Players share three or four cards with their opponents while contributing only one or two of their own to create a competitive hand; opposing candidates share a nearly identical ideology and have to convince that their minor differences make all the difference.

Poker is played in consecutive rounds, and players are eliminated along the way. You seldom need 50 hands to get down to a winner; we rarely need 50 primaries to nominate our candidate. But once in a while we get down to two who are locked in battle till the end.

Both games are about self-presentation. Bets are a form of rhetoric: an artful language meant to persuade and stir others to a course action.

The fixed number of chips can move back and forth between players, like delegates and especially superdelegates. Collect them to win.

Hillary's "kitchen sink" tactic is obviously an all-in bet. And it worked, at least as a temporary stay.