Poker Quotes

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

“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, The Glass Castle

“When they reached the stairs, he didn’t make her climb them herself. He picked her up in his arms and carried her to the big bathroom off their bedroom. He didn’t speak, his expression didn’t soften. But he was hard. His cock was like a poker, steely and hot against her hip. His eyes blazed with lust.”
― Lora Leigh, Tempting the Beast

“A good lawyer, just like a good poker player, must always keep his cards close to his chest.”
― Mallika Nawal, I'm a Woman & I'm on SALE

“I can win anytime. Kevin's going to go back to Burbank and tell everybody in his cubicle how he won at the Golden Nugget. Sometimes the pot isn't the money.”
― Heidi Cullinan, Double Blind

“All serious poker players try to minimize their tells, obviously. There are a couple ways to go about this. One is the robotic approch: where your face becomes a mask and your voice a monotone, at least while the hand is being played. . . . The other is the manic method, where you affect a whole bunch of tics, twitches, and expressions, and mix them up with a river of insane babble. The idea is to overwhelm your opponents with clues, so they can't sort out what's going on. This approach can be effective, but for normal people it's hard to pull off. (If you've spent part of your life in an institution, this method may come naturally.)”
― Dan Harrington, Harrington on Hold 'em: Expert Strategy for No-Limit Tournaments, Volume I: Strategic Play

“They're holding flushes of face cards, and I think we're the pot.”
― Howard Tayler, Emperor Pius Dei

“It's not luck, I'm cheating." (Allen Walker)”
― Katsura Hoshino

“Poker is good for you. It enriches the soul, sharpens the intellect, heals the spirit, and when played well - nourishes the wallet. Above all else, poker forces the player to face reality and deal with it head-on. [...] Your challenges for as long as you aspire to win at poker is this: Be willing to examine your character and game.”
― Richard D. Harroch, Poker For Dummies

“OSCAR. (Sitting at table.) My friend Murray the Cop is right. Let's just play cards. And please hold them up, I can't see where I marked them.”
― Neil Simon, The Odd Couple

“Poker is a fun game, but it is just a game. It is a game of some information, not total information. It is a game of some luck, but not total luck. It is a game of some skill, but not total skill. It is a game of hustling that doesn't always reward the hustler. It is a card game that steals from the artists to give to the scientists who then get robbed by the hustlers, before they give it back to the artists again. It is hilariously broken. You will die 500 years before your luck catches up to you. No game contains your redemption, so look not for it here. It is beautiful because it is so meaningless.”
― Alexander Fitzgerald, Exploitative Play in Live Poker: How to Manipulate your Opponents into Making Mistakes

“Screenwriting is like poker; in the end, you have to go all in.”
― Adrienne Posey

“Life is on the wire. Everything else is just waiting.”
― Papa Wallenda

“The day-to-day horror of writing gave me a notion of tournament time. Writing novels is tedious. When will this book be finished, when will it reveal its bright and shining true self? it takes freakin’ years. At the poker table, you’re only playing a fraction of the hands, waiting for your shot. If you keep your wits, can keep from flying apart while those around you are self-destructing, devouring each other, you’re halfway there. … Let them flame out while you develop a new relationship with time, and they drift away from the table. 86-7

Coach Helen’s mantra: It’s OK to be scared, but don’t play scared. 90

[During a young adult trip to Los Vegas] I was contemplating the nickel in my hand. Before we pushed open the glass doors, what the heck, I dropped it into a one-armed bandit and won two dollars.

In a dank utility room deep in the subbasements of my personality, a little man wiped his hands on his overalls and pulled the switch: More. Remembering it now, I hear a sizzling sound, like meat being thrown into a hot skillet. I didn't do risk, generally. So I thought. But I see now I'd been testing the House Rules the last few years. I'd always been a goody-goody. Study hard, obey your parents, hut-hut-hut through the training exercises of Decent Society. Then in college, now that no one was around, I started to push the boundaries, a little more each semester. I was an empty seat in lecture halls, slept late in a depressive funk, handed in term papers later and later to see how much I could get away with before the House swatted me down.

