Life Lessons I Learned From Playing the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game

This'll be a very nerdy post about a trading card game, so I apologize in advance to you non-nerd/non-trading card types.

A Little Background on the Game (entirely from memory)
Yu-Gi-Oh! is a trading card game from Japan. It started out as a plot device for a manga by Kazuki Takahashi, which in turn, became an actual card game, and then turned into an anime that 4Kids ruined for everyone in North America that saw the anime on Cartoon Network.

The actual card game itself is different from the stuff you see and read from the original manga and anime, as the stuff going on there are pretty fucked up shit. I mean, come on! People actually get hurt because of the game! If you don't know what I'm talking about, watch ANY episode of the anime. I don't care which story arc, season, spin off, or parody you see, just watch at least ONE episode. People's souls go to Hell (Jigoku in the original version, Shadow Realm in the 4Kids version) when they lose. Literally. It'll give you shit like "heart of the cards" and the infamous "POWER OF FRIENDSHIP!". So, enough about that. Let's get on with the life lessons.

¤ You can't get everything you want.
It's a bit cliche, but its true in this game. Your first five or six cards aren't usually what you want, and you need to accept that, UNLESS, I say it again, UNLESS you've done/will do something about it, which brings us to our next life lesson:

¤ Be prepared for anything
Again, another cliche, but a fundamental truth in this game.
Deck building is an integral part of the game. Imagine it as preparing for battle. What weapon to bring? Should I carry an automatic rifle or a machine gun? Should I wear a flak jacket for protection or not for speed? Get my drift?

¤ A little psychological warfare can go a long way
A player can win the game through sheer luck. A good player can win the game through skill. A really good player can win the game through fucking with his opponent's brain.

¤ When you can fight, don't run. When you can run, don't fight.
To be able to fully grasp this life lesson, you must first know what needs to be known about your surroundings. What cards are on the field? How about those in your hand? Have you noticed a pattern in your opponent's movements, especially with the cards he uses? If you have answers to these questions, ask yourself: fight or run?

¤ An all out attack is not always the way to victory
The aim of the game is reduce your opponent's life points, but that's not the only way to win. You can stall, bringing the game to a stop, until you complete the Exodia parts or finish the Final Countdown. You can let your opponent loose all his cards until he can't draw a card any more. There are other ways, all of them painful.

More stuff will be added. This is a work in process, so keep reading the twitter feed for more updates. Sorry for wasting your time.