What skills learned through playing StarCraft are useful in life?

I am ranked 2 in 3v3 Random Gold league.<p>I think SC let's you learn how to play mind games, one of the ways to win a match is to understand what your opponents will think or do and play against that, surprise them, do something they would not expect.<p>There was a match where my allies were defeated I was alone and the 3 terran enemies got ready to drop the hammer on me with a bio army ( marines, marauders ), but I defeated all 3 of them with a handful of dark templars, because they were not prepared for that and I knew that because they were too self confident. Winning the game meant that I had to micro my units to their full extend, not letting them have a second to build detectors and jeopardize my plan so this really reinforces the notion that when you have an advantage you need to use that and get a bigger one.<p>A hard part of the game is that when you see that your tactic fails, you need to switch over to something else. When you have an air fleet and you realize that the enemy has marines, stalkers or any other anti air units, you need to build anti ground units instead and make use of your existing fleet, like attacking the enemy base while their army is busy fighting your second army.<p>The game also lets you take risks, you can go build cannons next to someone's base, you can quickly strike down a base with reapers, you could destroy a base with void rays or you could frustrate the enemy with mutalisks. These are all high risk, high reward moves, you could win the game in a few minutes, but you could also lose it if the enemy is well prepared for your tactic.<p>You could take a lot of real life situations and turn them into an SC game. The reason I play it is because it sharpens the mind, makes you think and act fast.

I expected this to be pithy and shallow, but there are some good nuggets in here. I'd couch them more as important reminders than life changing advice, but I'm still glad I read this.<p>One thing I'll add, which is mentioned but not explicitly, is that to perform well in StarCraft II, some players look straight to the pros and try to emulate their strategies without ever perfecting their timings or build orders, which puts them at a huge disadvantage over someone who learns and executes the fundamentals but doesn't have a good understanding of play at the Master League level.<p>Another thing: cheap tactics and all-in rush strategies have their place and it's possible to win a match with a Zerg Rush, but to place in a competition you really need to have a deeper game plan in place. So while companies like Right Haven might have found some ways to make a quick buck without doing any actual work, they'll get buried in the long run.

Gotta build expansions before you can win ;)