The 101 Best Quotes about Poker: Inspirational, True, and Funny Poker Quotes

Everybody has something to say. And, apparently, many people have something to say about poker. From inspirational to true to obscure to funny poker quotes, and everything in between, take a look at these best quotes about poker.

To make it a bit easier to navigate, I’ve divided these quotes about poker into these categories:

• Inspirational quotes about poker
• Funny poker quotes
• Poker quotes about life
• Somewhat obscure poker quotes
• Quotes not really about poker but could apply
• Quotes by poker players that aren’t necessarily about poker

Enjoy!

Inspirational quotes about poker

1. “Fold and live to fold again.” ~ Stu Ungar

2. “Life, like poker, has an element of risk. It shouldn’t be avoided. It should be faced.” ~ Edward Norton

3. “Poker is not a game in which the meek inherit the Earth.” ~ David Hayano

4. “You will show your poker greatness by the hands you fold, not the hands you play.” ~ Dan Reed

5. “Poker is a skill game pretending to be a chance game.” ~ James Altucher

6. “Serious poker is no more about gambling than rock climbing is about taking risks.” ~ Al Alvarez

7. “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

8. “Just play every hand, you can’t miss them all.” ~ Sammy Farha

9. “Poker is war. People pretend it is a game.” ~ Doyle Brunson

10. “People would be surprised to know how much I learned about prayer from playing poker.” ~ Mary Austin

11. “The commonest mistake in history is underestimating your opponent; happens at the poker table all the time.” ~ General David Shoup

12. “In the long run there’s no luck in poker, but the short run is longer than most people know.” ~ Rick Bennet

13. “What I know about poker you can fit into a thimble with room left over, but I’m learning.” ~ Wilford Brimley

14. “If you always start with the worse hand, you never have a bad beat story to tell.” ~ Chuck Thompson

15. “Forget about a chip and a chair; give me a hand and I’ll stand.” ~ Warren Karp

16. “Don’t get mad that you lost, get mad because you didn’t win.” ~ Michael Gersitz

Funny poker quotes

17. “Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.” ~ Steven Wright

18. “Avoid people with gold teeth who want to play cards.” ~ George Carlin

19. “The next best thing about gambling and winning is gambling and losing.” ~ Nick “The Greek” Dandalos

20. “Money isn’t everything unless you’re playing a rebuy tournament.” ~ Unknown

21. “If there weren’t luck involved, I would win every time.” ~ Phil Hellmuth

22. “Trust everyone but always cut the cards.” ~ Benny Binion

23. “If you’re playing a poker game and you look around the table and can’t tell who the sucker is, it’s you.” ~ Paul Newman

24. “Poker has the feeling of a sport, but you don’t have to do push-ups.” ~ Penn Gillette

25. “Bad beats will, from time to time, still rob you like a crack addict with an empty pipe.” ~ Rick Dacey

26. “Going on tilt is not ‘mixing up your play.’” ~ Steve Badger

27. “Poker is hard.” ~ Lots of people

28. “You played that hand like a vegan.” ~ Erick Lindgren (to Daniel Negreanu)

29. “May the flop be with you.” ~ Doyle Brunson

30. “Poker is 100% skill and 50% luck.” ~ Phil Hellmuth

31. “It’s not whether you won or lost, but how many bad beat stories you were able to tell.” ~ Grantland Rice

32. “I never saw a poker player’s money that I did not like.” ~ Oklahoma Johnny Hale

33. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to be good at poker.” ~ Phil Gordon

34. “They say poker is a zero-sum game. It must be, because every time I play my sum ends up zero.” ~ Max Shapiro

35. “No river, no fish.” ~ Amarillo Slim

36. “The beautiful thing about poker is that everybody thinks they can play.” ~ Chris Moneymaker

37. “The guy who invented poker was bright, but the guy who invented the chip was a genius.” ~ Julius “Big Julie” Weintraub

38. “I must complain the cards are ill-shuffled till I have a good hand.” ~ Jonathan Swift

39. “Old card players never die, they just shuffle away.” ~ Unknown

40. “No-limit holdem: Hours of boredom followed by moments of sheer terror.” ~ Tom McEvoy

41. “If you play bridge badly, you make your partner suffer, but if you play poker badly you make everybody happy.” ~ Joe Laurie, Jr.

