After spoken for the very first time, some poker quotes started living their own lives among the poker community. Old school poker players have heard these famous quotes at least once in their career.
The best poker quotes can give you the much needed inspiration to play your best, make you laugh, or give you wise guidance on your poker journey. We’ve gathered the best in all these categories – enjoy!
Inspirational quotes about poker
- 1. "Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.’’ - Paul Newman
- 2. "In order to be a successful gambler, you have to have a complete disregard for money." - Doyle Brunson
- 3. "Fold and live to fold again." - Stu Ungar
- 4. “Everybody will eventually run worse than they thought was possible. The difference between a winner and a loser is, that the latter thinks they do not deserve it.” - Irieguy
- 5. “A man with money is no match against a man on a mission.” - Doyle Brunson
- 6. "Play like champ, win like a champ, act like a champ." - Frank Henderson
- 7. "The key to No-Limit is to put a man to a decision for all his chips." - Doyle Brunson
- 8. “Poker is a fascinating, wonderful, intricate adventure on the high seas of human nature.” - David A. Daniel
- 9. “Don’t get mad that you lost, get mad because you didn’t win.” - Michael Gersitz
- 10. “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
- 11. “Show me a good loser, and I'll show you a loser.” - Stu Ungar
The Funniest poker quotes
- 12. "A pair of balls beats everything!" - Unknown player
- 13. "The Main Event is the only tournament in the history of poker you never have to bluff. You just have to stay alive and wait for the idiots to give you their chips." - Mike Matusow
- 14. “To be a poker champion, you must have a strong bladder.” - Jack McClelland
- 15. “The object of poker is to keep your money away from Phil Ivey for as long as possible." - Gus Hansen
- 16. “Money isn’t everything unless you’re playing a rebuy tournament.” - Unknown players
- 17. “Poker is a lot like sex. Everyone thinks they are the best, but most don’t have a clue what they are doing.” - Dutch Boyd
- 18. "Poker is 100% skill and 50% luck." - Phil Hellmuth
- 19. "Why do the pushing when the donkey will do the pulling?" - Daniel Negreanu
- 20. “No-limit hold’em: Hours of boredom followed by moments of sheer terror.” - Tom McEvoy
- 21. "That's a position raise - I call." - TeddyKGB (In the movie Rounders)
- 22. "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." - Crandell Addington
- 23. "I had to make a choice between being a lawyer or a professional gambler. I chose the more honorable of the two." - Chip Reese
- 24. "It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to be good at poker.." - Phil Gordon
- 25. "It’s not whether you won or lost, but how many bad beat stories you were able to tell!" - Grantland Rice
- 26. “Of course I lied. It’s poker.” - Tony Guoga
- 27. “No river, no fish.” - Amarillo Slim
- 28. “Poker has the feeling of a sport, but you don’t have to do push-ups.” - Penn Gillette
- 29. "My favorite chip trick is to make everyone’s chip stack disappear!" - Amarillo Slim
- 30. “Going on tilt is not 'mixing up your play.” - Steve Badger
- 31. "I can dodge bullets, baby!" - Phil Hellmuth
- 32. "You call, it's gonna be all over baby!" - Scotty Nguyen
- 33. "Just play every hand, you can’t miss them all!" - Sammy Farha
- 34. “Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.” - Steven Wright
- 35. "They say poker is a zero-sum game. It must be, because every time I play my sum ends up zero." - Max Shapiro
- 36. "The majority of players are looking for reasons to fold. I am looking for reasons to play." - Daniel Negreanu
- 37. “You played that hand like a vegan.” - Erick Linderer after a hand played by Daniel Negreanu
- 38. “A Smith & Wesson beats four aces.” - Unknown player
- 39. ”No wife can endure a gambling husband unless he is a steady winner.” - Thomas Dewar
- 40. “Whoever coined the phrase ‘a man’s got to play the hand that was dealt him’ was most certainly one piss-poor bluffer.” - Jeannette Walls
- 41. "Omaha is a game that was invented by a Sadist and played by Masochists." - Shane Smith
- 42. "Avoid people with gold teeth who want to play cards!" - George Carlin
- 43. "Poker is a combination of luck and skill. People think mastering the skill part is hard, but they’re wrong - The trick to poker is mastering the luck." - Jesse May
- 44. “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
- 45. “I'd bust my own grandmother if she played poker with me.” - Jack Straus
- 46. "I always carried a gun in my pocket because the problem for me wasn’t winning the money - it was getting out with it." - Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott
- 47. “If you always start with the worst hand, you never have a bad beat story to tell.” - Chuck Thompson
- 48. “Dogs are lousy poker players. When they get a good hand, they wag their tails.” - Unknown
- 49. “I never saw a poker player’s money that I did not like.” - Oklahoma Johnny Hale
- 50. “If you play bridge badly, you make your partner suffer, but if you play poker badly you make everybody happy.” - Joe Laurie Jr.
