1. Best Poker Quotes
2. Best Training Day Quotes

It’s from the movie “Training Day” starting Denzel Washington. Training Day is a movie that comes straight from the streets it depicts a product of the match up between screenwriter David Ayer, who grew up in South Central Los Angeles, and director Antoine Fuqua, who grew up on the rough side of Pittsburgh.

This week, on The Ten, we’re taking a look at some of the best things ever said around a card table.

Take a look and let us know if you agree with our rankings. If you don’t, tell us which one of your favorite quotes we forgot to include.

10. There is more to poker than life. — Tom McEvoy

Wait. Go back and read that quote again. Chances are, you read it wrong the first time around. Too often, poker players get it backwards and allow the game to completely take over their lives. Here Tom McEvoy, four-time bracelet winner and 1983 WSOP main event winner, ironically captures the mindset of the average poker player.

9. Limit poker is a science, but no-limit is an art. In limit, you are shooting at a target. In no-limit, the target comes alive and shoots back at you. — Crandell Addington

The quote would have made more sense coming from a young online pro, not Crandell Addington, a guy who competed with the greats during a time when no-limit poker was rarely played. Addington finished second in the WSOP main event twice and final tabled that tournament seven times in the 1970s, making his quote look even more prophetic.

8. It’s not whether you won or lost, but how many bad beat stories you were able to tell. — Grantland Rice

Best Poker Quotes

The great Grantland Rice was an American sportswriter who passed away in 1954. But even back then, Rice was able to nail the true appeal of the game. The truth is that the majority of us won’t get rich playing poker. In fact, we’ll probably wind up losing everything we brought to the table in the first place, but at least we’ll be left with a story or two.

7. Trust everyone, but always cut the cards. — Benny Binion

Benny Binion was a true Las Vegas visionary who is credited with the formation of the World Series of Poker back in 1970. This is also a man who was once accused of killing a competitor and then turning the gun on himself in order to claim self defense. Amarillo Slim Preston, who you’ll hear from in the next quote, once called Binion “either the gentlest bad guy or the baddest good guy you’d ever seen.”

6. You can shear a sheep a hundred times, but you can skin it only once. — Amarillo Slim Preston

This was the quote that preceded “don’t tap the glass.” Amarillo Slim knew that it wasn’t enough to beat a man out of his money, you had to find a way to make him come back for more.

5. Poker is a lot like sex. Everyone thinks they are the best, but most don’t have a clue what they are doing. — Dutch Boyd

What Dutch Boyd gets correct here is that most poker players are a bit delusional about their abilities. Ask a table full of average $1-$2 no-limit hold’em players who is a winning player, and somehow, all will raise their hand. They’re not lying to you, they just don’t want to face the truth. It’s really easy to forget five losing sessions and focus on the one winning session you just had.

4. If there weren’t luck involved, I would win every time. — Phil Hellmuth

Phil Hellmuth is a poker quote machine. Who could forget when he channeled his inner-Neo to say that he could dodge bullets? Still, it’s hard to ignore the poignancy of this quote. Luck is the ultimate equalizer in poker. It’s the reason why Phil Ivey doesn’t win every tournament he enters, and it’s the reason why someone like you, an average reader, can take down the main event.

3. If you can’t spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker. — Matt Damon in Rounders

This quote has been said by many people in many different ways, but for a lot of us, it’s the reason why we got into poker in the first place. Rounders fascinated us and Matt Damon’s portrayal of up-and-comer Mike McDermott had us all believing that we were the next Johnny Chan.

2. Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser — Stu Ungar

Here you have just ten words, but they are ten words that say everything you need to know about the late, great Stu Ungar. The three-time WSOP main event winner despised losing and never took it well. That being said, he didn’t exactly take winning well either and overdosed just over a year after earning his fifth and final bracelet.

1. Money won is twice as sweet as money earned. — Paul Newman in The Color of Money

If you haven’t seen the The Color of Money, you are missing out. It’s not a poker movie. Frankly, it’s not even about cards, but the quote above says it all. We’d all like to work hard and make a decent living, but the reality is that it’s way more fun to get rich “the easy way.” Of course, it’s been said that poker is hard way to earn an easy living.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/TrainingDay

Go To

Best Training Day Quotes

Training Day is a Neo Noir crime film from 2001 directed by Antoine Fuqua and starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke.

The film focuses on young and naive LAPD officer Jake Hoyt (Hawke) undergoing a single day evaluation by renowned and respected narcotics officer Alonzo Harris (Washington). Alonzo lets Hoyt step into his 'office' (car) and takes him for a 24-hour ridethrough the drug neighborhoods and gang territories of South Los Angeles. Hoyt soon is exposed to the darker side of police duty as he realizes Alonzo's methods make him not so different from the criminals he pursues.

