Poker QuotesPoker Quotes |
Whether he likes it or not, a man’s character is stripped at the poker table; if the other players read him better than he does, he has only himself to blame. Unless he is both able and prepared to see himself as others do, flaws and all, he will be a loser in cards, as in life. ~Anthony Holden
The poker player learns that sometimes both science and common sense are wrong; that the bumblebee can fly; that, perhaps, one should never trust an expert; that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of by those with an academic bent. ~David Mamet
Limit poker is a science, but no-limit is an art. In limit you are shooting at a target. In no-limit, the target comes alive and shoots back at you.
-- Crandall Addington, Texas oil millionaire
If you reraise a raiser, and he doesn't raise you back, you know he has kicker problems.
-- Crandall Addington, Texas oil millionaire (2001)
Poker is generally reckoned to be America's second most popular after-dark activity. Sex is good, they say, but poker lasts longer.
-- Alfred Alvarez (2001)
It is easy to smile at an insult and pretend it's funny when the person insulting you is hosing you with money.
-- Alfred Alvarez (2001)
Serious poker is no more about gambling than rock climbing is about taking risks.
-- Alfred Alvarez (2001)
Hold'em is a game of calculated aggression: If you cards are good enough for your to call a bet, they are good enough to raise with.
-- Alfred Alvarez (2001)
Never give a sucker an even break.
-- Anonymous
A faint heart never filled a spade flush.
-- Anonymous (1905)
Dear Lord, help me to break even. I need the money.
-- Anonymous
A king can do no wrong … unless it runs into an ace.
-- Anonymous
Money isn't everything … unless you're playing in a rebuy tournament.
-- Anonymous
Your first duty is to the Game; then come Mother, God, and Country.
-- Anonymous, Motto at the National Press Club, Washington D.C.
When a man with money meets a man with experience, the man with experience leaves with money and the man with money leaves with experience.
-- Anonymous
I believe in poker the way I believe in the American Dream. Poker is good for you. It enriches the soul, sharpens the intellect, heals the spirit, and - when played well, nourishes the wallet.
-- Anonymous
Besides lovemaking and singing in the shower, there aren’t many human activities where there is a greater difference between a person’s self-delusional ability and actual ability than in poker.
-- Steve Badget
Once you start thinking you have nothing left to learn, you have everything to learn.
-- Steve Badget
Playing poker for a living gives you backbone. You cannot survive without that intangible quality we call heart.
-- Bobby Baldwin, 1978 WSOP winner (2001)
In a game of poker, I can put the players' souls in my pocket.
-- Beausourire, Haitian Poker Player
In the long run there's no luck in poker, but the short run is longer than most people know.
-- Rick Bennet
Trust everyone, but always cut the cards.
-- Benny Binion
The only bad luck for a good gambler is bad health. Any other setbacks are temporary aggravation.
-- Benny Binion
I've often thought, if I got really hungry for a good milk shake, how much would I pay for one? People will pay a hundred dollars for a bottle of wine; to me that's not worth it. But I'm not going to say it is foolish or wrong to spend that kind of money, if that's what you want. So if a guy wants to bet twenty or thirty thousand dollars in a poker game, that is his privilege.
-- Jack Binion
Try to decide how good your hand is at a given moment. Nothing else matters. Nothing!
-- Doyle Bunson
If you’re a competitive person and you commit yourself to something, you have no choice but to endure.
-- Vince Burgio
If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability.
-- Vannevar Bush, architect of the Internet
Avoid people with gold teeth who want to play cards.
-- George Carlin
Aces are larger than life and greater than mountains.
-- Mike Caro
Sometimes you'll miss a bet, sure, but it's OK to miss a bet. Poker is an art form, of course, but sometimes you have to sacrifice art in favour of making a profit.
-- Mike Caro
Bad beats only happen to good players.
-- Joe Crow (1998)
If it were easy, everyone would do it.
-- Bonnie Damiano
The next best thing to gambling and winning is gambling and losing.
-- Nick "The Greek" Dandalos
Life is too long to play bad cards.
-- Frank Di Elsi
It's unlucky to be superstitious.
-- Dave Enteles, Card Player
Is that the game where one receives five cards? And if there's two alike that's pretty good, but if there's three alike, that's much better?
-- W C Fields
Sir, I really like poker. Every hand has its different problems.
