I don’t think poker is a sport. It’s the greatest game in the world, but it’s not a sport. The Olympics is the place for sports without leagues. Poker has its own place.

Howard Lederer – 02/2010 – in ESPN Poker

I think games with variance built into them are so much better than games with no variance modifier. In chess there is always an optimum move. In the same way poker has an optimum move or decision as well, but its often much much harder to see that or even think about that correct decision as there is so much fluctuation that its tough to tell if that move is correct. To learn by trail and error is incredibly time consuming in poker and takes years to master a game. [...]
But its this variance that creates the illusion to people that they are winning poker players. Its this variance that has given action and made millions of dollars for me over the years.

Brian Townsend – 02/2010 – in CardRunners Blog

Perhaps the current trend of many chess professionals taking up the more lucrative pastime of poker is not a wholly negative one. It may not be too late for humans to relearn how to take risks in order to innovate and thereby maintain the advanced lifestyles we enjoy. And if it takes a poker-playing supercomputer to remind us that we can’t enjoy the rewards without taking the risks, so be it.

Garry Kasparov – 02/2010 – in The New York Review of Books

The average poker player plays the game because it’s usually enjoyable, interesting, and highly social. The vast majority of players, even those who attend the WSOP, are not professionals. They know upon arrival, they’re the underdogs. That said, I believe what makes playing in the WSOP special is the fierce competition, the potential for fame and glory, and certainly life-altering prize money. But more than anything else, it is about being part of the experience. In what other competition do 90 percent of the participants leave and end up losing up to $10,000 in a single tournament, yet they almost always vow to come back and try again next year?
Think about it. Would anyone in any other activity say they enjoyed an experience that left them ten-grand poorer? Can you picture walking up to a blackjack table, losing $10,000 and then saying – I can’t wait to go back? Imagine walking into a retail store, forking over $10,000 and then leaving out the door with absolutely nothing. Most people would depart with regret and anger. Yet in the decade I have been working the WSOP, I have never once heard a player say he or she regretted playing and sworn not to return to the WSOP the following year. This alone says something about what is really important at the WSOP. It’s not the money. It’s the experience.

Nolan Dalla – 02/2010 – in WSOP News

The worst thing about being a professional poker player is definitely that, if I win, say, $10,000, then the feeling doesn’t nearly compare to losing $10,000. Sometimes I feel you get way more deflation than happiness playing poker.

Rasmus Nielsen – 11/2009 – in Bluff Europe

Poker, like life itself, is flexible, supple, elastic, constantly in a state of change, and nearly organic. It’s always shifting, however slight and imperceptive that shift may be, until it morphs into something you would probably not recognize if you stayed away from it for a while.

Lou Krieger

Poker is 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.

John Lukacs – 1963 – in Poker and the American Character

Deep down inside, poker is what I do, and it’s what I live for, so if I knew I wouldn’t be able to win another poker tournament again, I would quit and my life would have no meaning anymore.

Annette Obrestad – 11/2009 – In PokerNews

Does poker rule your life? Or does it exist in the context of a conscious, well-balanced, self-aware existence? It may surprise you to learn that the less obsessive you are about poker, the better your game will be. Why? Because if poker is all you have going on in your life — if getting that money is the only thing that matters to you — you’ll be so hooked on outcome, and so dependent on a positive outcome, that the pressure of performance will cripple you.

John Vorhaus – 07/2009 – in CardPlayer

In poker, one must have courage: the courage to bet, to back one’s convictions, one’s intuitions, one’s understanding. There can be no victory without courage. The successful player must be willing to wager on likelihoods. Should he wait for absolutely risk-free certainty, he will win nothing, regardless of the cards he is dealt.

David Mamet – 09/2005 – in Los Angeles Times