101 Famous Poker Quotes

by Rich McComas (updated May 5, 2004)

Please send me an email atrich@holdemsecrets if you know of anything that should be included in this list.

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Poker Quotes Rounders

Showing all 118 items. Joey Knish: walking up to their poker table with Mike playing with other rounders in the poker room at The Mirage This is what I like to see Mike McDermott where he belongs, sitting with the scum bags telling jokes dragging the occasional pot. Poker quotes - use the wisdom of some of the biggest names in poker. This site uses cookies to improve your browsing experience. By continuing to browse the website, you accept such cookies. For more details and to change your settings, see our.

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.

-- Crandall Addington, Texas oil millionaire

If you reraise a raiser, and he doesn't raise you back, you know he has kicker problems.

-- Crandall Addington, Texas oil millionaire (2001)

Poker is generally reckoned to be America's second most popular after-dark activity. Sex is good, they say, but poker lasts longer.

-- Alfred Alvarez (2001)

It is easy to smile at an insult and pretend it's funny when the person insulting you is hosing you with money.

-- Alfred Alvarez (2001)

Serious poker is no more about gambling than rock climbing is about taking risks.

-- Alfred Alvarez (2001)

Hold'em is a game of calculated aggression: If you cards are good enough for your to call a bet, they are good enough to raise with.

-- Alfred Alvarez (2001)

Never give a sucker an even break.

-- Anonymous

A faint heart never filled a spade flush.

-- Anonymous (1905)

Dear Lord, help me to break even. I need the money.

-- Anonymous

A king can do no wrong … unless it runs into an ace.

-- Anonymous

Money isn't everything … unless you're playing in a rebuy tournament.

-- Anonymous

Your first duty is to the Game; then come Mother, God, and Country.

-- Anonymous, Motto at the National Press Club, Washington D.C.

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.

-- Anonymous

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.

-- Anonymous

Rounders

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 actual ability than in poker.

-- Steve Badget

Once you start thinking you have nothing left to learn, you have everything to learn.

-- Steve Badget

Playing poker for a living gives you backbone. You cannot survive without that intangible quality we call heart.

-- Bobby Baldwin, 1978 WSOP winner (2001)

In a game of poker, I can put the players' souls in my pocket.

-- Beausourire, Haitian Poker Player

In the long run there's no luck in poker, but the short run is longer than most people know.

-- Rick Bennet

Trust everyone, but always cut the cards.

-- Benny Binion

The only bad luck for a good gambler is bad health. Any other setbacks are temporary aggravation.

-- Benny Binion

I've often thought, if I got really hungry for a good milk shake, how much would I pay for one? People will pay a hundred dollars for a bottle of wine; to me that's not worth it. But I'm not going to say it is foolish or wrong to spend that kind of money, if that's what you want. So if a guy wants to bet twenty or thirty thousand dollars in a poker game, that is his privilege.

-- Jack Binion

Try to decide how good your hand is at a given moment. Nothing else matters. Nothing!

-- Doyle Bunson

If you’re a competitive person and you commit yourself to something, you have no choice but to endure.

Rounders

-- Vince Burgio

If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability.

-- Vannevar Bush, architect of the Internet

Avoid people with gold teeth who want to play cards.

-- George Carlin

Aces are larger than life and greater than mountains.

-- Mike Caro

Sometimes you'll miss a bet, sure, but it's OK to miss a bet. Poker is an art form, of course, but sometimes you have to sacrifice art in favour of making a profit.

-- Mike Caro

Bad beats only happen to good players.

-- Joe Crow (1998)

If it were easy, everyone would do it.

-- Bonnie Damiano

The next best thing to gambling and winning is gambling and losing.

-- Nick 'The Greek' Dandalos

Life is too long to play bad cards.

-- Frank Di Elsi

It's unlucky to be superstitious.

-- Dave Enteles, Card Player

Is that the game where one receives five cards? And if there's two alike that's pretty good, but if there's three alike, that's much better?

-- W C Fields

Sir, I really like poker. Every hand has its different problems.

-- Henry Fonda, playing Wyatt Earp in My Darling Clementine

To master poker and make it profitable, you must first master patience and discipline, as a lack of either is a sure disaster regardless of all other talents, or lucky streaks.

-- Freddie Gasperian

The single greatest key to winning is knowing thy enemy — yourself.

-- Andy Glazer

I never saw a poker player’s money that I did not like.