-- Henry Fonda, playing Wyatt Earp in My Darling Clementine
To master poker and make it profitable, you must first master patience and discipline, as a lack of either is a sure disaster regardless of all other talents, or lucky streaks.
-- Freddie Gasperian
The single greatest key to winning is knowing thy enemy — yourself.
-- Andy Glazer
I never saw a poker player’s money that I did not like.
-- Oklahoma Johnny Hale
Poker is not a game in which the meek inherit the earth.
-- David Hayano (1982)
Play like a champ. Win like a champ. Act like a champ.
-- Henderson, Frank
The winner is not the player who wins the most pots. The winner is the player who wins the most money.
-- Anthony Holden, author of Big Deal (1990)
The good news is that in every deck of fifty-two cards there are 2,598,960 possible hands. The bad news is that you are only going to be dealt one of them.
-- Anthony Holden, author of Big Deal (1990)
Egotism is the anesthetic provided by nature to dull the pain of being a damn fool.
-- Chuck Humphrey
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you criticize him, you will be a mile away, and you will have his shoes.
-- Chuck Humphrey
It's morally wrong to let a sucker keep money.
-- Canada Bill Jones
Perception is reality.
-- Immanuel Kant
Forget about a chip and a chair; give me a hand and I’ll stand.
-- Warren Karp
All I know is, if the cards ever break even — I’m screwed.
-- Rich Korbin
If the shoe fits, steal it.
-- Lou Krieger
Poker is a microcosm of all we admire and disdain about capitalism and democracy. Poker can be rough-hewn or polished, warm or cold, charitable and caring, or hard and impersonal, fickle and elusive, but ultimately poker is fair, and right, and just.
-- Lou Krieger
Cards are war, in disguise of a sport.
-- Charles Lamb (1832)
Poker is the game closest to the western conception of life, where life and thought are recognized as intimately combined, where free will prevails over philosophies of fate or of chance, where men are considered moral agents and where - at least in the short run - the important thing is not what happens but what people think happens.
-- Johnny Luckacs (1963)
Life is like a game of poker: If you don't put any in the pot, there won't be any to take out.
-- Jackie "Moms" Mabley, Dirty old lady comedian
Opportunity may knock, but it seldom nags.
-- David Mamet
The game exemplifies the worst aspects of capitalism that have made our country so great.
-- Walter Matthau
Poker is the only game for a grown man. Then, your hand is against every man's, and evern man's hand is against yours. Teamwork? Who ever made a fortune by teamwork?
-- Somerset Maugham
If you know poker, you know people; and if you know people, you got the whole dang world lined up in your sights.
-- Brett Maverick
To be a poker champion, you must have a strong bladder.
-- Jack McClelland
There is more to poker than life.
-- Tom McEvoy
Everybody blows their first money.
-- Lorne Michaels
Gambling, the sure way of getting nothing for something.
-- Wilson Mizner, Con man and promoter
Industry executives and analysts often mistakenly talk about strategy as if it were some kind of chess match. But in chess, you have just two opponents, each with identical resources, and with luck playing a minimal role. The real world is much more like a poker game, with multiple players trying to make the best of whatever hand fortune has dealt them. In our industry, Bill Gates owns the poker table until someone proves otherwise.
-- David Moschella
You have to learn what kind of hand this guy shows down, what that one's moves, watch the veins in his neck, watch his eyes, the way he sweats.
-- Johnny Moss (1975)
Hold'em is to to stud and draw what chess is to checkers.
-- Johnny Moss, 3x World Champion
Losing is like smoking. It's habit forming.
-- Puggy Pearson, 1973 WSOP winner (2001)
Fear is the basis of all mankind. In cards, you psyche 'em out, you shark 'em, you put the fear of God in 'em.
-- Puggy Pearson, 1973 WSOP winner (1975)
Everything is mental in life. The butt was made to lug the mind around.
-- Puggy Pearson, 1973 WSOP winner (1975)
It's not whether you won or lost, but how many bad-beat stories you were able to tell.
-- Grantland Rice, Sportswriter
If you can't spot the sucker in the first half an hour at the table, then you are the sucker.
-- Rounders, the movie (2000)
The deal is of no special value, and anybody may begin.
