In Texas Hold 'em, and indeed in any form of No-Limit poker, there is what is known as a probe bet. This is when a player makes a small bet in order to gain information on the strength of another player's hand. Based on his opponent's responses to this small bet, a player can gain a better idea about the strength of his own hand.

One night at our regular tournament table, I was dealt Q4o in the small blind. This is a hand I would never play at a full table with the blinds as small as they were at the time. Still -- with one player calling in front of me from middle position, and everyone else folding around, I was getting 5-to-1 on my money, so I put in the half-bet of 5 chips.

I'm amazed at how many parallels I seem to find between life and poker. For every circumstance that seems to pop up at the table, something similar seems to surface in life. It's weird, I tell ya.

My friend Javier was the player who had called in front of me. He's a sharp-witted guy; his mastery of toilet-humor punnery surpasses even my own. He's also an absolutely awful poker player. Obviously I enjoy having him at the table for both of these reasons. I knew that if the flop connected with Javier's hand in any way, it would be incredibly obvious; the man's tells are absolutely cartoonish.

I was more worried about my friend Doug, sitting in the big blind. Doug is a fairly aggressive and highly mathematical player, able to gain a lot of insight into a player's hand through his or her betting patterns. He checked his hand in the big blind, and the dealer flipped the three flop cards: 4-8-J, of three different suits.

Now listen to THIS shit. It seems that I may have found I girl that I like. Some of you guys may remember from a few years back what happened the last time I liked a girl. For those just joining us, she broke my heart (waah), and I responded by essentially going on a 4-year sex bender. I'm not complaining,...

In Texas Hold 'em, and indeed in any form of No-Limit poker, there is what is known as a probe bet. This is when a player makes a small bet in order to gain information on the strength of another player's hand. Based on his opponent's responses to this small bet, a player can gain a better idea about the strength of his own hand.

One night at our regular tournament table, I was dealt Q4o in the small blind. This is a hand I would never play at a full table with the blinds as small as they were at the time. Still -- with one player calling in front of me from middle position, and everyone else folding around, I was getting 5-to-1 on my money, so I put in the half-bet of 5 chips.

I'm amazed at how many parallels I seem to find between life and poker. For every circumstance that seems to pop up at the table, something similar seems to surface in life. It's weird, I tell ya.

My friend Javier was the player who had called in front of me. He's a sharp-witted guy; his mastery of toilet-humor punnery surpasses even my own. He's also an absolutely awful poker player. Obviously I enjoy having him at the table for both of these reasons. I knew that if the flop connected with Javier's hand in any way, it would be incredibly obvious; the man's tells are absolutely cartoonish.

I was more worried about my friend Doug, sitting in the big blind. Doug is a fairly aggressive and highly mathematical player, able to gain a lot of insight into a player's hand through his or her betting patterns. He checked his hand in the big blind, and the dealer flipped the three flop cards: 4-8-J, of three different suits.

Now listen to THIS shit. It seems that I may have found I girl that I like. Some of you guys may remember from a few years back what happened the last time I liked a girl. For those just joining us, she broke my heart (waah), and I responded by essentially going on a 4-year sex bender. I'm not complaining, mind you. It's been fun in many ways, to be sure. And for the record, STD-free thank you very much -- Pretty amazing I know, considering the whole X-mas-eve-couch-peeing-sodomy-extravaganza of 2004....but yes, woot.

So yes, there's this girl. We have been on two amazing dates. She's smart, worldly, hilarious, and has an effing ridiculous ass, and most importantly -- she has an effing ridiculous ass. Even better is that she seems to like me. I mean like...like like me. However, at the end of our second date I wanted to get a gauge on how much she liked me.

So anyway, I've flopped bottom pair with the 4 in my hand and the 4 on the board. At this point I'm the first to act, so I have two choices. One option would be for me to check my hand, and see what Doug and Javier do. This is the safe option, but there are some problems with it as well. Since Doug is an aggressive player, I'm fairly certain that he will make a bet no matter what. Then when the action gets back to me I'm faced with a tough decision as to what to do with my hand.

I decide that my best option is to make a probe bet. My pair of fours may actually be the best hand right now, and I feel that I will have a better idea of how true this is by betting right out and watching Doug's reaction, rather than not betting and then watching Doug's action. There are 300 chips in the pot, so I make a small bet of 120 chips.

This girl -- let's call her Heather -- is pretty great. A lot of our conversation focused around relationships and what the best course of action is as far as dating/getting to know someone/determining mate potential, etc... I went on record as saying that I prefer to jump right in, as I feel that this is the best way to flush out the red flags quickly. Heather disagreed, saying that she prefers to evaluate things more cautiously, and that if you move too fast, you can sometimes miss important clues along the way, thus making premature decisions.

I ultimately decided that the best way to see what Heather really thinks of me was with a probe kiss. This is a kiss that, while somewhat aggressive -- and definitely aimed for the lips -- is not designed to take the other person by surprise. They should be able to see it coming a mile away, so that they have plenty of time to choose whether or not they want to A) stop the kiss completely, B) embrace the kiss passionately, or C) use head movements to deflect the kiss onto another part of the face. I didn't think that A) was a very likely outcome -- the real question was: what would a B or C response necessarily mean?

So Doug now has three options in response to my probe bet. Doug knows that I'm a generally tight player, and so it's highly unlikely that I'm betting into two active players while holding absolutely nothing. If Doug FOLDS, it means that he probably has nothing, and that I'm free to deal with Javier on my own, probably winning the pot in the process. If Doug RAISES, it means that he probably has a strong hand, and wants to push either Javier or me, or both of us off the hand so that he can win the pot himself.

Well Doug deliberated for only a few moments before choosing to just CALL my bet. He called the bet quickly, but not overly confidently, and so I was now faced with the task of piecing together the meaning of this action. Hmm...

I decided that Doug probably had a J in his hand, but not necessarily a strong one. If his J was strong (such as a J with an Ace or a King), then a raise would have been a more likely response. A weak J seemed to be the most likely scenario, since Javier was still in the hand and had yet to make his move.

Javier quickly folded his hand while simultaneously making a joke about how whiskey makes your shit smell funny. He has kids.

At the end of our second date, I confidently (but obviously) moved in for the probe kiss. Heather deftly turned her head ever so slightly, so that my lips met with her neck, just below her right jaw. I kissed her there, and she did the same to me. Case C). This is exactly what I had hoped for, since I knew at that point that she liked me enough to want to make sure she didn't evaluate things too quickly.

Doug's call made me realize that my fours were no good. I fished around for some information, and got a pretty clear answer.

But then a Queen fell on the turn, and I smiled, but only to myself.