Professional Poker Quotes

It wasn't a popular thing to be a professional poker player in the '80s.

I've talked a lot with Greg Raymer and Joe Hachem. Being on Team PokerStars with them has helped me out quite a bit. I've traveled around Europe playing with them. I've also talked with Robert Williamson here and there and Jim Worth. So I've had some good people to talk to and bounce ideas off of.

I have been on TV quite a few times as a poker player.

I met my boyfriend, a pro poker player, at a tournament. He tried to dissuade me because it's a seedy gritty world. Listen, I've played till 4 in the morning. I've played with a half million dollars on the table.

I was the youngest world champion in history when I won the WSOP in 1989 at age 24.

Some people know me as the bad boy of professional poker and call me The Poker Brat. Sometimes I deserve that nickname, but not always.

Everybody knows the World Series of Poker is the biggest stage in the world. This is where you make your name.

'Molly's Game' was a true story about a remarkable young woman named Molly Bloom. She was this close to going to the Olympics; she was ranked third in North America in women's moguls.

I'm just a poker player who does a bit of TV.

Prior to Box, I was a professional wiffleball player and then a professional poker player.

Many poker players swear by sleeping a certain number of hours before a tournament, going to the gym in the morning, and 'clearing the mind.' Juggling two jobs alongside my chosen game, I never have time and am invariably sending work emails from my iPhone between hands.

If you look at poker as a sport like baseball, then I'd be maybe a minor league or high school ballplayer. But I play with T-ballers.

The competition has improved tremendously. In 2003, I could teach a guy how to play poker in an hour and he could win some money. Today, it would take days. The game has gotten so much tougher. So I will spend my time with my family and play when I can.

But when I will call it a day, I could become a professional poker player.

Playing for money, or adopting the attitude of one who plays for money, lowers the fever.

I've been studying, playing, living, breathing poker for eight to nine hours a day. Every day! When I'm between events and in New York, I'm reading, watching videos or live-streaming very good players.

For five or six years, I didn't play in some of the good games leading up to the World Series of Poker, because with so many below-average players there, I reasoned it messed up my game.

One of the downsides of being a poker pro is that people see exactly how you play.

I never wanted poker to be a job. That's partly because I love it, and it's fun, and I didn't want it to stop being fun, and partly because, I suppose, something in me doesn't feel right about calling poker a job. It's not grown-up enough. But it's a hobby that takes up an enormous amount of my time.

But I want people to understand that poker's not all glamorous, it's not all being on TV and making tons of money. It's a hard life. It's a lot of travel. It's a lot of weird hours.