-- Oklahoma Johnny Hale

Poker is not a game in which the meek inherit the earth.

-- David Hayano (1982)

Play like a champ. Win like a champ. Act like a champ.

-- Henderson, Frank

The winner is not the player who wins the most pots. The winner is the player who wins the most money.

-- Anthony Holden, author of Big Deal (1990)

The good news is that in every deck of fifty-two cards there are 2,598,960 possible hands. The bad news is that you are only going to be dealt one of them.

-- Anthony Holden, author of Big Deal (1990)

Whether he likes it or not, a man's character is stripped bare at the poker table; if the other poker 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 poker, as in life.

-- Anthony Holden, author of Big Deal (1990)

Egotism is the anesthetic provided by nature to dull the pain of being a damn fool.

-- Chuck Humphrey

Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, when you criticize him, you will be a mile away, and you will have his shoes.

-- Chuck Humphrey

It's morally wrong to let a sucker keep money.

-- Canada Bill Jones

Perception is reality.

-- Immanuel Kant

Forget about a chip and a chair; give me a hand and I’ll stand.

-- Warren Karp

All I know is, if the cards ever break even — I’m screwed.

-- Rich Korbin

If the shoe fits, steal it.

-- Lou Krieger

Poker is a microcosm of all we admire and disdain about capitalism and democracy. Poker can be rough-hewn or polished, warm or cold, charitable and caring, or hard and impersonal, fickle and elusive, but ultimately poker is fair, and right, and just.

-- Lou Krieger

Cards are war, in disguise of a sport.

-- Charles Lamb (1832)

Poker is the game closest to the western conception of life, where life and thought are recognized as intimately combined, where free will prevails over philosophies of fate or of chance, where men are considered moral agents and where - at least in the short run - the important thing is not what happens but what people think happens.

-- Johnny Luckacs (1963)

Life is like a game of poker: If you don't put any in the pot, there won't be any to take out.

-- Jackie 'Moms' Mabley, Dirty old lady comedian

Opportunity may knock, but it seldom nags.

-- David Mamet

The game exemplifies the worst aspects of capitalism that have made our country so great.

-- Walter Matthau

Poker is the only game for a grown man. Then, your hand is against every man's, and evern man's hand is against yours. Teamwork? Who ever made a fortune by teamwork?

-- Somerset Maugham

If you know poker, you know people; and if you know people, you got the whole dang world lined up in your sights.

-- Brett Maverick

To be a poker champion, you must have a strong bladder.

-- Jack McClelland

There is more to poker than life.

-- Tom McEvoy

Everybody blows their first money.

-- Lorne Michaels

Gambling, the sure way of getting nothing for something.

-- Wilson Mizner, Con man and promoter

Industry executives and analysts often mistakenly talk about strategy as if it were some kind of chess match. But in chess, you have just two opponents, each with identical resources, and with luck playing a minimal role. The real world is much more like a poker game, with multiple players trying to make the best of whatever hand fortune has dealt them. In our industry, Bill Gates owns the poker table until someone proves otherwise.

-- David Moschella

You have to learn what kind of hand this guy shows down, what that one's moves, watch the veins in his neck, watch his eyes, the way he sweats.

-- Johnny Moss (1975)

Hold'em is to to stud and draw what chess is to checkers.

-- Johnny Moss, 3x World Champion

Losing is like smoking. It's habit forming.

-- Puggy Pearson, 1973 WSOP winner (2001)

Fear is the basis of all mankind. In cards, you psyche 'em out, you shark 'em, you put the fear of God in 'em.

-- Puggy Pearson, 1973 WSOP winner (1975)

Everything is mental in life. The butt was made to lug the mind around.

-- Puggy Pearson, 1973 WSOP winner (1975)

It's not whether you won or lost, but how many bad-beat stories you were able to tell.

-- Grantland Rice, Sportswriter

If you can't spot the sucker in the first half an hour at the table, then you are the sucker.

-- Rounders, the movie (2000)

The deal is of no special value, and anybody may begin.

-- Robert Schenck, First to introduce poker to England (1872)

One day a chump, the next day a champion. What a difference a day makes in tournament poker.

-- Mike Sexton

They say poker is a zero-sum game. It must be, because every time I play my sum ends up zero.

-- Max Shapiro

The commonest mistake in history is underestimating your opponent; happens at the poker table all the time.

-- General David Shoup

Put yourself in their shoes before you decide on the best way to take their shirts.

