Emanuel Lasker was a dogged Chessplayer; a man who would never concede defeat no matter how bad the situation appeared to be over the Chessboard. Once, a man approached the famed Chessmaster and enquired as to why he was so reticent about resigning lost positions. Lasker famously replied, “I keep on fighting as long as my opponent can make a mistake."

I have always loved that quotation (which is why it is my official sig) because not only is it great advice for the Chessplayer, but it is also great advice for our day to day adversarial relationships away from the chessboard....

As I stared death in the face …well, the kneecaps anyway, my life flashed in front of my face. Not my whole life, mind you, just the last day or so - particularly the moment when I decided that I was tired of lugging around my Fatman mini-nuke launcher and stowed it under my bed (that’s what I call sleeping securely). At the time I figured it was a reasonable thing to do. I mean, I hadn’t even fired it since acquiring it in that nasty fight over at Galaxy Radio many weeks ago. By ditching it, I could carry all the more in loot as I continued to explore the Capital Wastes.

Now,...

One of the reasons why I so love Chess is because it is more than a mere game. In fact, it has been likened to many, many things, including science, abstract combat, mental Darwinism…even a metaphor...

As I worked my way through my 4X campaigns in Sins of a Solar Empire and Sword of the Stars, something really started to stick in my craw. As I played each fleet intensive game, I realized that it truly didn’t capture the high stakes nature of fleet battles. The ships looked impressive enough and the battles were exciting, but the implications of those battles were less than important. For example, in both games I had large fleets massacred, yet there was little real effect on my larger war effort. Oh sure, I might have to fall back from system to system, but as soon as I replaced my losses,...

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