-- Robert Schenck, First to introduce poker to England (1872)
One day a chump, the next day a champion. What a difference a day makes in tournament poker.
-- Mike Sexton
They say poker is a zero-sum game. It must be, because every time I play my sum ends up zero.
-- Max Shapiro
The commonest mistake in history is underestimating your opponent; happens at the poker table all the time.
-- General David Shoup
Put yourself in their shoes before you decide on the best way to take their shirts.
-- David Sklansky
Omaha is a game that was invented by a Sadist and is played by Masochists.
-- Shane Smith
The odds are merely a framework for play, like the lines of a tennis court.
-- David Spanier (1901)
Poker... I hardly even know her!
-- Jack Styles
I must complain the cards are ill shuffled till I have a good hand.
-- Jonathan Swift (1728)
It’s easy to be a tough competitor and still be the kind of person with whom people love to compete.
-- Chuck Thompson
If you always start with the worst hand, you never have a bad-beat story to tell.
-- Chuck Thompson
In poker, money is power.
-- Alvin Clarence "Titanic" Thomson, A legand of hustles & cons, 1892-1974 (1982)
I won my ticket on Titanic in a lucky hand of poker...a very lucky hand.
-- Jack, in the Movie Titanic
A person should gamble every day, because think of how bad it would be to walk around being lucky and not know it.
-- Robert Turner
There are few things that are so unpardonably neglected in our country as poker. The upper class knows very little about poker. Now and then you find ambassadors who have sort of a general knowledge of poker, but the ignorance of the people is fearful. Why, I have known clergymen, good men, kind-hearted, liberal, sincere, and all that, who did not know the meaning of a "flush". It is enough to make one ashamed of the species.
-- Mark Twain
Learning to play two pairs is worth about as much as a college education, and about as costly.
-- Mark Twain?
The two things you need to be successful in poker are, first, find the muck, and second, don’t play your own money.
-- David "Devilfish" Ulliott
Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser.
-- Stu Ungar
Marriages may come and go, but the game must go on.
-- Felix "The Odd Couple" Unger
It's hard work. Gambling. Playing poker. Don't let anyone tell you different. Think about what it's like sitting at a poker table with people whose only goal is to cut your throat, take your money, and leave you out back talking to yourself about what went wrong inside.
-- Stu Unger, Three-time WSOP Champion
The guy who invented gambling was bright, but the guy who invented the chip was a genius.
-- Julius "Big Julie" Weintraub, a New York gambler who ran junkets to Vegas (1974)
Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.
-- Steven Wright
A card player should learn that once the money is in the pot, it isn't his any longer.
-- Herbert Yardley (1957)
Poker is a microcosm of all we admire and disdain about capitalism and democracy. It can be rough-hewn or polished, warm or cold, charitable and caring, or hard and impersonal, fickle and elusive, but ultimately it is fair, and right, and just. ~Lou Krieger
Baseball is like a poker game. Nobody wants to quit when he's losing; nobody wants you to quit when you're ahead. ~Jackie Robinson
"Hold em is to stud what chess is to checkers." -- Johnny Moss
"The guy who invented poker was bright, but the guy who invented the chip was a genius." -- Big Julie
"Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died." -- Steven Wright
"Cards are war, in disguise of a sport." -- Charles Lamb, "Essays of Elia" (1832)
"You call...gonna be all over, baby." -- Scotty Nguyen, during the 1998 World Series of Poker. Down to the final 2 players, he said this to his opponent while he held the best possible hand.
