The 105 Best Poker Quotes of All Time (Voted by Pros)

There have been a lot of great poker quotes over the years from legends of the game like Doyle "Texas Dolly" Brunson, superstar players like Daniel Negreanu, and even from famous poker movies like Rounders.

And I don't know about you, but even as a professional poker player for many years, I have still always considered myself to simply be a fan of the game first and foremost.

So I decided to put together this list with input from several pros of the top 105 best poker quotes of all time from some of poker's most legendary players and personalities.

Note: This post went completely viral on Twitter and elsewhere. Enjoy :)

The Top 105 Best Poker Quotes of All Time

1. "Poker is war. People pretend it is a game." - Doyle Brunson

2. "If you can't spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker."
- Mike McDermott (Rounders)

3. "Honey, they forgot one thing - I can dodge bullets, baby!" - Phil Hellmuth

4. "Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser." - Stu "The Kid" Ungar

5. "I had to make a choice between being a lawyer or a professional gambler. I chose the more honorable of the two." - Chip Reese

6. "You get your chips your way, I'll get my chips mine." - Phil Ivey

7. "The majority of players are looking for reasons to fold. I am looking for reasons to play." - Daniel Negreanu

8. “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

9. “Trust everyone, but always cut the cards.” - Benny Binion

10. "You call, it's gonna be all over baby!" - Scotty Nguyen



11. "You can shear a sheep a hundred times, but you can skin it only once." - Amarillo Slim

12. "Welcome to value town. Population, you!" - David "Viffer" Peat

13. "The kiddie game is down the street!" - Mike "The Mouth" Matusow

14. "I'd bust my own grandmother if she played poker with me." - Jack Straus

15. "This fricking donkey stuffs $15,000 in with king-jack. I mean...the guy can't even spell poker!" - Phil Hellmuth

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

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. "There is more to poker than life." - Tom McEvoy

19. "In the poker game of life, women are the rake. They are the f**king rake!" - Worm (Rounders)

20. "Boom! 9-high like a boss!" - William Kassouf



21. "Poker is a hard way to make an easy living." - Doyle Brunson

22. "It's morally wrong to let a sucker keep his money." - "Canada" Bill Jones

23. "I thought you had pocket kings." - Jennifer Tilly

24. "There's over 2000 donkeys in this tournament and I had to be at the table with none of them." - Mike Matusow

25. "The next best thing to gambling and winning is gambling and losing." - Nick "The Greek" Dandolos

26. "I like it when I lose so much money I can barely breathe. That's the feeling I go for. I'm addicted to that feeling." - Phil Ivey

27. "I raise one mirrion!" - Jerry Yang

28. "I got top-top." - Jamie Gold

29. "Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well." - Jack London

30. "If there weren't luck involved, I would win every time." - Phil Hellmuth



31. "Tight is not right." - Antonio Esfandiari

32. "A fool and his money are soon parted." - Thomas Tusser

33. "In order to be a successful gambler you have to have a complete disregard for money." - Doyle Brunson

34. "This just in. Breaking news! Our top story tonight." - Doug Polk

35. "I'm all in." - Tom "durrrr" Dwan

36. "I call." - Viktor "Isildur1" Blom

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37. "Poker is like sex - it’s more fun when you go all-in." - Anonymous

38. "He's been whamboozled!" - Norman Chad (ESPN)

39. "Hold'em is to stud what chess is to checkers." - Johnny Moss

40. "Fold and live to fold again." - Stu Ungar



41. “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 (2+2 forums)

42. "Poker is 100% skill and 50% luck." - Phil Hellmuth

43. "The key to No-Limit is to put a man to a decision for all his chips." - Doyle Brunson

44. "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

45. "We played 50 thousand U.S. hands today at NL25!" - Joe Ingram (delerious after breaking the world record for most poker hands played in a single day)

46. "How much is that?" - Phil Ivey

47. “The object of poker is to keep your money away from Phil Ivey for as long as possible." - Gus Hansen

48. "Not too many players try to bluff me. If there’s going to be bluffing or stealing going on, I’m going to be the one doing to it." - Johnny Chan

49. “In order to live, you must be willing to die." - Amir Vahedi (on tournament poker strategy)

50. "Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponent's cards, they gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose. Conversely, every time opponents play their hands differently from the way they would have if they could see all your cards, you gain; and every time they play their hands the same way they would have played if they could see all your cards, you lose." - David Sklansky (The Fundamental Theorem of Poker)



51. "Show me your eyes and you may as well show me your cards." - Doyle Brunson

52. "That's a position raise. I call." - TeddyKGB (Rounders)

53. "If you look at poker like a business, then I would say I'm f**king Bill Gates. Because I've won over 50 million dollars playing poker. Who the f**k else has done that?"
- Dan Bilzerian

54. “To be a poker champion, you must have a strong bladder.” - Jack McClelland

55. “No-limit hold’em: Hours of boredom followed by moments of sheer terror.” - Tom McEvoy

56. "Nobody is always a winner, and anybody who says he is, is either a liar or doesn’t play poker." - Amarillo Slim

57. "Shuffle up and deal!" - Unknown

58. "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

59. "Last night I stayed up playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died." - Steven Wright.

