Spun another way, in poker, although you're dealt an unplayable hand most of the time, the key to success is (a) patiently not playing bad hands and (b) recognizing the good hands and capitalizing on them correctly.
That said, no matter how well you play, the game does end eventually. I like to think that, like poker, despite the variance, you have some degree of influence on how well the game ends.
It's more complicated than that though: life is more like a variant of poker where no one even agrees on the rules or what the goals of the players are.
I don't like death and I would be in line just as quick as most people if I could be immortal and reasonably healthy.
But is death loosing?
I don't view death as the antithesis of life, more appropriately I think it mirrors conception/birth.
I think of death more as a finale, the conclusion to your story be it grand or mundane. I also wonder if not for death would we cherish the events in life as greatly as we do? Think of the thinks that gave you pleasure as a child that you no longer care for as they have become stale and boring. Perhaps it would be so with living had we not death.