"I don't know about the four 9's but I think the ace is pretty hot." -- George Clooney in Oceans Eleven
Poker is to cards and games what jazz is to music. It's this great American thing, born and bred here. We dig it because everybody can play. ~Steve Lipscomb
God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of his own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e., everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time. ~Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens, 1991
Hold'em - like life itself - has its defining moment. It's the flop. When you see the flop, you're looking at 71 percent of your hand, and the cost is only a single round of betting. ~Lou Krieger
[Poker is] as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you could find outside an advertising agency. ~Raymond Chandler
You have it in your power to turn a bad-beat around simply by realizing this simple truth: The more bad beats you encounter, the luckier you are. It's a sign that you are playing against opponents who continually take the worst of it, and if you can't beat someone who always takes the worst of it, you can't beat anyone. ~Lou Krieger
Old card players never die, they just shuffle away. ~Author Unknown
Industry executives and analysts often mistakenly talk about strategy as if it were some kind of chess match. But in chess, you have just two opponents, each with identical resources, and with luck playing a minimal role. The real world is much more like a poker game, with multiple players trying to make the best of whatever hand fortune has dealt them. In our industry, Bill Gates owns the table until someone proves otherwise. ~David Moschella
Most of the money you'll win at poker comes not from the brilliance of your own play, but from the ineptitude of your opponents. ~Lou Krieger
I've often thought, if I got really hungry for a good milk shake, how much would I pay for one? People will pay a hundred dollars for a bottle of wine; to me that's not worth it. But I'm not going to say it is foolish or wrong to spend that kind of money, if that's what you want. So if a guy wants to bet twenty or thirty thousand dollars in a poker game, that is his privilege. ~Jack Binion
There's opportunity in poker.... If Horace Greeley were alive today, his advice wouldn't be "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country." Instead, he'd point to that deck of cards on table and say, "Shuffle up and deal. ~Lou Krieger
"Ace is not good, Ace is God."
William Wigstrom
"The game exemplifies the worst aspects of capitalism that have made our country so great."
Walter Matthau
"Nobody is always a winner, and anybody who says he is, is either a liar or doesn't play poker."
Amarillo Slim
"The most difficult aspects of playing poker professionally are coping emotionally with the losses and coping with the recurring idea that you're not doing anything worthwhile."
Mike Caro
"Hold em is to stud what chess is to checkers."
Johnny Moss
"The guy who invented poker was bright, but the guy who invented the chip was a genius."
Big Julie
"Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died."
Steven Wright
”Cards are war, in disguise of a sport."
Charles Lamb, "Essays of Elia" (1832)
"You call...gonna be all over, baby." during the 1998 World Series of Poker. Down to the final 2 players, he said this to his opponent while he held the best possible hand.
Scotty Nguyen
"Remember this: The house doesn't beat the player. It just gives him the opportunity to beat himself."
Nicholas (Nick the Greek) Dandalos
"A racehorse is an animal that can take several thousand people for a ride at the same time."
Author Unknown
"Luck never gives; it only lends."
wedish Proverb
"When I played pool I was like a good psychiatrist. I cured 'em of all their daydreams and delusions."
Minnesota Fats
"There is a very easy way to return from a casino with a small fortune: go there with a large one."
Jack Yelton
"Gambling: The sure way of getting nothing from something."
Wilson Mizner
"The best throw of the dice is to throw them away
English Proverb
"Gambling is the son of avarice and the father of despair."
French Proverb
"Never bet on baseball."
Pete Rose
"Lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math."
Author Unknown
"Mr. Moss, I have to let you go."
Nick "the Greek" Dandalos (after playing heads-up No Limit poker for 5 months at Binion's Horseshoe with the famous Johnny Moss
"If, after the first twenty minutes, you don't know who the sucker at the table is, it's you."
Unknown
"The game exemplifies the worst aspects of capitalism that have made our country so great."
Walter Matthau
"The guy who invented poker was bright, but the guy who invented the chip was a genius."
Big Julie
"Your first duty is to the Game; then come Mother, God, and Country."
Motto at the National Press Club, Washington D.C.
"Is it a reasonable thing, I ask you, for a grown man to run about and hit a ball? Poker's the only game fit for a grown man. Then, your hand is against every man's, and every man's is against yours. Teamwork? Who ever made a fortune by teamwork? There's only one way to make a fortune, and that's to down the fellow who's up against you."
Somerset Maugham from Cosmopolitans
"Dear Lord, help me to break even. I need the money."
Unknown Loser's Prayer
"I've often thought, if I got really hungry for a good milk shake, how much would I pay for one? People will pay a hundred dollars for a bottle of wine; to me that's not worth it. But I'm not going to say it is foolish or wrong to spend that kind of money, if that's what you want. So if a guy wants to bet twenty or thirty thousand dollars in a poker game, that is his privilege."
Jack Binion
"Aces are larger than life and greater than mountains."
Mike Caro
"There are few things that are so unpardonably neglected in our country as poker. The upper class knows very little about it. Now and then you find ambassadors who have sort of a general knowledge of the game, but the ignorance of the people is fearful. Why, I have known clergymen, good men, kind-hearted, liberal, sincere, and all that, who did not know the meaning of a "flush". It is enough to make one ashamed of the species."
