Famous Poker Quotes
Written by Wheretobet.com
Wed, 20 Jun 2007
Category poker
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Can Poker teach us Valuable Lessons about Life?
Ever since Kenny Rogers penned "The Gambler", and possibly even earlier, card players have drawn parallels between poker games and life, and have extracted poker wisdom into sayings and truisms.
We have collected some of the most famous (and infamous) of these quotations, and are reproducing them on this page. Open your mind as you read these words. Perhaps you will not only learn valuable lessons by reading these quotations, but maybe you can even start to extract your own life lessons from your poker experience. Maybe the next quote that we add to this page will be yours...
"You got to know when to hold'em, know when to fold'em Know when to walk away and know when to run. You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table. There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done." Kenny Rogers, "The Gambler"
"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, "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
"Look around the table. If you don't see a sucker, get up, because you're the sucker." Amarillo Slim
"You can shear a sheep a hundred times, but you can skin it only once." Amarillo Slim
"It's immoral to let a sucker keep his money." Canada Bill Jones
"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
"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
"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
"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
"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
"In the poker game of life, women are the rake." Les Murphy, "Rounders"
"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
"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
"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, "Cosmopolitans"
"The commonest mistake in history is underestimating your opponent; happens at the poker table all the time." General David Shoup
"Well, tomorrow's another day." John Hennigan