One of my favorite arcade games was Gauntlet, by Atari.  The sole object of the game was to advance to the next level.  Of course, you had to fight through monsters and you would collect keys, to unlock doors, and treasure, to boost you score, along the way.  The original Gauntlet didn't have a final board, so you could play it for as long as you could stand -- literally!

But, a funny thing would happen after your game was over -- your score would be divided by the number of coins that you played in order to determine your final score for ranking purposes.  So, if you wanted to attain the highest score in your character class, then you had to have the highest average score per coin.  So, if you wanted to get the high score, then your new goal was to play as few coins as possible; namely, one; or else, you'd have to play twice as long to get the high score if you played two coins!

Now, as you played Gauntlet, your character world automatically lose health over time.  So, the only way to stay alive was through strong defensive skills, i.e., being careful not to get hit by the monsters.  By avoiding damage from the monsters, your character would only lose health equal to the amount of time it took you to complete the level.  And, of course, there was a way to gain health in-game -- collect food!

However, some levels had plenty of food and some had hardly any; or, none -- depending on the game's difficulty setting.  So, by being careful to conserve your character's health, you could withstand a few levels without food until you finally reached a level with some food on it.  The trick was not to get so caught up in all of the adventure, (get the gold, get the food, fight the monsters,) as to forget the importance of protecting yourself.

After playing carefully for a while, I would often be able to build up my character's health so high, that he/she would become virtually invincible.  And, so, I was able to attain many a high score.

In the same way, we must preserve our capital, (or money,) when we invest.  We must not get caught up in all the excitement of investing, and thus, allow our investment capital to take unnecessary damage.  We must have patience, even if it means that we must lose a small amount for now, so that we will be able to take advantage of sound opportunities in the future.  This is how a virtually invincible investment portfolio is made.

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This page was last tweaked: Sunday, November 12, 2006