Poker Slang

Are you the Sucker? That Sucks

Most of us have heard the saying that urges you to look around the table and, if you can’t find the sucker, it’s you. This is remembered by many because it is a line from the script of Rounders, the movie starring Matt Damon, Edward Norton and John Malkovich. While this is one of the more famous sayings among modern-day poker players and has some truth in it, there are dozens of other quotes and sayings we can read and enjoy.

For example, the late, great actor Walter Matthau is credited with saying that poker has all the worst aspects of capitalism that made our country great. Not only was Matthau a marvelous actor and a very funny man, this quote shows that he understands both the problems with the financial/political system in the United States and the attraction of poker.

Twain's Tweet

Mark Twain, the great author and cynic, once said that a banker is someone who loans you his umbrella when the sun is shining and as soon as it starts raining, asks you to return it. This marvelous truth hardly takes a back seat to his statement on poker. He calls the game “unpardonably neglected.” He added, “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.” How can we top that?

There are a number of versions of the saying, “Poker is an easy game to learn. But it takes a lifetime to become good at it.” If you doubt this, and continue to doubt it as you play poker, most experts would simply wish you good luck. You’re going to need it.

Know Thyself

The late Puggy Pearson, a contemporary of the young Doyle Brunson and Johnny Moss, once said that a poker player has to know himself first to have any chance of succeeding. This same thought was expressed by author and biographer Anthony Holden. He wrote that unless a poker player is able and prepared to see himself as others do, flaws and all, he will be a loser in cards, as in life.

Shut Up and Deal? Not Quite

Poker professional and author Lou Krieger has written extensively about the classic card game. One of his best books is Secrets the Pros Won’t Tell You About Winning Hold ‘Em Poker (with Sheree Bykofsky, Kensington Publishing, 2006). One of his best quotes states that if Horace Greeley was alive today he wouldn’t advise young men to go west, he would say, “Shuffle up and deal.”

Keep this final thought in mind: All you need is a chip and a chair. (For more on this, find out about Jack Straus and the 1982 World Series of Poker.)