Mark Twain
"In a game of poker, I can put the players' souls in my pocket."
Beausourire, Haitian Poker Player
"The commonest mistake in history is underestimating your opponent; happens at the poker table all the time."
General David Shoup
"These two have no idea what they're about to walk into. Down here to have a good time, they figure, Why not give poker a try? After all, how different can it be from the home games they've played their whole lives? Luck. All the luck in the world isn't gonna change things for these guys. They're simply overmatched. We're (the pros at the table) not playing together, but we're not playing against each other, either. It's like the Nature Channel. You don't see piranhas eating each other, do you?"
Mike from Rounders
"Patience. And shuffle the cards."
Cervantes, Don Quioxte
"This was the first time he had seriously confronted what he was doing, and the force of that awareness came very abruptly - with a surging of his pulse and a frantic pounding in his head. He was about to gamble his life on that table, and the insanity of that risk filled him with a kind of awe."
Paul Auster, "The Music of Chance" (1990)
"Well, tomorrow's another day."
John Hennigan, high-stakes ring game player and 4th Place finisher in the opening World Poker Tour tournament
"I must complain the cards are ill shuffled till I have a good hand."
Jonathan Swift, "Thoughts on Various Subjects" (1728)
"How long does it take to learn poker, Dad?" "All your life, son."
David Spanier, "Total Poker" (1977)
"I've lost money so fast in these clubs it's left me reeling. I've read every poker book ever written, but the only way to get better at the game is to go out and play with people who are really good. The problem is, you stand to lose a lot of money doing it."
Matt Damon, who was quickly eliminated from the $10,000 main event at the WSOP in 1998.
"He said, "Son, I've made a life out of readin' people's faces, and knowin' what their cards were by the way they held their eyes."
Kenny Rogers, "The Gambler"
POKER, A game said to be played with cards for some purpose to this lexicographer unknown."
Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" (1906)
"It's hard work. Gambling. Playing poker. Don't let anyone tell you different. Think about what it's like sitting at a poker table with people whose only goal is to cut your throat, take your money, and leave you out back talking to yourself about what went wrong inside. That probably sounds harsh. But that's the way it is at the poker table. If you don't believe me, then you're the lamb that's going off to the slaughter."
Stu Unger, three-time WSOP Champion
"The poker player learns that sometimes both science and common sense are wrong; that the bumblebee can fly; that, perhaps, one should never trust an expert; that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of by those with an academic bent."
David Mamet, playwright. "Things I Have Learned Playing Poker on the Hill," in Writing in Restaurants (1986)
"Poker is the game closest to the western conception of life, where life and thought are recognized as intimately combined, where free will prevails over philosophies of fate or of chance, where men are considered moral agents and where - at least in the short run - the important thing is not what happens but what people think happens."
John Luckacs, "Poker and the American Character" (1963)
"Industry executives and analysts often mistakenly talk about strategy as if it were some kind of chess match. But in chess, you have just two opponents, each with identical resources, and with luck playing a minimal role. The real world is much more like a poker game, with multiple players trying to make the best of whatever hand fortune has dealt them. In our industry, Bill Gates owns the table until someone proves otherwise."
David Moschella, "Computerworld"
"See, in my world - the world of high-stakes gin and poker - we play for cold, hard cash. It's all business, pure and simple. Anyone who thinks cardplaying is a 'game' - I'll show you a loser. Money... M-O-N-E-Y. That's how you measure success. One dollar at a time. One chip at a time. That's how you keep score."
Stu Unger
"I've always had confidence, but I never let my ego get to the point that I think I'm the superstar, because I know that ego has destroyed many a poker career."
Jim Boyd, modern-day road gambler
"I think that we are all in the right place at the right time almost every day. It's the people who are prepared to be lucky who can take advantage of being there. How do these people position themselves to be lucky? It was Goethe who said, 'Anytime that you take the first step toward trying to achieve something in life, all manner of good things will mysteriously fall into your path to help speed you along your way.' Amen to that!"
Phil Hellmuth, 1989 WSOP Champion
"Cards are war, in disguise of a sport."
Charles Lamb, "Essays of Elia" (1832)
"It's not enough to succeed. Others must fail."