- 51. “I was tired, a little the worse for drink, jet lagged and light-headed – four out of four conditions in which one should certainly not play poker in Las Vegas.” - Anthony Holden
- 52. "If there weren't luck involved, I would win every time." - Phil Hellmuth
- 53. "I love the fact that I can mess with someone's head." - Antonio Esfandiari
- 54. "Really, if there’s one thing I’ve learned without question about poker, it’s that poker screws with people’s brains and drives them batshit." - Ed Miller
- 55. "But it was suited!" - Unknown player
- 56. "Boom, 9-high like a boss!" - William Kassouf
The Wisest Poker Quotes
- 57. "If you can’t spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker. - Matt Damon (In the movie Rounders)
- 58. "Nobody is always a winner, and anybody who says he is, is either a liar or doesn’t play poker." - Amarillo Slim
- 59. "The rule is this: You spot a man's tell, you don't say a f*cking word." - Mike McDermott (Im movie Rounders)
- 60. "You can shear a sheep a hundred times, but you can skin it only once." - Amarillo Slim
- 61. "You will show your poker greatness by the hands you fold, not the hands you play." - Dan Reed
- 62. "Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes playing a poor hand well" - Jack London
- 63. “In the long run there’s no luck in poker, but the short run is longer than most people know.” - Rick Bennet
- 64. "The smarter you play, the luckier you’ll be" - Mark Pilarski
- 65. "Poker is a wonderful card game, the money is just a convenient way of keeping score" - Amarillo Slim
- 66. “The cardinal sin in poker is becoming emotionally involved.” - Katy Lederer
- 67. "Show me your eyes and you may as well show me your cards." - Doyle Brunson
- 68. “I think one of the interesting things about poker is that once you let your ego in, you’re done for.” - Al Alvarez
- 69. “The only bad luck for a good gambler is bad health. Any other setbacks are temporary aggravation.” - Benny Binion
- 70. “The commonest mistake in history is underestimating your opponent; happens at the poker table all the time.” - General David Shoup
- 71. “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
- 72. “Trust everyone, but always cut the cards.” - Benny Binion
- 73. "The beautiful thing about poker is that everybody thinks they can play." - Chris Moneymaker
- 74. “Serious poker is no more about gambling than rock climbing is about taking risks.” - Al Alvarez
- 75. “Don’t challenge strong players, challenge weak ones. That’s what they’re there for.” - John Vorhaus
- 76. "All you need is a chip and a chair." - Jack Straus
- 77. "Poker is a hard way to make an easy living." - Doyle Brunson
- 78. "The mark of a top player is not how much he wins when he is winning but how he handles his losses." - Bobby Baldwin
- 79. “What’s true of the poker game is true of life. Most people are suckers and don’t realise it.” - Michael Faust
- 80. "It’s hard work: Gambling, playing poker. Don’t let anyone tell you different." - Stu Ungar
- 81. “Everyone gets lucky once in a while, but no one is consistently lucky.” - Doyle Brunson
- 82. “If a player is looking to have you fund their poker career, you need to look at why they are broke.” James Guill
- 83. "Poker is a skill game pretending to be a chance game." - James Altucher
- 84. “I learned playing poker that you never count your winnings because that’s when you start to lose.” - Kenneth Langone
- 85. “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.” - Unknown Gambler
- 86. "You've got to know when to hold'em, know when to fold'em, know when to walk away, know when to run." - Kenny Rogers
- 87. “Whether he likes it or not, a man's character is stripped bare 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
- 88. "A fool and his money are soon parted." - Thomas Tusser
- 89. "But finally I’ve learned this: If you’re too careful, your whole life can become a f*ckin’ grind." - Matt Damon (In the movie Rounders)
Famous poker quotes
- 90. "One Time!" - Unknown poker player during all-in
- 91. "Raisey Daisy!" - Sammy Farha
- 92. "One day a chump, the next day a champion. What a difference a day makes in tournament poker!" - Mike Sexton
- 93. "Pay that man his money." - Teddy KGB (Rounders)
- 94. "I'm all in." - Tom Dwan
- 95. "I call." - Viktor ‘Isildur1’ Blom
- 96. "Come learn, chat and play with the pros." - Full Tilt Poker ad
- 97. "I like to see lots of flops." - Gus Hansen
- 98. "I got top-top." - Jamie Gold
- 99. "The one who bets the most wins. Cards just break ties." Sammy Farha
- 100. "Ship It!" - Unknown player after winning
- 101. “Poker is like sex – it’s more fun when you go all-in!” Anonymous player
- 102. "The next best thing about gambling and winning is gambling and losing." - Nick Dandalos
- 103. “Life, like poker, has an element of risk. It shouldn’t be avoided. It should be faced.” - Edward Norton
- 104. “Old card players never die, they just shuffle away.” - Unknown
- 105. “The name of the game is no-limit Texas Hold’em: The game that takes a minute to learn but a lifetime to master.” - Mike Sexton
- 106. "Hold'em is to stud what chess is to checkers." - Johnny Moss
- 107. "Aces are larger than life and greater than mountains." - Mike Caro
- 108. "Poker is war. People pretend it is a game." - Doyle Brunson
- 109. “The guy who invented poker was bright, but the guy who invented the chip was a genius.” - Julius Weintraub
- 110. "Ah, he's just another kid with a dream!" - Norman Chad
- 111. "There is more to poker than life." - Tom McEvoy
In case your favorite poker quote was left out, feel free to share it in the comments. For those of you who got inspired to get on the winning track, read more about how to make money playing poker here.
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Beasts Of Poker
Editorial team curates and publishes in-depth reviews and ratings of online poker sites by using their extensive industry experience. Content is created by both in-house team of experts and outside authority contributors.
