Best Quotes About Poker by Famous People

Poker is not just a game. It’s an art form. It’s a way of life. It is a psychological game which not only entertains but also challenges your mind and creativity. Here is the collection of some of the best things ever said about poker by famous people –

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

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

3. “Life is just a big game of Texas Hold’em, unexpected things may arise that may suit you or destroy you. You gotta make the best of the cards you’redealt, adjust accordingly, and always understand that you control your decisions.” – Mustafa Said

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

5. “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

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

7. “Look. You are playing poker (I assume you know poker, or at least—like a lot of people—anyway play it.) You draw cards. When you do that, you affirm two things: either that you have something to draw to, or are willing to support to your last cent the fact that you have not. You don’t draw and then throw the cards in because they are not what you wanted, expected, hoped for; not just for the sake of your own soul and pocket-book, but for the sake of the others in the game, who have likewise assumed that unspoken obligation.” – William Faulkner

8. “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

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

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

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

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

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

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

15. “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

 

How to Learn Poker Quickly

Poker is a highly entertaining game of skills. If you are an aspiring poker player and looking for the best methods to learn the game, you have reached the right place.

Here are some of the fastest ways to learn poker quickly:

Start Playing

Create an account on an online gaming website for free and play on practice tables without investing any real money to experience the competitive environment of a gaming table. Playing on your own is a great way to learn how to develop and implement strategies as per the situation on the table. You can also play offline with your family members and friends. Once earning proper knowledge, skills, and experience, you can move on to play cash games and tournaments with real money.

Learning tools

Players can learn poker language, hand ranking, bad beats, and other poker concepts through poker strategy books, blogs, and discussion forums. There is a lot you can learn from video tutorials. There are some great poker training videos available online of poker pros which allow the newbies to learn how to play with specific hands and how to make a move in certain situations. You can also watch the live streaming or recording of hands played by top professionals in high stake poker tournaments such as WPT or WSOP.

Join poker community

Join online or offline poker communities to get in touch with other poker enthusiasts. You can create a group on Facebook, Whatsapp, or other social networking websites to discuss or share your experiences, insights, and concerns about the game. You can also choose an offline poker community to meet other like-minded players and get valuable tips about playing poker.

Practice

Learning the basic principles of the game is not enough. You need to spend time and efforts to master the game. The more you play, the more you get the opportunity to find out your weakness and strengths. Irrespective of wins and losses, play regularly as your aim should be to earn experience and knowledge to improve your gameplay. Poker is the game of strategy, discipline, and patience. You need to develop such skills through practice to survive and make profits in the game of poker for a long time.

Find a Mentor

You can also hire a coach who can teach you poker strategies. A mentor can help you identify your potential and find out the leaks in your game. You can learn a lot about how to play starting hands, calculate pot odds, and take advantage of the position from experienced poker players.

The most important things required to learn poker quickly are dedication, determination, and discipline. If you want to become a winning poker player, you need to consistently improve your game through training and practice. Always play within limits. NEVER try to play each and every hand. Always track your hand results and check your session statistics to identify the weak spots in your game and fix them permanently.

 

How Poker is Similar to Football

World Cup 2018 is just a few days away and football fans around the world are pumped to see their favorite football players back in action.

Poker and football are two of the craziest but highly entertaining games in the world. Comparing football with a game of cards may sound hilarious, but if you delve a little deeper, you will discover that both of these games have a number of characteristics in common.

Before talking about similarities, let’s see the differences.

Football is an outdoor team based sport. It requires lots of stamina and physical strength. You can play with your friends but big tournaments are not accessible for you as you cannot play with star players if you don’t have required skills and experience.

Poker is one of the most fascinating mind games in the world. Poker is an indoor sport, you can play it live in casinos and live poker room or on online gaming platforms. More than physical strength, it requires mental toughness, concentration, and emotional stability. You can enter in any national or international cash game or tournament if you can afford the buy-in, regardless of you are a pro or an amateur player.

Poker has always been popular with football legends i.e. Neymar Jr., Cristiano Ronaldo, Gianluigi Buffon, Teddy, Sheringham, Andriy Shevchenko, Francesco Totti, Toni Cascarino, etc who are in love with this game.

Now let’s take a closer look at what football has in common with poker.

Minimum equipment

Football requires only a ball and a ground. Playing poker requires minimum two players and a deck of cards.

Focus

A football player needs to be alert all the time. A goalkeeper has to stay focused to protect the goalpost. A poker player has to keep a close eye on the happenings on the table to find out relevant information about opponent’s hand strength and make better decisions about whether to bet more money, call, or fold the cards.

Easy to Learn

Poker and football, both are exhilarating sports. Regardless of you are a participant or just a spectator, the entertainment value of these sports is way higher than any other games. There are some well-defined set of rules which a player needs to follow in these games. Other than that, the game play is not too complex and any person can learn how to play easily.

Unpredictable

A poor player can beat highly skilled and experienced opponents on any given day on a poker table. The greatest football players many times find themselves unable to score a goal and save their team from defeat. Both are games of ups and downs and no one can predict with 100% guarantee the outcome of a match before it ends.

Finding weak spots

In poker, you have to spot a tell to read opponent’s game-play and develop a strategy against him. In football, you have to read the moves of the opponents to identify the weak spots in opponent’s team coordination and techniques.

Tense Environment

Both games require discipline, dedication, and emotion control. In a football field, players have to deal with tension and anxiety in high-pressure situations. On a poker table, players have to take risks by putting their hard-earned money as a bet.

Practice

It is important to consistently improve the skills and knowledge through training and practice in both games. A player must enhance his abilities to become stronger and better than his opponents on a poker table as well as a football field.

Popularity

Football and poker both are phenomenally popular around the world and fans are obsessed with these sports. Some players considered them as a way of life.

