History Main / XanatosSpeedchess

* ''Literature/TheWayOfKings'' (first book of ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive''): Sadeas is the "set everything up in my favor and see what happens" flavor of Chessmaster. He uses this to justify "suddenly" [[spoiler:betraying his oldest friend, getting thousands of soldiers killed in the process]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'': In "King's Tide", [[spoiler:Luz fights Belos during the eclipse only to be quickly overpowered by the emperor who begins petrifying her, causing her to notice a branding glove on his desk nearby. Luz proceeds to enrage him into throwing her against the desk by pointing out he'll be a StrangerInAFamiliarLand. She then offers the deal that she'll become his guide in exchange for her friends' safety, but slips on the glove and renders it invisible with a glyph, allowing her to brand him while they shake on it in an attempt to force him to end the Draining Spell to save himself]].

* ''[[Franchise/MonsterVerse Godzilla: Aftershock]]'': Ex-[[UsefulNotes/SecretIntelligenceService MI6]] EcoTerrorist [[Characters/MonsterVerseHumans Alan Jonah]] is very good at thinking on his feet when he needs to. He escapes from detainment on [[UsefulNotes/{{Guam}} Guam]] amid the havoc caused by Jinshin-Mushi's attack. He manages to covertly hijack Emma Russell and Miles Anderson's private jet in an attempt to take them hostage and force them to fly him off the island covertly, but once Jonah ends up in a Mexican standoff with Tarkan, he escapes by tackling Tarkan, then firing his gun into the air outside the jet to create confusion and bewilderment whilst he disappears again before he can be re-apprehended. Not only does Jonah continue to evade capture, but he still finds another way off the island afterwards.

* In ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'', Aleister Crowley constantly uses this so that whenever something unexpected happens, he weaves it in to complete his plans even faster. But even Crowley cannot keep up with everything: [[spoiler:Shiage Hamazura defeating Mugino caused a domino reaction that ''completely'' threw his plans all out of whack, and he's now desperately attempting to get everything back under his control.]]

* Played with in ''LightNovel/{{Durarara}}''. Izaya is a ManipulativeBastard who spends great amounts of the series pulling strings to cause everything to fall into chaos. He regularly employs {{Batman Gambit}}s with a high success rate and to most appears to always come out on top. However, Shinra points out that this is only because Izaya loves humans, so he will accept anything they do and will always be happy with their reactions. This creates the illusion that Izaya is always in control, and he often is, but in the end he is merely going to be happy no matter what people do.

* ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamIronBloodedOrphans'': [=McGillis=] was already scheming to rise to power in Gjallarhorn before the series began but when Tekkadan rises up as a major thorn in Gjallarhorn's side, he takes advantage of it by covertly providing aid to them and using them to eliminate the ones standing in his way within Gjallarhorn, resulting in him coming out on top at the end of the first season.
* ''Manga/{{Monster}}'': Johan Liebert can change his plans on a whim. Because of this, his plans almost always work out...[[spoiler:[[SpannerInTheWorks until the end.]]]]

* ''VideoGame/ReturnOfTheObraDinn'': [[spoiler:Edward Nichols gets away with stealing the treasure onboard the ''Obra Dinn'' by knocking out Hok-Seng Lau, who was guarding it, and then by killing [[InnocentBystander Nunzio Pasqua]] and blaming it on Lau. Later, when he returns to the ''Obra Dinn'' as the SoleSurvivor of his mutiny, Nichols finds the crew is none too happy with him (and for good reason), so he attempts to smooth things over with the crew by yielding and returning the treasure... [[SubvertedTrope but]] he is instead shot dead by Chioh Tan, who was none too happy that all of his fellow Formosans died because of him.]]

** In ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid'', as part of the deal she made to transfrom Ariel into a human for three days, Ursula had Ariel give up her voice, knowing that Eric wouldn't recognize her as the mystery girl that saved his life without it and figured it would render Ariel's chances to get Eric to fall in love with her slim. However, when it looks like Ariel ''would'' be holding up her end of the deal after all (Ursula begrudgingly admitting she was better than she thought), the Sea Witch decides to pull a MovingTheGoalPosts by transforming herself into a girl named Vanessa, using Ariel's stolen voice to enchant Eric and make him believe she was the girl he had been looking for.

* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaid'', as part of the deal she made to transfrom Ariel into a human for three days, Ursula had Ariel give up her voice, knowing that Eric wouldn't recognize her as the mystery girl that saved his life without it and figured it would render Ariel's chances to get Eric to fall in love with her slim. However, when it looks like Ariel ''would'' be holding up her end of the deal after all (Ursula begrudgingly admitting she was better than she thought), the Sea Witch decides to pull a MovingTheGoalPosts by transforming herself into a girl named Vanessa, using Ariel's stolen voice to enchant Eric and make him believe she was the girl he had been looking for.

** The Flim Flam brothers pull off a simpler one in "Leap of Faith". When Applejack finds out that the miracle tonic that Granny Smith bought from them was a fake, they don't even panic, cunningly convincing her not to reveal their secret as it would ruin the newfound confidence and happiness that Granny Smith has gained. They even capitalize on it when Applejack comments that the tonic 'seems to work for Granny' saying she approves it, causing everypony who trusts Applejack to continue buying it, while at the same time, striking a blow at Applejack's conscience.

* ''Series/MissionImpossible'' is made of this trope. Rarely, if ever, does the IMF's complex plot go completely according to plan. The IMF team simply improvises around whatever does go awry, and eventually achieves its goal anyway. Of course, there were several instances where the audience thought this was happening, but it was really just the plan working perfectly (for instance, when the bad guy becoming wise to the con was actually part of the con). This trope only kicks in for them when their BatmanGambit is about to go awry, which is roughly once an episode. Their use of Xanatos Speed Chess is to draw the villain back to the gambit and/or away from discovering TheMasquerade.\\\
In one first season episode, it was all Xanatos Speed Chess. Rollin was specifically sent in without a plan because the mission was to recover a wire recording that an agent had hidden in the few minutes between losing his tail and his death. With no one knowing where he had hidden it, they had to rely on Rollin figuring out how to find it, how to recover it, how to return it, and do it all under the eyes of enemy agents.

* Jim Profit, the eponmous protagonist of ''Series/Profit'' is a master of this. Need to undo a recent acquisition? Jim trades them the Ultra Chip in exchange for going away. His rival finds out? Jim reveals the illegal deal to the Commerce Department, making himself look like a hero. Ultra Chip doesn't work? He trades the developer instead, tricking him into a shipping container on a one-way

* The eponymous main character of the ''Literature/BelisariusSeries'' develops a grand strategy for defeating the Malwa Empire but relies largely on his unmatched ability in improvising at the theater and battlefield levels in order to carry it out, knowing that while Link is fully capable of developing an effective overall strategy, it finds it nearly impossible to improvise or adapt on the fly to changing circumstances to the point of finding it difficult to even conceive of a different outcome than it expects.

** In one episode Michael faces off against a guy so smart that the entire episode consists entirely of Michael coming up with modifications of modifications of his original plans. The beauty being that Michael sets things up such that, even though the guy KNOWS Michael's playing him, he has no choice but to play along.

** There's another great example in "Question and Answer", in the "reverse-interrogation" scene. Michael's undercover as a junkie snitch, Sam as a corrupt cop, and they have to let the bad guy interrogate Michael about information ''neither of them have''. The entire scene is Sam playing head games with the bad guy, while Michael pretends to know information he doesn't, and pull it off.

** In ''The Vor Game'', the BigBad makes up about four or five new plans in a single day as Miles tries to counter them and new chances arise. She even uses her old plans as pawns in her new plans. [[spoiler:It backfires. In the end, Miles pointed out that if she had stuck to any of them, she would have been better off.]]

* ''Series/TheThickOfIt'' and ''Series/AbsolutePower'' contain many examples. Both feature characters working in crisis management PR, which is essentially the profession of Xanatos Speed Chess. ''The Thick Of It'''s Resident MagnificentBastard Malcolm Tucker, head press guy for [[UsefulNotes/{{Whitehall}} Number 10 Downing Street]], specializes in Xanatos Speed Chess and profanity.

