In politics, poker is king. In war, chess is king. That's why Bush has Donald Rumsfeld for his chess player.
Re: war... At the tactical level, absolutely. But I'm not really sure, at the level of strategic deceptions and the like, whether that would be called poker or chess, or somewhere in between, like the kids game, "Battleship" LOL.
As a kid, I was big into those Avalon Hill brand wargames, where you moved cardboard units around a map gridded in hexagonal fashion, engaging the enemy. I still have them all down the basement. I was/am such a geek.