As long as one gives the other a fair chance to draw, he may shoot him down. Rather, if you face an evil opponent, a Stalin or a Hitler, you shoot him in the back. Whereas, when facing a man who is not essentially evil, you have no right to kill him just because you give him a fair chance. If man is created in the image of G-d, then life has essential value. Some people play checkers, others chess.
Some people play poker, others bridge.
The more involved the game the deeper man can engage his intellect - but only to focus less upon life's meaningless because life in the godless Greek mind is essentially a game. We simulate a kind of dignity by honoring the rules of the game. All the world is reduced to aesthetics and a game in this Greek world view. But the Jew says no, that when G-d encountered man through the medium of prophecy, man was charged with the mission to fulfill a universal role, the performance of which is judged at the individual, communal, and national level. Historically, at Chanukah, the Jews warred with the Greeks, yet there is no megillah , no written work chronicling that battle.