-- David Sklansky

Omaha is a game that was invented by a Sadist and is played by Masochists.

-- Shane Smith

The odds are merely a framework for play, like the lines of a tennis court.

-- David Spanier (1901)

Poker... I hardly even know her!

-- Jack Styles

I must complain the cards are ill shuffled till I have a good hand.

-- Jonathan Swift (1728)

It’s easy to be a tough competitor and still be the kind of person with whom people love to compete.

-- Chuck Thompson

If you always start with the worst hand, you never have a bad-beat story to tell.

-- Chuck Thompson

In poker, money is power.

-- Alvin Clarence 'Titanic' Thomson, A legand of hustles & cons, 1892-1974 (1982)

I won my ticket on Titanic in a lucky hand of poker...a very lucky hand.

-- Jack, in the Movie Titanic

A person should gamble every day, because think of how bad it would be to walk around being lucky and not know it.

-- Robert Turner

There are few things that are so unpardonably neglected in our country as poker. The upper class knows very little about poker. Now and then you find ambassadors who have sort of a general knowledge of poker, but the ignorance of the people is fearful. Why, I have known clergymen, good men, kind-hearted, liberal, sincere, and all that, who did not know the meaning of a 'flush'. It is enough to make one ashamed of the species.

-- Mark Twain

Learning to play two pairs is worth about as much as a college education, and about as costly.

-- Mark Twain?

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

Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser.

-- Stu Ungar

Marriages may come and go, but the game must go on.

-- Felix 'The Odd Couple' Unger

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.

-- Stu Unger, Three-time WSOP Champion

The guy who invented gambling was bright, but the guy who invented the chip was a genius.

-- Julius 'Big Julie' Weintraub, a New York gambler who ran junkets to Vegas (1974)

Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.

-- Steven Wright

A card player should learn that once the money is in the pot, it isn't his any longer.

-- Herbert Yardley (1957)

©2004, www.holdemsecrets.com

Rounders
Directed byJohn Dahl
Produced byJoel Stillerman
Ted Demme
Written byDavid Levien
Brian Koppelman
Starring
Music byChristopher Young
CinematographyJean-Yves Escoffier
Edited byScott Chestnut
Spanky Pictures
Distributed byMiramax Films
  • September 4, 1998 (Venice Film Festival)
  • September 8, 1998 (Deauville Film Festival)
  • September 11, 1998 (United States)
121 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
French
Budget$12 million[1]
Box office$22.9 million
(United States)[1]

Rounders is a 1998 American drama film about the underground world of high-stakes poker, directed by John Dahl and starring Matt Damon and Edward Norton. The story follows two friends who need to win at high-stakes poker to quickly pay off a large debt. The term 'rounder' refers to a person traveling around from city to city seeking high-stakes card games.

Rounders opened to generally mixed reviews and was moderately successful at the box office. With the poker boom in the early 2000s, the film later became a cult hit.

Plot[edit]

New York City law student and gifted poker player Mike McDermott (Matt Damon) dreams of winning the World Series of Poker. At an underground Texas hold 'em game run by Russian mobster Teddy 'KGB' (John Malkovich), an overconfident Mike loses his entire $30,000 bankroll in a single hand. Shaken, he promises his girlfriend and fellow student Jo (Gretchen Mol) he has quit poker, and concentrates on law school. His mentor Joey Knish (John Turturro) offers to stake him to rebuild his bankroll but Mike declines, and instead accepts a part-time job to make ends meet.

Several months pass and Mike stays true to his promise until his childhood friend Lester 'Worm' Murphy (Edward Norton) is released from prison. While Mike is an honest player, Worm is a hustler and unapologetic cheat. To help Worm pay off a debt, Mike sets him up with games across town, and reluctantly sits in on a game, interfering with his studies and his relationship with Jo. Mike allows Worm to play on his credit at the Chesterfield Club; however, Worm takes out $10,000 and begins a tab in Mike's name. Worm runs into Grama (Michael Rispoli), a dangerous pimp, who has bought Worm’s debt – Worm now owes $25,000 directly to Grama, who is working for KGB. Grama takes Worm’s $10,000, threatening him to pay the rest. As Mike returns to his poker lifestyle and friends, Jo ends their relationship.