* ''[[LetsPlay/LifeSMP Double Life SMP]]'': Grian was able to nab the only pieces of sugarcane on the map, which were incredibly important due to the server's modded recipe for TNT needing four paper. Foreseeing the way that other teams would tear up his base to get some sugarcane of their own and inevitably break his monopoly, he quickly stole all of the ''sand'' on the server--a much easier task thanks to the map's lack of a desert--and only leaving behind enough pieces of sand for one or two pieces of TNT, thereby creating a second monopoly on explosives, this time with a non-renewable resource.

* Most multiplayer games that have an element of strategy end in this when played competitively. As it's bound to happen when you pit several experienced strategists against each other, the match often turns into a battle of dismantling the enemy plan while you repair and protect yours, while they do the same to you, only ending when someone gets hit with a [[SpannerInTheWorks big enough spanner]] and can't recover in time.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

** Super Buu is also very good at doing this, despite being a [[TheBrute mere thug]] in personality. He noticed Gohan's growing power, so he fought against Super Saiyan 3 Gotenks and tested the limits of his strength and his weaknesses (e.g. fusion limit). After briefly fighting Gohan and finding himself overwhelmed, he goes through an intentional SuperPowerMeltdown, knowing he will regenerate and buys time (and getting Goten and Trunks to recuperate, to fuse again). When he returns he goads Goten and Trunks into fusing again at full power and absorbs Gotenks and Piccolo into his being, deciding 30 minutes is more than enough to handle Gohan (he was right). Goku arrives and the fusion breaks down. Goku says Gohan alone is strong enough to defeat Buu, but then Buu reveals that he planned for this eventuality as well, and had a piece of himself ready to absorb Gohan the whole time, who he goaded into standing still until it was too late. Interestingly, the only character this didn't work on is Vegito, who was [[StoryBreakerPower too strong]], [[SpannerInTheWorks too wily]], [[BatmanGambit and had plans of his own]], as he later found out...

* ''Franchise/JoJosBizarreAdventure'':
** In the final battle of ''[[Manga/JojosBizarreAdventureBattleTendency Battle Tendency]]'', Joseph Jostar defeats Kars by defending himself from an attack with the Stone of Aja, which he wasn't even aware he had, and having the resulting explosion and debris launch Kars into space. Joseph even admits that he didn't plan for that to happen.

** In some ways, most of the battles from the series are this. A large part of Stand battles is figuring out what your opponent's Stand does, finding it's weakness, and exploiting it.

* Emperor Mateus from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyII''. His plans begin with simply wanting to take over the world and whenever the heroes cause him trouble, he drives them back with rapidly escalating methods of destruction or clever scemes. The heroes barely get a moment to savour a current victory before he turns it around on them. He even dodges [[spoiler:death by splitting his soul in half,]] because now he wants heaven and hell, too.
* When the Dark Elf steals one of the four Crystals of Light in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIV'', Golbez kidnaps Rosa, forcing Cecil and his party to go get the crystal in exchange for her life.
* Kuja from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'' had no less than ''two'' of these. First, it's revealed that his entire plan was revolved around stealing Alexander, the most powerful of all Eidolons (summon monsters). This fails when [[BigBad his boss]] shows up and blows it to hell. Panicked, his next plan involves using the protagonists to fetch a powerful stone for him and extracting other, lesser summon spirits from a little girl. This fails when her Moogle guardian [[TookALevelInBadass goes Trance]] and proceeds to kick ass. Kuja then changes his plans AGAIN in order to gain his own Trance power. Kuja finally achieves this and proceeds to [[TheStarscream kill his former boss]]. It's too bad that he learns that he's going to die soon anyway, prompting the mother of all [[VillainousBreakdown Villainous Breakdowns]].

* Toshimi Tagami, from ''Franchise/GhostInTheShell'' on the [=PS2=]: Her plans begin with high political intrigue to gain a region its independence, all for her brother's cause, and when Section 9 shows up to throw in some spanners, she quickly switches gears and manipulates the lot of them to get her way in the end. Even [[spoiler:her death didn't stop it.]]

