Life is like a hand of poker

You never know what you're gonna get

I’ve been playing a lot of poker (Texas Hold’em, to be specific), both with friends and strangers, and what I’ve generally noticed is people’s approach to poker is a lot like their approach to life. The risk takers are loose and like to gamble, the risk adverse play tight and only bet when they think it’s a sure thing they have the best hand, or close to it. Some bluff frequently, some pick and choose their spots, some never bluff.

What I most like about poker is the organic feel of it. You get a starting hand of two cards, some have great odds, some are mid, some are poor. But any combination can potentially win a hand, whether by luck or simply pretending and convincing others they are good.

Which I think parallels to life in general pretty well - you often hear people say “gotta play the hand you’re dealt,” but in Texas Hold’em you don’t have to play the hand, you can just fold whenever you want and wait for the next hand.

So I think it’s an allegory about opportunities in life. Something like this:

Life is like poker.

You get a number of opportunities - some good, some bad, and you can choose which ones to take and which ones to pass, and how much to invest in each of them.

Success is a combination of luck, discernment, and confidence.

Some of the opportunities that initially look great can end up not panning out.

Some of the opportunities that initially look terrible can end up being the winning hand.

And you’ll never know if you don’t take a chance.

I’ve heard a similar analogy used to describe surfing, waiting around for a great wave you can ride, sometimes missing opportunities due to fear, sometimes whiffing on something more containable, which I think is also a strong allegory. There’s something really appealing to me about looking at life this way, in that it allows the mental framework to take more chances that could be very successful, and temper the disappointment of failure, as at least we took the chance.

Sometimes, we make bad decisions - or even seemingly good decisions that don’t end up panning out. And that can feel terrible and be quite damaging. But that’s life.

And there’s always another hand.