60. "The beautiful thing about poker is that everybody thinks they can play." - Chris Moneymaker



61. "All you need is a chip and a chair." - Jack Straus

62. "The only bad luck for a good gambler is bad health. Any other setbacks are temporary aggravation." - Benny Binion

63. "Don't tap the glass." - Unknown

64. "On your bike!" - Tony G

65. "When we play, we must realize, before anything else, that we are out to make money." - David Sklansky

66. "Ship It!" - Unknown

67. "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

68. "I’m going to destroy you. I’m gonna take everything you got!" - Tony G

69. "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

70. "The rule is this: you spot a man's tell, you don't say a f**king word." - Mike McDermott (Rounders)



71. "Money won is twice as sweet as money earned." - Paul Newman

72. "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 Ungar

73. "One Time!" - Every poker player in the history of poker

74. "Aussie, Aussie Aussie. Oi Oi Oi!" - Joe Hachem

75. "It’s not whether you won or lost, but how many bad beat stories you were able to tell." - Grantland Rice

76. "The cardinal sin in poker is becoming emotionally involved." - Katy Lederer

77. "A pair of balls beats everything!" - Unknown

78. "I love the fact that I can mess with someone's head." - Antonio Esfandiari

79. "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

80. "Raisey Daisy!" - Sammy Farha



81. “Aces are larger than life and greater than mountains.” - Mike Caro

82. "You will show your poker greatness by the hands you fold, not the hands you play."
- Dan Reed.

83. "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

84. "I believe in poker the way I believe in the American Dream. Poker is good for you. It enriches the soul, sharpens the intellect, heals the spirit, and - when played well, nourishes the wallet." - Lou Krieger

85. "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

86. "A man with money is no match against a man on a mission." - Doyle Brunson

87. "My favorite chip trick is to make everyone's chip stack disappear." - Amarillo Slim

88. "One day a chump, the next day a champion. What a difference a day makes in tournament poker!" - Mike Sexton

89. "Poker is a skill game pretending to be a chance game." - James Altucher

90. "I need some money, you got any money?" - Daniel Negreanu



91. "Pay that man his money." - Teddy KGB (Rounders)

92. "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

93. "I'd hate for 70 million poker players to wake up one day and learn that their game has been made illegal." - Howard Lederer

94. "Come learn, chat and play with the pros." - Full Tilt Poker

95. "May the flop be with you." - Doyle Brunson

96. "Ah, he's just another kid with a dream!" - Norman Chad (ESPN)

97. "Lack of money is the root of all evil." - Mark Twain

98. "I like to see lots of flops." - Gus Hansen

99. "But it was suited!" - Unknown Donkey

100. "Are you f**king kidding me?" - Phil Hellmuth

Bonus Best Poker Quotes (From Comments)

101. "Hold!!!" - Every tournament player in poker history.

102. "Why do the pushing when the donkey will do the pulling?" - Daniel Negreanu

103. "Pass the sugar!" - Joe Hachem

104. "Poker is a wonderful card game, the money is just a convenient way of keeping score" - Amarillo Slim

105. "There's no one that ever beat me playing cards, the only one that ever beat me was myself." - Stu Ungar

Final Thoughts

So there you have it! The top 105 best poker quotes of all time.

Putting this list together made me realize how much I love this game and all of the epic moments over the years from such a memorable list of poker pros.

I think part of the reason why poker has continued to surge in popularity in recent years is due to a lot of these larger than life personalities like a Phil Hellmuth.

People love to watch "the poker brat" go on a crazy rant at the poker table. They love how Daniel Negreanu uses table talk to read his opponent's hand.

All of this is very good for the game of poker and should be encouraged because it draws in the interest of casual poker players and brings life to the poker tables.

Lastly, if you want to learn the poker strategies that I use to consistently make $1000+ per month from low stakes poker games, make sure you grab a copy of my free poker cheat sheet.


Make sure you let me know you favorite poker quotes in the comments below. Are there any good ones that I missed?