Seven ways playing poker is like dating

June 18, 9:56 AMDC Poker ExaminerMatt Pusateri

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There's no Beyoncé song about it, but poker has a lot in common with being single. Both can be an adventure into the unknown, fraught with surprises, disappointments, and unexpected pleasures. Both can also empty your wallet and waste your free time. Every once in a while, though, you make the right moves at the right time, and it can change your life.

[A quick editorial note: for the record, let me state that the D.C. Poker Examiner is a happily married man now, and although while he was a single guy in a big city not too long ago, any similiarities between the situations and scenarios described below and actual persons, places, dates, attitudes, motivations, or acts of poor judgment are purely coincidental.]

1. You can think you're in for a great night, but instead, it's just long, irritating and miserable. You head out: eager, confident, and optimistic, expecting fun and excitement. You think you're going to score. Instead, nothing turns out the way you expect. Instead of the memorable, thrilling night you imagined, you're stuck at a table, bored, restless, staring at someone you can't stand, who won't shut up. Your mind wanders and you imagine being somewhere else. Worse, you're paying for every minute of it. You wind up spending a lot of money and then go home alone, wishing you'd stayed in and watched HBO instead. A bad poker night and a bad date are the same thing: you'd have been better off never leaving the house.

2. One lapse of judgment can lead to weeks of regret. Maybe your night ISN'T boring or miserable. Maybe things go great. You get lucky, have fun, get some numbers, and loosen up. Everything is going your way, and you feel unstoppable. And then somewhere around 1am, feeling the buzz of winning, or alcohol, or the full moon, you throw caution to the wind. After all, life is short, right? All in with Jacks? Call a huge bet with ace-high? Drunk-dial that ex-girlfriend who lives down the street? Go home with that woman with the nose ring and poofy orange hair? What could go wrong? Free clinics and gamblers anonymous meetings are filled with people who ask that question and answered wrong.

3. Things can seem to be going so well… and then it all comes apart. In the dating life, you can spend time with someone and everything seems so promising. You feel great when you're together. You love how he or she looks. You can't imagine letting go of each other. It's the same thing when you peel back your cards and see a sexy pair of aces or kings. It's love. You feel richer and happier as soon as you see them. You can't wait to show them off and make the everyone else jealous. But too often, in dating and in cards, things fall apart. Your kings are amazing... until the flop comes A-J-J. Now you wish you were with AK or JT instead of fat, ugly KK. Situations change, and what seemed like magic for a little while suddenly isn't so great. Despite all that promise, you throw away KK before you ever get to the turn. So much for love. Or maybe you're faithful to your kings and refuse to let it go, despite the scary board. And when you lose everything to trip jacks or a pair of aces, you realize your blind devotion was doomed and brought you nothing but heartache and misery.

4. You can lie, trick, and maybe even cheat. You're sitting across from someone, looking her in the eye, trying to convince her of something that isn't true. You try to tell a story she'll believe that explains your actions and why you seem so nervous. Your heart pounds. You worry that she's not going to believe the deception and will make a call to confirm your story. If she finds out what you've been doing all this time, it will be a disaster. If you get away with it, you'll smile to yourself and laugh a little. The thrill of getting away with it makes you feel giddy and a tiny bit guilty... or maybe not. Sooner or later, though, someone will catch on to you. Somebody will figure out that you're lying and and expose you. When they do, the price may be higher than you imagined.

5. What seemed attractive before you got committed can start to look ugly. It's funny how what's sexy now can get unsexy fast. At first, the brunette with the short skirt and the Betty Boop tattoo seemed irresistible; you HAD to have her. You couldn't believe she was right in front of you and seemed to be up for anything you wanted to do. You didn't even mind her constant smoking and tendency to tell long, rambling stories. You put up with it all because she was hot. But then once you got serious and moved in together, you started to noticing all her flaws: did she ever clean those dishes in her sink? Is her left ear slightly higher than the right? And what was up with those jagged toenails? You wake up one morning in her place, and look over her: she's snoring, her breath reeks of tobacco, and the bedroom smells like cat piss. What does this have in common with poker? If you ever went all in with with a pair of queens or jacks -- committing your whole stack -- just because they looked so damn irresistible, only to realize that you were up against kings or three-of-a-kind? If so, maybe this story probably makes sense.

6. You keep expecting something better to come along; eventually you may need to go with what you have. If you're a guy, maybe you're waiting to meet someone who looks like Megan Fox or Scarlett Johansson... and who also likes beer, watching football, playing video games, and is really really into you. If you're a woman, maybe you're holding out for a Brad Pitt clone who writes bestselling novels or some independently wealthy social worker who looks like George Clooney. If you're gay or lesbian, feel free to choose from any combination of the above. The point is, only a few of us wind up with Jolie or Clooney, so sometimes you need to lower your standards a little if you ever want to go out with someone. Likewise, if you're a poker player, you're really waiting for aces or kings before you're ready to go all in. But sometimes -- especially late in tournaments when your chip stack is shrinking away -- you have to settle for "good enough." When you've got all the time in the world, you can sit back and wait for aces. But when you start to feel like the clock is ticking, that you're running out of time to commit to something before you're entirely out of options, jacks or tens... hell, even a stupid pair of eights can start to seem pretty sweet. And hey, you never know. Sometimes "good enough" transforms into something truly beautiful.

7. You might wind up with much better than you deserve. Let's be honest here: you're not all that. Look in the mirror. You could probably lose a few pounds, or get your teeth cleaned, or get back to the gym and hit the treadmill. And yet, despite all that, you might wind up with much, much better than you deserve. I'm living proof of that. My wife must have married me out of pity, charity, or bad eyesight. The lesson: it's possible you might do better than anyone would reasonably expect. Poker can be the same way. You might get cute and push all-in with a pair of threes, get call by two players who have bigger pairs, but then flop quads. You might bluff with suited connectors and catch a runner-runner straight to win a miracle pot. If you're playing a tournament, you might win six straight coin-flips and pull off a couple miracle suck-outs along the way to win it all. If you get lucky and wind up with much more that you deserve, be thankful and don't take it for granted. Good fortune like that may not come around again soon.

In poker, like dating, you should always play smart, avoid crazy risks, and try not to chase things you probably won't get. But then again, sometimes it doesn't hurt to try.