Gore Vidal
"Perception is reality."
Immanuel Kant
"Poker is a microcosm of all we admire and disdain about capitalism and democracy. It can be rough-hewn or polished, warm or cold, charitable and caring, or hard and impersonal, fickle and elusive, but ultimately it is fair, and right, and just."
Lou Krieger
”The poker player learns that sometimes both science and common sense are wrong; that the bumblebee can fly; that, perhaps, one should never trust an expert; that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of by those with an academic bent. “
David Mamet
”Poker is a microcosm of all we admire and disdain about capitalism and democracy. It can be rough-hewn or polished, warm or cold, charitable and caring, or hard and impersonal, fickle and elusive, but ultimately it is fair, and right, and just.”
Lou Krieger
”Baseball is like a poker game. Nobody wants to quit when he's losing; nobody wants you to quit when you're ahead.”
Jackie Robinson
”God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of his own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e., everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.”
Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens, 1991
”Hold'em - like life itself - has its defining moment. It's the flop. When you see the flop, you're looking at 71 percent of your hand, and the cost is only a single round of betting.”
Lou Krieger
”Poker is as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you could find outside an advertising agency.”
Raymond Chandler
”You have it in your power to turn a bad-beat around simply by realizing this simple truth: The more bad beats you encounter, the luckier you are. It's a sign that you are playing against opponents who continually take the worst of it, and if you can't beat someone who always takes the worst of it, you can't beat anyone.”
Lou Krieger
”Industry executives and analysts often mistakenly talk about strategy as if it were some kind of chess match. But in chess, you have just two opponents, each with identical resources, and with luck playing a minimal role. The real world is much more like a poker game, with multiple players trying to make the best of whatever hand fortune has dealt them. In our industry, Bill Gates owns the table until someone proves otherwise.”
David Moschella
”Most of the money you'll win at poker comes not from the brilliance of your own play, but from the ineptitude of your opponents.”
Lou Krieger
”I've often thought, if I got really hungry for a good milk shake, how much would I pay for one? People will pay a hundred dollars for a bottle of wine; to me that's not worth it. But I'm not going to say it is foolish or wrong to spend that kind of money, if that's what you want. So if a guy wants to bet twenty or thirty thousand dollars in a poker game, that is his privilege.”
Jack Binion
”There's opportunity in poker.... If Horace Greeley were alive today, his advice wouldn't be "Go West, young man, and grow up with the country." Instead, he'd point to that deck of cards on table and say, "Shuffle up and deal.”
Lou Krieger
“Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.”
Seven Wright
”The guy who invented poker was bright, but the guy who invented the chip was a genius.”
Author Unknown
”If, after the first twenty minutes, you don't know who the sucker at the table is, it's you.”
Author Unknown
”Is it a reasonable thing, I ask you, for a grown man to run about and hit a ball? Poker's the only game fit for a grown man. Then, your hand is against every man's, and every man's is against yours. Teamwork? Who ever made a fortune by teamwork? There's only one way to make a fortune, and that's to down the fellow who's up against you.”
W. Somerset Maugham
”Poker exemplifies the worst aspects of capitalism that have made our country so great.”
Walter Matthau
”Your best chance to get a Royal Flush in a casino is in the bathroom.”
VP Pappy
”There are few things that are so unpardonably neglected in our country as poker. The upper class knows very little about it. Now and then you find ambassadors who have sort of a general knowledge of the game, but the ignorance of the people is fearful. Why, I have known clergymen, good men, kind-hearted, liberal, sincere, and all that, who did not know the meaning of a flush. It is enough to make one ashamed of the species.”
Mark Twain
”The commonest mistake in history is underestimating your opponent; it happens at the poker table all the time.“
David Shoup
”I must complain the cards are ill shuffled till I have a good hand.”
Jonathan Swift
"How long does it take to learn poker, Dad?" "All your life, son."
Michael Pertwee
”Poker: the art of civilized bushwhacking.”
Nick Dandalos
”Poker is the game closest to the western conception of life, where life and thought are recognized as intimately combined, where free will prevails over philosophies of fate or of chance, where men are considered moral agents and where - at least in the short run - the important thing is not what happens but what people think happens.”
John Luckacs
”Cards are war, in disguise of a sport.”
