Party Poker Blog

Damn, that Johnny Hughes just keeps em coming.

Thanks, Sir!

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Poker and Old Sayings

by Johnny Hughes

I have collected these old poker sayings and Texas folklore sayings for decades. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think these are the major strength of my writing and novel.

What always really got me about the oldest gamblers was the perfect topicality or timing. A guy would lose a big pot and come with some old saying, "My tits are sore now. Dunk your head, we are going through a tunnel."

When someone tries table talk, folks answer with old sayings such as, "I can't be stooling off my hand." or snitching off my hand.

If I have the nuts and bet into a player, I watch silently, at first. If he looks as if he is about to fold or he picks up his cards, I start the old sayings, trying to sell a call. "Let me have this one, we'll let you have the next one."

When you sit down next to a stranger, especially a woman, you say, "Let's play along slow until I get something."

When someone raises, you say, "Hey, if I wanted that pot raised, I'd of raised it myself."

When someone plays loose, you say, "He has the raising shits." or "He parked his horse in a red ant bed."

"I could get rich playing your discards."

There were a few I never understood. When someone bet, the old gamblers would say, "I thought he said a match."

"He's so stuck, he'll play ole blocky." Ole Blocky is six-three but nobody that I know knows why.

My absolute life-directing favorite is, "Whichever way your luck is running, it is bound to change."

"I'm up and down like a Yo-Yo. My bankroll looks like an elephant stepped on it. Chicken in the pot one day, feathers the next."

"If I tell you a hen dips snuff, look under her wing and you will find a can."

"He'd steal a hot stove or lay down beside it and claim it."

"He used to be loose as a goose but now he's tighter than Dick's hat band." "Tighter than Broomcorn's Uncle."

"Stick with me, you'll be farting through silk."

"You look good in cheap cloths." or hot cloths.

"He carries a baggie in his pocket where he can steal soup."

"You may win yourselves rich, boys, but you'll never break me."

If someone compliments your hat, watch, etc. come right back, "It's for sale." Ask three times what you paid for it. It works around poker and poker drunk winners.

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Yikes, that last bit is kinda funny in that I ended up with Matty's new shoes after a poker game in Chicago. He just sent me this email after our NYC hijinks.

Losing shoes in a poker game only to win them back in paper-rock-scissors is 11th level funny.

Mash

Joaquin put up a little NYC post.

I'm back from a weekend of utter debauchery and great fun with some poker blogging brethren in New York City. I'm among the walking wounded, suffice to say.

Words can't do it justice, per usual. A huge thanks to my NYC friends for taking care of us out-of-towners. As I've often said, the best part of this humble poker blog is the friendships I've been lucky enough to find through it.

I'll be back to our regularly scheduled poker blogging in a few. My liver just needs a day or two of recovery.