Push it some more. We go to casinos to tell the everyday world that we will not submit. There are rules and codes and institutions, yes, but for a few hours in this temple of pure chaos, of random cards and inscrutable dice, we are in control of our fates. My little gambles were a way of pretending that no one was the boss of me. …

The nickels poured into the basin, sweet music. If it worked once, it will work again.
We hit the street. 106-8

[Matt Matros, 3x bracelet winner; wrote The Making of a Poker Player]: “One way or another you’re going to have a read, and you’re going to do something that you didn’t expect you were going to do before, right or wrong. Obviously it’s better if you’re right, but even if you’re wrong, it can be really satisfying to just have a read, a feeling, and go with it. Your gut.”

I could play it safe, or I could really play. 180

Early on, you wanted to stay cool and keep out of expensive confrontations, but you also needed to feed the stack. The stack is hungry. 187

The awful knowledge that you did what you set out to do, and you would never, ever top it. It was gone the instant you put your hands on it. It was gambling. 224”
― Colson Whitehead, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death

“Never trust a poker player.”
― Jane Stanton Hitchcock, Bluff

“Whenever Solomon played cards, he felt strong and smooth, like he couldn't lose; he wondered if he felt this way because he didn't care about the money.”
― Min Jin Lee, Pachinko

“Being solemn has almost nothing to do with being serious, but on the other hand, you can't go on being adolescent forever, unless you are in the performing arts, and anyhow most people can't tell the difference. In fact, though Americans talk a great deal about the virtue of being serious, they generally prefer people who are solemn over people who are serious. In politics, the rare candidate who is serious is easily overwhelmed by one who is solemn. This is probably because it is hard for most people to recognize seriousness, which is rare, especially in politics, but comfortable to endorse solemnity, which is as commonplace as jogging. Jogging is solemn. Poker is serious. Once you grasp that distinction, you are on your way to enlightenment.”
― Russell Baker, So This Is Depravity and Other Observations

“Segala perkara dapat kutanggung di dalam Dia yang memberi kekuatan kepadaku.”
― Dewi susanni

“Crabtree's Parable of the Cards:
“We divide the deck into numbered and face cards, and so we divide the types of men. The numbered cards are the underlings, the parasites of the world. When you play a man who is a numbered card, he looks out only for himself with no consciousness that others are in the game with him. If you wish to be kind, you can say these men are the subordinates of the world, but they are parasites all the same. They attach themselves to someone greater, learning if they are young or inexperienced enough, leeching if they are strong or experienced enough to know better but would rather remain weak. They don’t contribute to the world. They only take from it, and if a man remains in this state, he is no better than a sheep. Numbered men are as disposable and interchangeable as the animals they mimic.

The face cards are men who have seen the way the world works, who know the only way to survive is to kill or be killed. These men are the cannibals. They drive and lead the parasites, bluffing them into traps and bleeding them when necessary for their own survival or for that of the parasites they have chosen to protect. Depending on what level of face card they are, they bleed them to serve those they owe allegiance to. This is the way of the world. You may find it harsh or overly simplified. But in the end you will find these are your choices. You may be a face card, or you may be a number. The power to choose is yours.

Aces are unique because they can be both a face card and a numbered card. But no matter what they are, they will always be the lowest of the low or the highest of the high—and because of this, they will always be alone. An ace does not evolve, but rather he constantly explores his dual nature. When he leads, he is acutely aware of his underlings, unable to use them with the casualness that his fellow face cards will do. When he is brought low, he is equally aware of the thin veil separating him from where he is supposed to be, and he can’t forget how he and his fellows in servitude should be treated. An ace is seldom at home unless he is with his own kind, and many fall into despair and find themselves wedged quite firmly in the low side of their nature. There are few aces in the world, and so most aces, no matter who they are with, feel alone. And that, my children, is the Parable of the Cards. Take it to heart, because the secret to life lies within it.”
― Heidi Cullinan, Double Blind

“This reminds me of the old saying about a guy who owned four farms. He lost three of them drawing to inside straights and lost the fourth one when he made it.”
― Lyle Berman, Original Belt Corset 220 Body Shaper