Football and poker both are immensely captivating and rewarding games. The ultimate goal of both of these amazing games is not only to defeat opponents and make money, but also to spend some quality time, meet great people, and enjoy the unlimited thrill and excitement.

How to Read The Hand Strength of Your Opponent

Poker is a psychological game and winning in the game requires making the right move at right time. A player needs to be keenly observant to make educated decisions on the basis of available information about his opponents. Reading hand strength is a skill which a player needs to master if he wants to improve his winning probabilities in the game.

It is not easy to spot a tell on a poker table where you need to compete against opponents of different skill set and experience, as most players know how to control their emotions and body language. Tell is the unintentional action or gesture of a player which can reveal important information about his cards. Spotting tells in an online poker game is more difficult than offline games as a player cannot see his opponents to analyze their behavior. It requires a keen eye to observe opponent playing style and tendencies to spot a tell and make judgement about the strength of opponent’s hand.

Experienced players deliberately give fake tells to mislead other players and give them wrong information about the strength of their cards. For ex.- The opponent will trick you to enter the pot and raise the bet by giving the impression that he has a weak hand. That is why it is important to identify honest tells before making your move.

Here are some important factors to pay attention to find out what cards your opponent is holding and his intended actions:

Type of opponent

Reading the opponent is a process which starts from the beginning of the hand. You need to observe your opponent’s actions on the table to get valuable insights about his card holding. Find out which type of player your opponent is (loose/tight/passive/aggressive). There are few questions you can ask yourself to find out which category your opponent fits in:

How often he raises?

How often he bluffs?

How often he folds to your raises or re-raises?

How often he check-raises?

How often he goes all-in?

A player is aggressive if he is betting and raising every other hand he plays. If he is playing hands but not betting or raising much, he is a passive player.

Bet Sizes

Observe your opponent’s bet sizes to find out the strength of his hand. His style of betting can give important information about whether he is holding a strong or a weak hand. If a player bets big, you can assume that he has good cards (or not, he just wants you to think that way!). It is also crucial to watch carefully how quickly your opponent bets. A good player knows how to deceive their opponents by not following the same betting pattern in every hand. But most players tend to overdo it which makes it easier to identify them.

Body Language

Pay attention to the body language and mannerism of your opponent. In an online game, you need to analyze opponent’s betting pattern and hand history to find out the tells. In a live game, the facial expressions and behavioral tendencies can give important information about their holdings. The most common physical tells are -shaking hands or legs, face tics, tense shoulders, heavy breathing, etc.  Keep in mind to not rely on tells completely to collect information as they can be misleading e.g. nervousness and excitement can be an indicator of an excellent hand or a bluff. Always make your decisions on the game table based on your experience and your ability to decipher clues hidden in opponent’s game play.

 

Why Poker is called skill based card Game

“I won a big cash reward by playing an online poker tournament”.

Am I lucky?

Or am I skilled enough to apply my knowledge and skills to eliminate my experienced opponents one-by-one and reach the final table to ultimately win the grand prize?

Poker is still a controversial game in India and this extremely enjoyable sport is still a taboo at some places due to general peoples’ perception that Poker is a game of chance.

Mathematicians, chess players, and poker pros around the world putting emphasis on the fact from many years that poker is a game of observation, calculations, analytics, and decision making skills. It is true that risk is involved in the game as you play with real money and a player can become extremely vulnerable on the table if the winning and losing start affecting him emotionally. That is why cautious game play with a rationale mindset is must to take best decisions in every situation. What differentiate poker from lottery or other card games is that it takes study and practice to master the game. Like any other sport, winning and losing is an essential part of poker. Luck can help you win one or two games, but in the long run, your skills are the primary determinant of success when you face tough competition on the table and have to relay completely on your instincts and strategies.

With the increase of popularity of online poker in India, more followers are showing interest to enter the world of poker, but are still in doubt about the nature of the game.

Here are some facts to prove that poker is a 100% skill-based game:

Experience Matters

Experience separates a good player from a bad player. It helps you understand and read your opponents’ behavior, their body language, and betting pattern to determine the value of their cards. It is important to analyse table image, stack sizes, position, hand range, etc before making a move on the table. As much time you spend in the game, as much you can improve your observation and decision making ability.You can read “tells”, catch bluffs, and adjust your tactics according to your opponent’s game play.

Knowledge Of The Game

To win a game in poker, it is necessary to have in-depth knowledge of the rules, regulations, and strategies. Poker is a complex game and you cannot expect to learn each and every aspect of it by just reading books or watching tutorial videos. It requires practical knowledge to ensure defeating opponents and winning the pot. There is no player in the world who never made any mistake on the table. But instead of blaming your luck, you can track the reasons of the mistake and get rid of that reason to ensure not to make same mistake in the future. Practice is the key to improve your chances to maximize your profits in poker.

Knowledge of Mathematics

Mathematical concepts need to be implemented on table to ensure taking best decisions in a given situation. It is the prerequisite of the game to observe and analysis strength of cards, bets, tables stakes, opponent’s chips and decide the right move based on this calculation. The understanding of statistics and probability helps the player to calculate the odds and make flexible strategies depending on the situation. You can check past records of your opponent and find out his playing style (loose, tight). Most importantly, you can only create a game play in no time if you are able to analyse the situation and find out the best way to deal with it.

Poker is a profession

Only your skills, knowledge, and hard work can help you pursue a field as a career. Professional poker players around the world are earning their livelihood by playing poker online or offline. Like any other occupation, poker requires certain expertise to beat experienced opponents and win the pot. Poker is primary source of income for some players who participate in poker events throughout the year and play against the best players in the world to earn the prize. Dedication, patience, and continuous efforts are necessary to play poker and make good money.