Once upon a time I would get more annoyed than I probably should have whenever I heard someone utter the cliché "poker is like life."
I wasn't bothered by the idea of comparing poker to other "non-poker" parts of our existence. Indeed, that's one of the great pleasures of the game, I'd say — the way poker's intellectual challenges, emotion-affecting swings, and social exchanges tend to echo "real life" in interesting, sometimes genuinely revealing ways.
What I minded, rather, was insufficient elaboration following the declaration. How is poker "like life," I'd want to know. And if the subsequent explanation didn't go much further than "you have to play the hand your dealt," well, I'd often be left wanting more.