42. “To be a poker champion you must have a strong bladder.” ~ Jack McClelland

43. “I don’t play any two suited cards. I play any two non-suited cards. That way I’m drawing at two different flushes.” ~ Amarillo Slim

44. “Every poker player, like every fisherman, needs to have a story in a box, and most poker stories are completely uninteresting.” ~ Jason Alexander

45. “Omaha is a game that was invented by a Sadist and is played by Masochists.” ~ Shane Smith

46. “Poker is generally thought to be America’s second most popular after-dark activity. Sex is good, they say, but poker lasts longer.” ~ Al Alvarez

47. “Dogs are lousy poker players. When they get a good hand, they wag their tails.” ~ Unknown

Poker quotes about life

48. “There is more to poker than life.” ~ Tom McEvoy

49. “Aces are larger than life and greater than mountains.” ~ Mike Caro

50. “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

51. “The one who bets the most wins. Cards just break ties.” ~ Sammy Farha

52. “I learned playing poker that you never count your winnings because that’s when you start to lose.” ~ Kenneth Langone

53. “I think one of the interesting things about poker is that once you let your ego in, you’re done for.” ~ Al Alvarez

54. “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

55. “Nobody is always a winner, and anybody who says he is, is either a liar or doesn’t play poker.” ~ Amarillo Slim

56. “Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes playing a poor hand well.” ~ Jack London

57. “The strong point in poker is never to lose your temper, either with those you are playing 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

58. “Poker is not simply a game of odds, moves and calculations. It is a game of controlled and exploited emotions including greed, fear, over-confidence and anger.” ~ Steven Lubet

59. “Everyone gets lucky once in a while, but no one is consistently lucky.” ~ Doyle Brunson

60. “Living in the past is a Jethro Tull album, not a smart poker strategy.” ~ Richard Roeper

61. “What’s true of the poker game is true of life. Most people are suckers and don’t realise it.” ~ Michael Faust

62. “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

63. “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

64. “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

65. “Don’t challenge strong players, challenge weak ones. That’s what they’re there for.” ~ John Vorhaus

66. “One day a chump, the next day a champion. What a difference a day makes in tournament poker!” ~ Mike Sexton

67. “Hold em is to stud what chess is to checkers.” ~ Johnny Moss

68. “A Smith & Wesson beats four aces.” ~ American proverb

69. “If a player is looking to have you fund their poker career, you need to look at why they are broke.” ~ James Guill

70. “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 their actual ability than in poker.” ~ Steve Badger

Somewhat obscure poker quotes

71. “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 they cannot bear self-knowledge.” ~ David Mamet

72. “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

73. “Poker is a fascinating, wonderful, intricate adventure on the high seas of human nature.” ~ David A. Daniel

74. “Poker, n. A game said to be played with cards for some purpose to this lexicographer unknown.” ~ Ambrose Bierce

75. “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

76. “Poker is a microcosm of all we admire and disdain about capitalism and democracy.” ~ Lou Kreiger

77. “It’s said that the two psychological features of snipers are patience and stubbornness. Some might say the same is true for good poker players.” ~ Stephen Bloomfield

78. “A faint heart never filled a spade flush.” ~ Unknown

79. “Is it really not possible to touch the gaming table without being instantly infected by superstition?” ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

80. “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.” ~ W. Somerset Maugham

Quotes not really about poker but could apply

81. “Show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser.” ~ Stu Ungar

82. “Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.” ~ Andrew Jackson

83. “Life is too long to play bad cards.” ~ Frank DiElsi

84. “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

85. “It’s not enough to succeed. Others must fail.” ~ Gore Vidal

86. “In order to be a successful gambler you have to have a complete disregard for money.” ~ Doyle Brunson

87. “If I lose today, I can look forward to winning tomorrow, and if I win today, I can expect to lose tomorrow. A sure thing is no fun.” ~ Chico Marx

88. “Cards are war in disguise of a sport.” ~ Charles Lamb

89. “Play like a champ. Win like a champ. Act like a champ.” ~ Frank Henderson

90. “Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.” ~ Paul Newman

91. “The only bad luck for a good gambler is bad health. Any other setbacks are temporary aggravation.” ~ Benny Binion

92. “A person should gamble every day, because think of how bad it would be to be walking around lucky and not know it.” ~ Robert Turner

93. “Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you is determinism; though the way you play it is free will.” ~ Jawaharlal Nehru

94. “Depend on the rabbit’s foot if you will, but remember it didn’t work for the rabbit.” ~ R. E. Shay

95. “No wife can endure a gambling husband unless he is a steady winner.” ~ Lord Dewar

96. “The smarter you play, the luckier you’ll be.” ~ Mark Pilarski

Quotes by poker players that aren’t necessarily about poker

97. “Seldom do the lambs slaughter the butcher.” ~ Amarillo Slim

98. “I can dodge bullets, baby.” ~ Phil Hellmuth

99. “A man with money is no match against a man on a mission.” ~ Doyle Brunson

101. “You can shear a sheep a hundred times, but you can only skin it once.” ~ Amarillo Slim

Do you have any favorite poker quotes? Or did I leave your favorite quotes about poker off this (quite extensive) list? Please share below.

Until next time.

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