Worst place to start a combat...

[Maerlyn]

well, the following happened in a PBW game to me. I warped with an attack fleet of mine through a warpgate which's other side was guarded by three different allied races trying to defend the gate against me (se5a was one of these opponents, I bet he remembers the battle)
now I expected all of their fleets to be located right around the warpgate to get a free first hit at my ships, well, wrong.
what happened was: all my ships started in the middle right next to the warpgate while their three fleets were parted and were sitting in three corners of the map. (the fourth corner was were my minesweepers were heading too)
well, guess what happened, my fleet killed there three small fleets with ease, while I would have lost if I 'd have had to fight them together at once.