Mike learns from Petra (Famke Janssen) at the Chesterfield that Worm has racked up a $6,000 debt in Mike’s name. In Atlantic City, Worm tells Mike about his debt to Grama but withholds that he is working for KGB. Mike proposes to Grama that Worm pay weekly installments; Grama considers the offer but also mocks Worm for his inability to pay him. Worm responds by insulting Grama and as the two nearly come to blows, Mike defuses the situation by agreeing to vouch for Worm and an angry Grama gives them five days to pay the remaining $15,000. Mike decides to help Worm win the money by playing in several games in and around the city.

On a winning streak, Mike earns $7,200 in three days, but still needs to double it in 48 hours. Worm directs Mike to an out-of-town game hosted by New York state troopers, where he wins almost the full $15,000 before Worm unexpectedly joins the game. The officers catch Worm base-dealing to help Mike; they are beaten up and relieved of their entire bankroll. Worm finally confesses that Grama is working for KGB. With their lives in danger, Worm decides to flee, but Mike returns to the city, cutting ties with Worm.

Mike asks Grama for more time, to no avail. Mike asks Knish for the money but is refused out of principle. During the conversation with Knish, Mike reveals his motivation for taking the ill-fated risk at KGB's club and why he thinks he can compete and possibly win the World Series of Poker. He even quotes Worm saying that Knish 'sees all the angles but doesn't have the stones to play any' after Knish had already refused to help financially. Desperate, Mike asks his law school professor Petrovsky (Martin Landau), who loans him $10,000. Mike challenges KGB to a second heads-up, No-Limit Texas Hold'em game for the remaining debt, with winner-take-all stakes, which KGB accepts. Mike beats KGB in the first session, winning $20,000. KGB offers to let Mike’s winnings 'ride' and continue the game, but Mike – with enough to pay off most of his debts – declines. As he is about to leave, KGB taunts Mike that he is paying him with the money he lost to KGB from their previous game. Mike changes his mind and decides to continue playing.

Mike doubles the blinds at the risk of losing everything to KGB again, and possibly his life. As the night wears on, Mike spots KGB's tell and folds, deducing KGB has a better hand. Irate at the missed chance to win it all, KGB begins to play on 'tilt'. In the final hand, Mike baits a boastful KGB into going all-in, and defeats him with a nut straight. KGB throws a tantrum at having been lured into a mistake. Despite Grama’s urging, KGB, rattled, calls off his goons and admits Mike won fairly, allowing him to leave with his winnings.

With over $60,000, Mike settles Worm’s $15,000 debt to Grama, the Chesterfield’s $6,000 credit, Petrovsky’s $10,000 loan, and restores his original bankroll of 'three stacks of high society.' Mike drops out of law school, says goodbye to Jo, and leaves New York for Las Vegas to play in the World Series of Poker.

Cast[edit]

  • Matt Damon as Mike McDermott
  • Edward Norton as Lester 'Worm' Murphy
  • John Turturro as Joey Knish, character inspired by wry underground poker player Joel 'Bagels' Rosenberg[2]
  • John Malkovich as Teddy KGB
  • Famke Janssen as Petra
  • Michael Rispoli as Grama
  • Martin Landau as Abe Petrovsky
  • Gretchen Mol as Jo
  • Paul Cicero as Russian Thug
  • Melina Kanakaredes as Barbara
  • Josh Mostel as Zagosh
  • Tom Aldredge as Judge Marinacci
  • Lenny Clarke as Savino
  • Chris Messina as Higgins
  • Goran Višnjić as Maurice
  • David Zayas as Osborne
  • Johnny Chan as himself
  • Bill Camp as Eisenberg
  • Josh Pais as Weitz
  • Adam LeFerve as Sean Frye

Rounders Poker Site

Production[edit]

Filming[edit]

Principal photography for Rounders began in December 1997; it took place mostly in New York. Exceptions include the law school scenes (filmed at Rutgers School of Law-Newark[3]) and the State Trooper poker game and parking lot scenes (filmed at the B.P.O Elks Lodge in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey).

