I was reading a page of quotes about chess, since the parallels with Descent intrigue me. For example, I see a lot of pilots I recognize in this page: http://www.chessquotes.com/topic-losing

One particular quote stood out to me, though:

"The tactician must know what to do whenever something needs doing; the strategist must know what to do when nothing needs doing."

That's a good statement of what went differently for me in the second game as opposed to the first. Jediluke was more aggressive, smarter. Not in my face, exactly; if anything, he was more cautious with where he placed his actual ship. But there was a lot more incoming fire in a lot more places. Where before there had been two things to avoid, now there were three. I felt more constantly *attacked*, which is really saying something when you consider how incredibly fast-paced Ascend x4 already is.

It is something Jeds does better than any other pilot I know: come up with creative and deadly things to do when "nothing needs doing", and when he's playing hard, he comes up with MORE of them and FASTER.

It was a great game, and even better -- it gave me something new to study and think about.