Charles Lamb
”In a game of poker, I can put the players' souls in my pocket.”
Beausourire
”I believe in poker the way I believe in the American Dream. Poker is good for you. It enriches the soul, sharpens the intellect, heals the spirit, and - when played well, nourishes the wallet.”
Lou Krieger
”Poker. A game said to be played with cards for some purpose to this lexicographer unknown.”
Ambrose Bierce
”Poker is... a fascinating, wonderful, intricate adventure on the high seas of human nature.”
David A Daniel
“I could think of worse ways of going than at the poker table.”
Al Alvarez
“I think one of the interesting things about poker is that once you let your ego in, you're done for.”
Al Alvarez
“It's going to finish when I fold my hand and go up to the big poker game in the sky.”
Al Alvarez
“Yes, I think poker really isn't gambling”
Al Alvarez
“Last year people won more than one billion dollars playing poker. And casinos made twenty-seven billion just by being around those people”
Samantha Bee
“The best part about poker is there's no down side”
Samantha Bee
“What I know about poker, you can fit into a thimble with room left over, but I'm learning”
Wilford Brimley
“No, that's poker. To win, you've gotta get damned lucky”
Wilford Brimley
“As far as poker goes, I really didn't play poker but a few times in high school”
Doyle Brunson
“Once I accepted the fact my career in sports was over, I started playing poker to support myself”
Doyle Brunson
“People today who play in all the big fancy (legal) cardrooms don't understand what it was like back in those days to be a poker player with all the problems we had”
Doyle Brunson
“We got robbed in poker games lots of times”
Doyle Brunson
“Everybody today knows what I learned back then because it's in all the poker books. But nobody knew the right way to play back in those days”
Doyle Brunson
“Everybody today knows what I learned back then because it's in all the poker books. But nobody knew the right way to play back in those days”
Doyle Brunson
“I also learned from Johnny Moss - who was the best poker player in the world at that time. I got to watching him and studying him”
Doyle Brunson
“I mean there are usually no direct answers to how do you play such-and-such a hand when somebody raises in front. Every poker situation is different. The only way you can learn is to play”
Doyle Brunson
“Ninety percent of the hands aren't shown in a poker game”
Doyle Brunson
“I still do my best to promote poker”
Doyle Brunson
“When I saw those pictures of me at the poker tournament, I couldn't believe how old I looked”
Doyle Brunson
“If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability”
Vannevar Bush
“As for poker, I've stayed away from that, even though when I was in Vegas for Ocean's Eleven, I would get accosted by these guys begging me to play. They just want to take my money. They see me, think "actor" and see some easy money”
Matt Damon
“I don't attempt to be a poker player before this crowd”
Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Ida and Pearl, the two Jewish broads from Cheyenne, that's how they were known. One of my first memories of my grandmother is of her trying to teach me how to play poker when I couldn't even see the table. I'd dress up and try to go gambling with the old ladies, and for some reason they'd let me in”
Gina Gershon
“Playing poker in their Quonset hut on Tinian, killing the last hours of the preatomic age”
Peter Goldman
“I love to relive the memories of when I was spry enough to fish the little trout streams. Otherwise, I like to write and play poker”
Tony Hillerman
“Air power is like poker. A second-best hand is like none at all - it will cost you dough and win you nothing”
George Kenney
“The poker player learns that sometimes both science and common sense are wrong; that the bumblebee can fly; that, perhaps, one should never trust an expert; that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of by those with an academic bent”
David Mamet
“Abruptly the poker of memory stirs the ashes of recollection and uncovers a forgotten ember, still smoldering down there, still hot, still glowing, still red as red”
William Manchester
“If you're playing a poker game and you look around the table and and can't tell who the sucker is, it's you”
Paul Newman
“Before we met Myelin, we were working on a Casino product that had Poker as one of its components”
Tim Page
“Initial feedback we got from people was that Poker could and should be a product in its own right. For us, that was definitely a case of us not seeing the forest for the trees since we are Poker nuts”
Tim Page
“Being able to pit your wits against literally hundreds of other people is really exciting and ultimately the biggest single challenge for a poker player”
Tim Page
“Baseball is like a poker game. Nobody wants to quit when he's losing; nobody wants you to quit when you're ahead”
Jackie Robinson
“I've been playing Texas Hold 'em and other forms of poker since I was about 12”
Richard Roeper
“You're not allowed to give yourself a nickname. This holds true in life as well as in poker.”
