Psychologists say that women are attracted to men who remind them of their fathers. I believed that until I fell in love with Drew, my future husband. Both my fiance and dad are lanky, small-town boys who respect women and love yard work, but between the two there is a key difference: poker. My father slaughters Drew at the table every game. It’s a problem.

My dad taught me to play poker when I was seven years old. While my brother was out having pinecone fights with the neighborhood kids, my father was writing out a description of each hand and quizzing me with questions like, “You have a flush and your opponent has a straight. Who wins?” and “When I ask for four cards during five-card draw, what do I have to do to get them?” He always let me win often enough to keep me fond of the game.

We held an annual Thanksgiving poker game, and I had to learn to represent the family well even at a young age. It was nearly two decades later at the same Thanksgiving poker game that I first learned of my fiancé’s poor card playing skills. Drew could ski down any mountain and win any Scrabble game, but he was hopeless when it came to figuring out how to play poker. In Texas Hold’em, he stayed in with a seven of clubs and a two of hearts. Occasionally, he’d even try to fold on the first round of betting when he was the big blind. It was painful to watch him embarrass himself in front of his future in-laws. Men in other places have no doubt gone through the same trauma as Drew did on that first Thanksgiving game.

I often wonder about professionals like Annie Duke, who was raised in the card-playing Lederer family. Even before Annie started winning big at poker, her then-husband Ben Duke must have lost thousands of chips to the rest of Annie’s family, namely her brother Howard Lederer. I can imagine it now: While Annie is studying for her cognitive psychology final in grad school, Ben is playing a game against her (future poker professional) brother. He gets cocky with a king-high flush. He’s thinking, “This will show those Lederers that I’m good enough – man enough – for Annie. I’ll take this cash and buy us some steak and champagne. Howard isn’t even going to see it coming.” Of course, Howard would see it coming. After Ben reveals his king, ten, nine, four, and two of spades, Howard holds in his smirk and exposes his trio of queens and pair of fives. Ben loses his money and pride. If Howard is anything like my family, however, he continues to admire Ben for all those other, less pokeresque reasons.

Before Drew uncovered his hidden ineptitude for playing cards, my parents already adored him. Drew laughed at their jokes, appreciated cheap beer, and wasn’t opposed to someday providing them with grandbabies. So he couldn’t play poker. Nobody’s perfect. But who says he can’t be perfect in the future?

As my father reminded him at this past Christmas during a poker game, not everyone has the luxury of having a dad who taught them to play when they were in second grade. “You still have plenty of time,” explained my father. Many champion players from all over the world learned to play poker when they were decades older than I was, and now they leave casinos in their flashy, new sports cars as opposed to my pragmatic 2004 Toyota Matrix.

Doyle Brunson is an example of one of these people. He didn’t start playing seriously until he was in his twenties and had already completed a master’s degree in education. Although he started the game at a much older age than I did, Brunson is a legend. He didn’t need to practice those first twenty-something years.

Similarly, Chris Ferguson didn’t start focusing all of his energy on poker until after he had spent eighteen years as a student at UCLA. (He eventually earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science.) Ferguson was well into his thirties when the poker magic started happening for him.

Clearly, my fiance Drew, still has plenty of time to hone his card playing skills.  Since I am marrying Drew, it would probably be the right thing to do to pass on all the poker knowledge that I carry. In fact, I delight in the thought of moseying up to a table with Drew, each of us rooting for the other while still trying to steal each other’s chips. At the end of the day, money lost and won will come out of the same bank account anyway, so teaching him the ways of poker is fiscally responsible.  I deem it a marital duty.

Married poker players aren’t unprecedented. Three years ago, Mary Jo won first place at the Heartland Poker Tour event. The year before, her husband Dan did the same. Between the two of them, they took home over half a million dollars just from the HPT.

Bob and Maureen Feduniak are another example of a couple that plays poker professionally. Among Maureen’s accomplishments, she defeated Howard Lederer (aforementioned brother of Annie Duke) in a 2003 Las Vegas tournament. Later in the year, she took second place at another tournament. Her husband Bob also excels at the game, and has won well over $300,000 to date. With a little work, Drew and I could be like them.  In thirty years, I may look at Drew and realize that those psychologists were right - just like my father, my husband will be a lanky, small-town boy who respects women, loves yard work, and can finally hold his own at a game of poker.

My parents and brother all think he’s worthy of my hand in marriage, so perhaps he’s worthy of a few thousand more hands in poker, too.