There's a term in poker called "pot committed." It means arriving at a point in time when it no longer makes sense to fold a hand regardless of the circumstances. When you're pot committed, you've decided to bet whatever it takes, and you just hope your opponents don't have a better hand.

T-Mobile and Sprint have decided they are pot committed on their merger, a deal that's been in the works for years. Their transaction, which would form a combined company with an enterprise value of about $160 billion, requires both companies reach an agreement with the Department of Justice about creating a new fourth wireless competitor. A deal could be announced as soon as Wednesday, according to people familiar with the matter. CNBC's David Faber first reported the Department of Justice would sue to block its deal if an agreement with regulators wasn't reached this week. The New York Post reported last week a deal was imminent.

That new wireless competitor will be Dish Network, one of the largest U.S. providers of video. Dish has wanted to become a wireless provider for about a decade, spending billions on airwaves that it has been storing for years. Unfortunately for T-Mobile, arguably the worst person the company could be running up against in this situation is Dish chairman and co-founder Charlie Ergen, a famed poker player who is notorious for keeping his cards close to the vest.

Here's what Ergen said at his first-quarter earnings conference call way back in 2014:

"When I used to play poker and everybody was throwing chips and betting crazy on the table, and I had really good cards, I always felt it was better to sit back and let them go at it," Ergen said. "Every time they went at it, I'd learn something, and as I sat back they didn't learn what I had. And I learned to trust my cards. I wasn't a very good poker player, but when a bunch of drunken fools were throwing money around, occasionally I was able to pick up a pot at the end of the day."

In recent days, several telecommunications analysts, including Craig Moffett at MoffettNathanson and Jonathan Chaplin at New Street Research, have questioned if a merger that strengthens Dish as a disruptive fourth wireless player is worth it for T-Mobile. Dish could wind up being a far more frightening competitor than Sprint, which would face massive capital constraints and rapidly fleeing customers without a deal with T-Mobile.

Deutsche Telekom, the German telecommunications company that will control the combined Sprint and T-Mobile, is concerned about Ergen's plans, according to people familiar with the matter. That's why Deutsche Telekom has spent the last several weeks arguing for limitations on Dish's ability to sell a percentage of its wireless business to a strategic investor, such as Amazon, Google or a cable operator such as Comcast or Charter.

Spokespeople for Dish, Deutsche Telekom and SoftBank (Sprint's majority owner) declined to comment.

But given DOJ pushback for a strong fourth player, the limitations on Dish will be minimal, if anything, according to people familiar with the matter. Dish will likely be free to sell an equity stake in its wireless business to whomever it sees fit, meaning that Ergen may have a partner with an enormous balance sheet in a year or two. The extra capital will help Ergen build out a 5G wireless network as its network-sharing agreement with T-Mobile, which people familiar with the matter have said lasts six or seven years, winds down.

Dish will also be immediately incentivized to offer cheaper services than T-Mobile (as well as AT&T and Verizon) to gain subscribers, Moffett wrote. Since Dish will be starting with no subscribers and no average revenue per user to grow for investors, Dish will be in full customer addition mode. This was actually T-Mobile's strategy for years, undercutting AT&T and Verizon on price and charges for going over data limits after failing to sell to AT&T in 2011.

"If Dish enters the market with a large amount of capacity and no meaningful subscriber base of [average revenue per user] to defend, they would have every incentive in the world to be a disruptive discounter," Moffett wrote in a note to clients late last week. "One need not believe in a follow-on Dish deal with Amazon, Google or a cable operator to see this as bad for the market, and indeed, worse than the 'no deal' scenario for T-Mobile."