keep your cards close

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

to guard one's plans, intentions, information, and resources carefully, revealing them to others only when necessary and maintaining strategic privacy about one's position and capabilities; the card game metaphor — in which showing your hand to opponents destroys your competitive advantage — is applied to any situation where information asymmetry provides power; keeping cards close is an organisational and personal strategy of information management that prevents counterparts from exploiting knowledge of your constraints, priorities, or vulnerabilities; it is the counterpart of transparency and reflects a view that in competitive or adversarial contexts, privacy and information control are sources of agency, and that premature disclosure surrenders negotiating leverage, strategic surprise, or personal security