Reception[edit]

Box office[edit]

Rounders was released on September 11, 1998, in 2,176 theaters and grossed $8.5 million during its opening weekend. It went on to make $22.9 million domestically.[1]

Critical response[edit]

Best rounders quotes

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 65% approval rating based on 80 reviews, with an average score of 6.21/10. The site's critical consensus reads: 'Richly atmospheric and colorful performances contributed to the movie's entertainment value.' [4]Metacritic gives the film a score of 54 out of 100 based on 32 reviews, indicating 'mixed or average reviews'. [5]Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and wrote: 'Rounders sometimes has a noir look but it never has a noir feel, because it's not about losers (or at least it doesn't admit it is). It's essentially a sports picture, in which the talented hero wins, loses, faces disaster, and then is paired off one last time against the champ.'[6] In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote: 'Though John Dahl's Rounders finally adds up to less than meets the eye, what does meet the eye (and ear) is mischievously entertaining.'[7]USA Today gave the film three out of four stars and wrote: 'The card playing is well-staged, and even those who don't know a Texas hold-'em ('the Cadillac of poker') from a Texas hoedown will get a vicarious charge out of the action.'[8]Entertainment Weekly gave the film a 'B' rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, 'Norton, cast in what might have once been the Sean Penn role (hideous shirts, screw-you attitude), gives Worm a shifty, amphetamine soul and a pleasing alacrity ... Norton's performance never really goes anywhere, but that's okay, since the story is just an excuse to lead the characters from one poker table to the next.'[9]

Peter Travers, in his review for Rolling Stone said of John Malkovich's performance: 'Of course, no one could guess the extent to which Malkovich is now capable of chewing scenery. He surpasses even his eyeballrolling as Cyrus the Virus in Con Air. Munching Oreo cookies, splashing the pot with chips (a poker no-no) and speaking with a Russian accent that defies deciphering ('Ho-kay, Meester sum of a beech'), Malkovich soars so far over the top, he's passing Pluto.'[10] In his review for the San Francisco Chronicle, Mick LaSalle said of Damon's performance: 'Mike should supply the drive the film otherwise lacks, and Damon doesn't. We might believe he can play cards, but we don't believe he needs to do it, in the way, say, that the 12-year-old Mozart needed to write symphonies. He's not consumed with genius. He's a nice guy with a skill.'[11] In his review for The Globe and Mail, Liam Lacey wrote: 'The main problem with Rounders is that the movie never quite knows what it is about: What is the moral ante?'[12]

Rounders Poker Room

Despite an unremarkable theatrical release, Rounders has a following, particularly among poker enthusiasts.[13]

There are pro poker players who credit the film for getting them into the game.[14] The film drew in successful players such as Brian Rast, Hevad Khan, Gavin Griffin, and Dutch Boyd. Vanessa Rousso has said of the film's influence: 'There have been lots of movies that have included poker, but only Rounders really captures the energy and tension in the game. And that's why it stands as the best poker movie ever made.'[14]

References[edit]

  1. ^ abc'Rounders (1998)'. Box Office Mojo. IMDb. Retrieved February 21, 2015.
  2. ^'Joel 'Bagels' Rosenberg, aka Joey Knish, Passes Away'. www.pokernewsdaily.com. Retrieved May 4, 2016.
  3. ^https://www.newarkhappening.com/things-to-do/music-entertainment/film-spots/
  4. ^https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1083659-rounders
  5. ^https://www.metacritic.com/movie/rounders
  6. ^Ebert, Roger (September 11, 1998). 'Rounders review'. Chicago Sun-Times. RogerEbert.com. Retrieved December 1, 2008.
  7. ^Maslin, Janet (September 11, 1998). 'Knowing When to Hold 'em and Fold 'em but Just Not When to Run'. The New York Times. Retrieved December 1, 2008.
  8. ^Wloszczyna, Susan (September 11, 1998). 'Rounders hedges bets with Damon in the ante'. USA Today. p. 11.
  9. ^Gleiberman, Owen (September 18, 1998). 'Rounders review'. Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved November 25, 2009.
  10. ^Travers, Peter (October 1, 1998). 'Rounders review'. Rolling Stone. Retrieved December 1, 2008.
  11. ^LaSalle, Mick (September 11, 1998). 'Rounders Deals Out a Mediocre Hand'. San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved December 1, 2008.
  12. ^Lacey, Liam (September 11, 1998). 'If they'd played their cards right, this could have been a winner'. The Globe and Mail. p. C7.
  13. ^Tobias, Scott (October 30, 2008). 'The New Cult Canon: Rounders'. The Onion A.V. Club. Retrieved December 1, 2008.
  14. ^ abPolson, Sarah (March 4, 2009). 'Pros discuss Rounders' impact on poker'. PokerListings.com. Retrieved February 21, 2015.

External links[edit]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Rounders
  • Rounders on IMDb
  • Rounders at AllMovie
  • Rounders at the TCM Movie Database
  • Rounders at Rotten Tomatoes
  • Rounders at Metacritic
  • Rounders at Box Office Mojo
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