@drearyknight thinks it would be different.
What can be sacrificed must, even though he usually does his best to keep his losses to a minimum on and off the board. But he's been given a challenge for once so he's willing to play a little looser than he normally would, when it doesn't have to be a crushing defeat in ten moves. What he didn't expect was for an actually thought out answer to one of his many gripes.
But he gives the other the space to pause, to think on it, to pose and get to play the part of a hero in his minds eye. How great Wesker would have been, rescuing Jakov Jake from the crumbling life around him. Swoop him off his feet, give him the best from nothing.
People love to talk in the hypotheticals, Jake knows that. He heard it so many times before, people saying they would have helped if they had only known. But even those who did know never helped and just tried to assuage themselves of the guilt after. It's always the guilt they're trying to fix, it has less to do with him and he knows it.
It's his move and he returns a loss with another with his knight. "It's easy to say, when there's no stakes. No kid that you have to get up with sick, no attitude, or bills to pay." Jake doesn't bother speaking on his own past because as he's learned, people don't want to know. They want to see him as a shadow of someone else, as a tragedy, rather than know the ins and outs.
"I didn't need everything." He said after a moment, leans back to survey the damage on the board. Sharp eyes finally are willing to meet the others, jaw set firm, fingers tapping at his bicep to try and keep himself in check. It isn't worth telling Wesker how he would have hated him, how he would have escaped just like he did from the child's home, just like he did all the countless times before. "So now that you know me, what can you offer now."