A to Z of Poker Quotes
from Aces to Zen Poker
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"All ACES are good for is to win a small pot or lose a big one."
Stu Ungar
"BAD BEATS will, from time to time, still rob you like a crack addict with an empty pipe."
Rick Dacey in Poker Player magazine (2006)
"The poker CHIP is like a conjuror’s sleight of hand that turns an egg into a billiard ball, a necessity of life into a plaything, reality into illusion."
Al Alvarez
"Poker is such a great game. It’s you and your brain against everybody else. The DECK doesn’t know who you are."
Lyle Berman in USA Today (2006)
"Phil Hellmuth has an EGO that is notorious even in ego-charged poker circles."
Demian Bulwa in The San Francisco Chronicle (2003)
"I like to see lots of FLOPS."
Gus Hansen
"Poker is a stimulating psychological challenge, combining GUTS and detective work ... a world of its own, offering all the childish appeal of secret places, special languages and staying up late at night."
Victoria Coren
"HEADS UP poker play may be the purest form of psychological warfare this game has to offer. It’s no wonder why the old westerns and Rounders and every other poker movie always comes down to a one-on-one battle between the good guy and the villain."
David Williams in All In magazine (2008)
"IMAGE is vital. Poker was seen in Britain as an American import, associated with Mississippi riverboat gambling and the long stare of Steve McQueen in The Cincinnati Kid. This was card-drama in bars full of cheroot smoke, whiskey and wild women. In Britain, by contrast, it was traditionally the pastime of crooks in grimy vests playing under bare bulbs, or self-consciously raffish rich kids looking for street cred."
Ben Macintyre in The Times (2005)
"I just realized something. JOKER is poker with a ‘J’ ... coincidence?"
Phoebe [Liza Kudrow] on Friends: The One with All the Poker (1995)
"A KING can do no wrong … unless it runs into an ace."
Old Poker Saying
"A poker player has to be LUCKY … in the same way that Warren Buffet gets lucky playing the stock market year after year."
Phil Gordon, Poker: Real Deal (2006)
"All the bills are paid and you feel pretty good. Is it time to go shopping? Yes, providing you leave enough MONEY to play poker."
Barry Greenstein, Ace on the River (2005)
"Poker Tip #10: You’re not allowed to give yourself a NICKNAME. This holds true in life as well as in poker."
Richard Roeper in The Chicago Sun-Times (2005)
"Poker is a game of people. If you remember that, you can bounce your OPPONENTS around like tumbleweed in Texas. If you forget, Lord have mercy on your bankroll."
Doyle Brunson, According to Doyle (1984)
"Not for nothing are POKER TABLES shaped like the floor of the Coliseum - the better to concentrate the butchery, the better to observe it up close. lions and tigers and bears, oh my! Thumbs up or thumbs down on the river."
James McManus in American Poetry Review (2002)
"Pocket QUEENS are arguably the third best Hold ‘em starting hand, but like everything having to do with the ladies, it just isn’t that simple. It is also one of the hands players go broke with most often. The cards are beautiful, mesmerizing. All that paint is hypnotic, but you must use your head, not your heart. You must tread cautiously and think carefully, not jump in with both feet like a love-struck teenager."
Katie Lindsay in Pro Player magazine (Sep 2006)
"There are a lot of RULES to poker: a flush beats a straight, three of a kind beats two pair, never trust anyone named Vegas Billy. But the cardinal rule of all time may be this: Never bet $86 on the three of clubs. But even that rule is sorely tested when everyone folds except you and the guy whose currency on the table is handwritten."
Jesse McKinley in The New York Times (2003)
"SEX and poker don’t go together. That, at least, is my general experience. Which is not to say that one should not follow the other."
David Spanier, Total Poker (1977)
"Learn their secrets and determine how they keep from going on TILT. If the shoe fits, steal it!"
Lou Krieger
"Alas, I have no discernible ability at Hold ‘em - if I were playing against nine Franciscan monks, I would be the UNDERDOG - a somewhat unfortunate reality considering I am paid to analyze Hold ‘em on TV. (By the way, this makes me the Matt Millen of poker.)"
Norman Chad in Sports Illustrated magazine (2009)
"One of the weird things about poker is that you’re handling all this cash, and you’re getting paid in cash, and it’s flowing in and out of your life, and it’s easy to lose the VALUE of money. When you have a lot of success young, and you get a hold of a lot of cash, and you’ve never had to be an adult struggling, you lose perspective."
Anne Duke in All In magazine
"The important thing is to get fun out of poker, and the best fun is the fun of WINNING."
Chris Ferguson in Inside Edge magazine (2006)
99 [Barbara Feldon]: "Why don’t we use the X-22 computer, Chief?"
Chief [Edward Platt]: "I’ve thought of that, 99, but somebody fed a deck of cards into it and now all it’ll do is play poker with the CIA computer."
99: "Well can’t you reprogramme it?"
Chief: "No, we can’t do that, it’s 32 dollars behind."
on Get Smart: The Worst Best Man (1968)
"Erick Lindgren thought it would be a good idea to issue a challenge saying he and I could amass more Player of the YEAR points than any other two players. (Except for Phil Ivey because he doesn’t count. He’s not human)."
Daniel Negreanu in All-In magazine (2009)
"I am in poker for all the wrong reasons. I don’t care about the money. I just want to experience a 48-hour period where I am at one with the universe. I want to experience that ZEN state of consciousness where you can do no wrong: your tiny twos flop into a set, your inferior pair rivers into a backdoor straight. Phil [Laak] calls this phenomenon ‘Surfing the Wa’."
Jennifer Tilly in Bluff magazine (2005)
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