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* ''WesternAnimation/LegendOfKorra'': Zaheer and the rest of the [[WellIntentionedExtremist Red Lotus]] straddle the line between this trope and the IndyPloy. Over the course of their tenure as villains, they seem to frequently change their plans on the fly, and generally succeed at whatever their newly improvised plan is....but they also display [[MissingStepsPlan a notable lack of foresight]], which ultimately leads to their defeat, and the group ultimately accomplishing the exact opposite of what they intended as a result. They exhibit great short-term planning, but [[DidntThinkThisThrough very flawed long-term planning]].

** Details from the beginning of the ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing'' strongly imply that Scar's initial plan was to have Simba killed only, so he'd remove competition for the throne. It wasn't until the hyenas' failure to kill Simba due to Mufasa's interference, as well as Banzai's sardonic question of whether Scar should kill Mufasa to get the throne that Scar even considered the idea of killing Mufasa in the first place. Even more impressively, when Simba makes his big return, after getting over his initial shock at Simba being alive, Scar is able to improvise and nearly win again by killing Simba.

* Pretty much all Cheapass Games work this way, with other players (and pure randomness) changing conditions so fast that any strategy has to adapt just as fast. Looney Labs games (''TabletopGame/{{Fluxx}}'', ''TabletopGame/{{Chrononauts}}'') are similar.
* TabletopGame/{{Chess}}, of course. Under a time control of 1 minute for the entire game, the only way to make your moves quickly enough is to choose a move because it is the most active move that stops the opponent's threats.

* The strategy game Hellgame runs on this trope. Not only do each player control three characters, positioned in different places in the turn order (so a player can be both the first and the last to act in a single turn), this turn order can be manipulated by the playing of cards. Random events abound; every turn begins with a random event (which can in turn cause other random events to occur, or put down triggers which cause them to happen later, often several times), and a typical spell causes random events to happen to other players (or yourself). Combat is resolved by die rolls, often modified by spell cards and said random events. A player can seem to be unstoppable, only for a completely harmless-looking opponent to suddenly jump to the end of the turn order to cut of the expected victory and grab it for himself, only for _another_ player to do the same, and then some. A game can last a single turn, or ten; which is in no way an indication of the elapsed time of the game. Successfully wading through this sea of random happenstances and quirky rules, battling the other players (five of them) for supremacy over the turn order is the path to victory.
* Most (but by no means all) theater-style American [[{{LARP}} live-action roleplaying games]] are designed to be Xanatos Speed Chess tournaments.
* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' is powered by this trope, especially in tournament play. Control mirrors are dozens of turns of this, with each player pretending they had it planned all along.
** Actually averted the better one gets at the game -- there's a limit to how much strategies can be modified without bending one's deck and game out of shape. Good play is more like using this trope to back up a straight BatmanGambit.
** This is the only way to play the card game ''Fluxx'', because the rules of play and victory conditions are constantly changing.
* The ''TableTopGame/{{Munchkin}}'' card game has some of this, too, especially in epic games with high levels and four or more players. Given that the official time limit for interfering in seemingly successful Combat rounds is "a reasonable amount of time (defined as 2.6 seconds)," things can get a bit... hectic, when players are trying to aid/hinder another player's efforts, ''especially'' the final level(s).

* ''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}'' sets the [[PlayerCharacters PCs]] up with mutually conflicting goals, then throws rapid-fire obstacles at them along the way. One suggested game mechanic is to ask each PC "What are you doing?", then only give them about five seconds to answer:

* TabletopGame/{{Chess}}, of course. Under a time control of 1 minute for the entire game, the only way to make your moves quickly enough is to choose a move because it is the most active move that stops the opponents threats.

* While theoretically Go involves XanatosGambit\s, occasionally players will play unexpected moves, or will misread situations. This will lead to their opponent having to rapidly adapt. Some professional players have this as their style; being good enough to adapt while capitalising on their opponents more orthodox playstyles, essentially being both the SpannerInTheWorks and then playing XanatosSpeedChess.

* ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' God Cyric. His claim to master of Xanatos Speed Chess comes during a Trial where the other gods claim he is unfit for his duty as Greater God of Strife, Lies, Murder, and other nasty things due to his (fake) holding of the IdiotBall for years. The thing is, Cyric ''set up''the trial as a way to get the gods to bow down and worship him through use of the Cyrinishad, his book of evil that convinced anyone, god or mortal, that Cyric was the greatest god ever and only true god. When his lackey failed to get the Cyrinishad on time and had the wrong book, Cyric immediately had two other ways of assuring he would win the Trial. And he did. One was the aforementioned lackey being made into a demi-god of lies, even though he couldn't tell a single lie due to a curse from the goddess of magic. Cyric said this made him perfect, because the best lie is the most unbelievable truth, once again showing Cyric is a Xanatos master. Oh, and he also gained the loyalty of an EldritchAbomination during the course of all this and tends to threaten his enemies with the thing occasionally.

* ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' God Cyric. His claim to master of Xanatos Speed Chess comes during a Trial where the other gods claim he is unfit for his duty as Greater God of Strife, Lies, Murder, and other nasty things due his (fake) holding of the IdiotBall for years. The thing is, Cyric SET UP the trial as a way to get the gods to bow down and worship him through use of the Cyrinishad, his book of evil that convinced anyone, god or mortal, that Cyric was the greatest god ever and only true god. When his lackey failed to get the Cyrinishad on time and had the wrong book, Cyric immediately had two other ways of assuring he would win the Trial. And he did. One was the aforementioned lackey being made into a demi-god of lies, even though he couldn't tell a single lie due to a curse from the goddess of magic. Cyric said this made him perfect, because the best lie is the most unbelievable truth, once again showing Cyric is a Xanatos master. Oh, and he also gained the loyalty of an EldritchAbomination during the course of all this and tends to threaten his enemies with the thing occasionally.
** More like losing and calling it winning. Bane's the real master. He, Bhaal, and Myrkul all had backup plans in the event of the failure of their gambits during the Time of Troubles. Bane didn't bother with mortal progeny (Bhaal) or depositing his essence in an artifact (Myrkul) -- he created a demigod child to inherit his mantle. Even said child didn't know he was a glorified chrysalis -- when he grew sufficiently powerful, Bane erupted from within him like a horrible, horrible butterfly. The Lord of Darkness was back in business, baby!

* ''Manga/KaguyaSamaLoveIsWar'': In contrast to Kaguya [[CrazyPrepared who can use her affluence to craft intricate plans ahead of time]] but falters should unforseen elements be introduced, Shirogane most often relies on his quick wit to create opportunities to attract Kaguya, and is adept at improvising should his schemes go awry.
* ''Anime/{{Monster}}'': Johan Liebert can change his plans on a whim. Because of this, his plans almost always work out...[[spoiler:[[SpannerInTheWorks until the end.]]]]

** And in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianTwilight'', [[spoiler:he finally got what he wanted, and so is the tactical victor of the Tiberium wars, even if it took him like 70-80 years and the blood of bilions to reach the victory]].

** Arguably, the entirety of the final Allied and Epsilon missions are one big game of XanatosSpeedChess.[[spoiler:The Allies destroy all the Mental Dynamos shielding the Mental Omega Device on the surface, only to find that Yuri was CrazyPrepared and hid one underground. Their attempts to destroy the last Dynamo only buy time for the Epsilon to drive back the Allies. The Epsilon manage to prep the Mental Omega Device to mind control the whole earth, only for the activation to be aborted by the Allies activating a [[TimeStandsStill Time Freeze]]. In response, the Epsilon sneak Infiltrators on board the Paradox Engine to disable its weapons. While the Time Freeze still works, the Engine has no weapons to push past the Epsilon defense. In a last ditch effort, the Allies decide to try and freeze the Device in time, only for Libra to successfully damage the engine. Finally, (though its not clear if this was an intentional response or not), the Engine rams into the Device and damages it, but not enough to render it inoperable.]]