“A professional poker game has many benefits. It helps to develop positive traits, such as patience, humility, control, and analytical thinking. Poker also teaches us to focus on those elements that we can control and to let go of those we have no influence over. The nature of the game and variance force us to acquire skills of capital management and distance ourselves from money. Poker primarily teaches us about discipline, self-control, and making decisions with a long-term perspective.”
― Alexander Fitzgerald, Exploitative Play in Live Poker: How to Manipulate your Opponents into Making Mistakes

“There is no moral outcome of a chess match or a poker game as long as skill and stealth rather than cheating have been used.”
― Francis P. Karam, The Truth Engine: Cross-Examination Outside the Box

“Life's a lot like poker. You bet on some hands, you fold some. You win some hands, you lose some. But unlike poker, life is not a zero sum game. There's enough chips in the pot for everyone.”
― Sanhita Baruah

“thepsychchic chips clips i

How often are we actually in control, I wondered? And how does the perception of being in control in situations where luck is queen actually play out in our decision making? How do people respond when placed in uncertain situations, with incomplete information? 13

Personal accountability, without the possibility of deflecting onto someone else, is key. 41
There’s never a default to anything. It’s always a matter of deliberation. 56
Erik: You have to have a clear thought process for every single hand. What do I know? What have I seen? How will that help me make an informed judgment about this hand? 74
… find the fold … 86
Erik: There’s nothing like getting in there and making a bunch of mistakes. 88
Erik: Pick your spots. 91
Erik: Have you ever heard the expression ‘snap fold’? A snap fold, you do it immediately. You’re thrilled to let it go. So. snap fold. This lets you shove with basically the same enthusiasm. It tells you which hands to go with when you have different amounts of big blinds. 98
There’s a false sense of security in passivity. You think that you can’t get into too much trouble—but really, every passive decision leads to a slow but steady loss of chips. And chances are, if I’m choosing those lines at the table, there are deeper issues at play. Who knows how many proverbial chips a default passivity has cost me throughout my life. How many times have I walked away from situations because of someone else's show of strength, when I really shouldn't have. How many times I've passively stayed in a situation, eventually letting it get the better of me, instead of actively taking control and turning things around. Hanging back only seems like an easy solution. In truth, it can be the seed of far bigger problems. 100-101

Gambler's fallacy -- the faulty idea that probability has a memory. 107
Frank Lantz, NYU Game Center, former poker player: Part of what I get out of a game is being confronted with reality in a way that is not accommodating to my incorrect preconceptions. 109
Only play within your bankroll. 126
Re: Ladies Event: Yes, I completely understand the intention, but somehow, segregating women into a separate player pool, as if admitting that they can’t compete in an open player pool, feels equal parts degrading and demoralizing. … if I’m known as anything in this game, I want to be known as a good poker player, not a good female player. No modifiers need apply. 127
Erik: Bad beats are a really bad mental habit. You don’t want to ever dwell on them. It doesn’t help you become a better player. It’s like dumping your garbage on someone else’s lawn. It just stinks.” 132-33 No bad beats. Forget they ever happened. 136

As W H Auden told an interviewer, Webster Schott, in a 1970 conversation: "Language is the mother, not the handmaiden of thought; words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.” The language we use becomes our mental habits—and our mental habits determine how we learn, how we grow, what we become. It’s not just a question of semantics: telling bad beats stories matters. Our thinking about luck has real consequences in terms of our emotional well-being, our decisions and the way we implicitly view the world and our role in it. 133”
― Maria Konnikova, The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win

“thepsychchic chips clips ii

If you think of yourself instead as an almost-victor who thought correctly and did everything possible but was foiled by crap variance? No matter: you will have other opportunities, and if you keep thinking correctly, eventually it will even out. These are the seeds of resilience, of being able to overcome the bad beats that you can’t avoid and mentally position yourself to be prepared for the next time. People share things with you: if you’ve lost your job, your social network thinks of you when new jobs come up; if you’re recently divorced or separated or bereaved, and someone single who may be a good match pops up, you’re top of mind. This attitude is what I think of as a luck amplifier. … you will feel a whole lot happier … and your ready mindset will prepare you for the change in variance that will come … 134-135

W. H. Auden: “Choice of attention—to pay attention to this and ignore that—is to the inner life what choice of action is to the outer. In both cases man is responsible for his choice and must accept the consequences.” Pay attention, or accept the consequences of your failure. 142


