are used only to tell you when sessions open. They are never shared.