Richard Roeper
“Living in the past is a Jethro Tull album, not a smart poker strategy”
Richard Roeper
“Meanwhile, there's more poker than soft porn on cable TV these days - and the broadcast networks are getting in on the game as well”
Richard Roeper
“And there's the World Series of Poker, known as the last American Gold Rush. In the 2005 tourney, more than 5,600 players competed for the top prize of $7.5 million”
Richard Roeper
“But when you're playing poker, you don't know the answer to that until after the cards are laid down, and then it's too late”
Fred Thompson
“I'm absolutely gonna win it, because I'm ruthless. I sit at the poker table and my job is to destroy people”
James Woods
“Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died”
Steven Wright
"Poker is alot like sex, everone thinks they are the best, but most don't have a clue what they are doing!"
Dutch Boy'd
"These two have no idea what they're about to walk into. Down here to have a good time, they figure, Why not give poker a try? After all, how different can it be from the home games they've played their whole lives? Luck. All the luck in the world isn't gonna change things for these guys. They're simply overmatched.”
Mike from Rounders
"There are few things that are so unpardonably neglected in our country as poker. The upper class knows very little about it. Now and then you find ambassadors who have sort of a general knowledge of the game, but the ignorance of the people is fearful. Why, I have known clergymen, good men, kind-hearted, liberal, sincere, and all that, who did not know the meaning of a "flush". It is enough to make one ashamed of the species."
Mark Twain
"I've always had confidence, but I never let my ego get to the point that I think I'm the superstar, because I know that ego has destroyed many a poker career."
Jim Boyd
"Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand. "
Cool Hand Luke, 1967
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits"
Anonymous
"I never go looking for a sucker. I look for a Champion and make a sucker of of him."
"Amrillo" Slim Preston
"Really Bad Players Joining Daily. Come Win Some of Their Money."
"Superior Poker"
"If you are a guy, you know you play too much poker if your wet dreams involve "nuts" instead of breasts."
BreakEvenPlayer
"It is better to make people think you are a bad poker player, then to play and remove all doubt. Don't play to impress, play to win."
Michael Gersitz
"Don't get mad that you lost, get mad because you didn't win."
Michael Gersitz
“When we play, we must realize, before anything else, that we are out to make money.”
David Sklansky
"Poker may be a branch of psychological warfare, an art form or indeed a way of life – but it is also merely a game, in which money is simply the means of keeping score."
Anthony Holden, Big Deal
"Poker reveals to the frank observer something else of import—it will teach him about his own nature. Many bad players do not improve because the cannot bear self-knowledge."
David Mamet
"You cannot survive without that intangible quality we call heart. The mark of a top player is not how much he wins when he is winning but how he handles his losses. If you win for thirty days in a row, that makes no difference if on the thirty-first you have a bad night, go crazy, and throw it all away."
Bobby Baldwin
"Limit poker is a science, but no-limit is an art. In limit, you are shooting at a target. In no-limit, the target comes alive and shoots back at you."
Jack Strauss
“In the absence of any mathematical explanation, one thing is for certain; if you engage in games of chance long enough, the experience is bound to affect the way you see God. Successfully draw to an inside straight three hands in a row, and you’ve got to be blessed. But if you’re the person drawn out on, the one whose trip aces just got snapped for the third time, you will go home feeling cursed.”
Andy Bellin, Poker Nation
“The strong point in poker is never to lose your temper, either with those you are playing with or, more particularly, with the cards. There is no sympathy in poker. Always keep cool. If you lose your head you will lose all your chips.”
William J. Florence, From The Gentleman’s Handbook on Poker
“The real things to know is that folks will stand to lose more than they will to win. That’s the most important percentage there is. I mean, if they lose, they’re willin’ to lose everything. If they win, they’re usually satisfied to win enough to pay for dinner and a show. The best gamblers know that.”
Pug Pearson
“The cardinal sin in poker, worse than playing did cards, worse even than figuring your odds correctly, is becoming emotionally involved.”
Katy Lederer, A Girlhood Among Gamblers
“It never hurts for potential opponents to think you’re more than a little stupid and can hardly count all the money in your hip pocket, much less hold on to it..”
Amarillo Slim