Attention is a powerful mitigator to overconfidence: it forces you to constantly reevaluate your knowledge and your game plan, lest you become too tied to a certain course of action. And if you lose? Well, it allows you to admit when it’s actually your fault and not a bad beat. 147

Following up on Phil Galfond’s suggestion to be both a detective and a storyteller and figure out “what your opponent’s actions mean, and sometimes what they don’t mean.” [Like the dog that didn’t bark in the Sherlock Holmes “Silver Blaze” story.] 159

You don’t have to have studied the description-experience gap to understand, if you’re truly expert at something, that you need experience to balance out the descriptions. Otherwise, you’re left with the illusion of knowledge—knowledge without substance. You’re an armchair philosopher who thinks that just because she read an article about something she is a sudden expert. (David Dunning, a psychologist at the University of Michigan most famous for being one half of the Dunning-Kruger effect—the more incompetent you are, the less you’re aware of your incompetence—has found that people go quickly from being circumspect beginners, who are perfectly aware of their limitations, to “unconscious incompetents,” people who no longer realize how much they don’t know and instead fancy themselves quite proficient.) 161-162

Erik: Generally, the people who cash the most are actually losing players (Nassim Taleb’s Black Swan strategy, jp). You can’t be a winning player by min cashing. 190

The more you learn, the harder it gets; the better you get, the worse you are—because the flaws that you wouldn’t even think of looking at before are now visible and need to be addressed. 191

An edge, even a tiny one, is an edge worth pursuing if you have the time and energy. 208

Blake Eastman: “Before each action, stop, think about what you want to do, and execute.” … Streamlined decisions, no immediate actions, or reactions. A standard process. 217

John Boyd’s OODA: Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. The way to outmaneuver your opponent is to get inside their OODA loop. 224

Here’s a free life lesson: seek out situations where you’re a favorite; avoid those where you’re an underdog. 237

[on folding] No matter how good your starting hand, you have to be willing to read the signs and let it go.

One thing Erik has stressed, over and over, is to never feel committed to playing an event, ever. “See how you feel in the morning.”

Tilt makes you revert to your worst self. 257

Jared Tindler, psychologist, “It all comes down to confidence, self-esteem, identity, what some people call ego.” 251

JT: “As far as hope in poker, f#¢k it. … You need to think in terms of preparation. Don’t worry about hoping. Just Do.” 252”
― Maria Konnikova, The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win

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Jared gives me an assignment: I need to map out my emotional process so that I can start finding ways to solve each problem. I need to actually sit down and make a spreadsheet. Each time something happens, write it down in the situation trigger column. In the next column write a description of the thoughts, emotional reactions, and behaviors that the situation or trigger causes. In the next column give your best assessment of the underlying flaw or problem, and finally, write a logic statement that I can use in the moment to inject some rationality into the issue. 258

Jared’s 20 minute break routine for Maria: First 5 minutes of break: off load and brain dump. I write down some of the key hands so that they don’t occupy any of my headspace going forward. … Then a few minutes of contemplating my decision making. Asking myself: How was my thinking? Were there any emotionally compromised decisions? … Next 10 minutes: nothing. No poker talk, no thinking. Just walking and relaxing. And then, right before the end of break, a few minutes of warm-up for the next level. 276 - 277

EB White: “an honest ratio between pluck and luck.” 287

Food in Los Vegas: For sushi, Yui and Kabuto. For dinner close to the Rio, the Fat Greek, Peru Chicken, and Sazón. For when I’m feeling nostalgic for the jerk chicken of my local Crown Heights spots, Big Jerk. Lola’s for Cajun. Milos, but only for lunch. El Dorado for late-night poker sessions. Partage to celebrate. Lotus of Siam to drown your sorrows in delightful Thai. 314”
― Maria Konnikova, The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win

“Everyone is equal before the flop.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“In Thai poker, two 5's are known as the, "Haha" hand.”
― Anthony T. Hincks

“”
― Pamila Bell

“She keeps the books. She holds the key. She is the dealer.”
― Niedria D. Kenny, Order in the Courtroom: The Tale of The Texas Poker Player