Denzel Washington won the Best Actor Academy Award—making him only the second black man ever to win the award, the first being Sidney Poitier for Lilies of the Field. Ethan Hawke was nominated as Supporting Actor.

A TV series which serves as a sequel to the movie premiered on CBS on February 2, 2017. It takes place fifteen years after the movie.

Tropes used in this film:

• Affably Evil:
  • Roger, Alonzo's drug contact, is really friendly and genial, and is in fact a long time friend of Alonzo. In fact, Jake's opinion of Alonzo sours completely when Alonzo kills Roger, and takes his money. Alonzo justifies himself by pointing out to Jake that however friendly he was with Roger, he was still a feared drug lord.
  • The Latino Gang Bangers that Alonzo and Jake visit that were hired by Alonzo to get rid of Jake. They play cards with Jake, and though it's a Batman Gambit, the latter decides to let him go for saving his cousin earlier in the film, revealing that it was Nothing Personal.
• Arc Words:
  • 'Do you wanna go to jail or do you wanna go home?'

  Advertisement:

  • Also, 'It's not what you know, it's what you can prove.'
  • Alonzo's wolf and sheep analogy.
• Artistic License – Gun Safety: When the Russians kill Alonzo with a hail of bullets, one of their own is in the car right behind Alonzo.
• Asshole Victim: At the end of the movie, Alonzo himself is killed by the Russian hitmen for killing one of their couriers and not paying up on time.
• Bad Boss: Alonzo is this to his subordinates and the neighborhoods he operates in. This makes them abandon his ass when the chips are down.
• Batman Gambit:
  • Alonzo's whole master plan doesn't begin, until after he convinces Jake to take drugs - which he would later use for leverage against him. He also notices that Hoyt has a bad need to impress and uses it for all it's worth.
  • Smiley and his friends talk Jake into showing them his gun. After he takes out all the bullets, then they make their intention to kill him known.
• Big Bad: Alonzo Harris.
• Black Comedy:
  • Alonzo forces Jake at gunpoint to take a hit of marijuana near the beginning of the film. Jake later has a Mushroom Samba episode, when he finds out that it was laced with PCP. Jake immediately regrets taking it, while Alonzo deadpans, 'You're an adult, you're responsible for your own actions. Ain't like I put a gun to your head'.
  • After Alonzo robs the girlfriend of a drug lord, her angry tirade alerts the drug lord's men to shoot at the officers. Alonzo tries to start the car quickly, but they manage to shoot the back window. Alonzo is visibly annoyed since he took a great deal of pride in what is a very nice car and immediately steps out to return fire.
  • The scene where Jake shoots Alonzo in the buttocks while he attempts to grab a gun.
• Book-Ends: Near the beginning of the film, Alonzo and Jake cut-off a bunch of college kids who bought some marijuana. This move is also used against Alonzo in the end of the film, when The Mafiya cut him off and execute him with prejudice.
• Bowdlerize: From the trailer: 'King Kong ain't got NOTHING on me!'
• Broken Pedestal: Alonzo is this to Jake.
• Bulletproof Vest: Subverted, as one of Alonzo's partners takes a bullet to the vest that pierces it and wounds him.
• Bullets Do Not Work That Way: The result of a shootout after 'searching' a house in the ghetto is a back window with a few bullet holes. There is no visible damage done to the vehicle anywhere else, or to the occupants who should have been included in their trajectory.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: The 'snail joke' that Roger tells Jake has shades of this.
• Chekhov's Gun: The wallet Jake picks up after preventing the young girl from being raped turns out to be very handy when Alonzo abandons him in a house with three dangerous Gang Bangers, the leader of whom turns out to be the girl's cousin.
• Chekhov's Gunman: The actual girl. When she shouts at the attempted rapists about how her cousins would fuck them up, she wasn't kidding.
• The Chessmaster: Alonzo put a lot of effort into getting the Mafiya off his back.
  Jake: 'You've been planning this all day?'
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Alonzo.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: The rather eccentric Sniper comes across this way. But it's soon apparent he's nowhere near harmless.
• Cluster F-Bomb: 211 uses of the word throughout the film.
• Contrived Coincidence: One of the gangsters Alonzo assigns to kill Jake just happens to be related to the girl Jake saved from rapists in a random encounter earlier in the movie.
• Cool Car: Alonzo's 1979 Chevy Monte Carlo, complete with hydraulics.
• The Corrupter: Virtually every police officer is corrupt and not at all shy about extortion, robbery and murder. The DA's team is not that much better.
• Cowboy Cop: Alonzo Harris is one of the rare truly villainous examples. He's long become more extreme than even the gangsters he fights, but the reason he's kept around by his superiors (the three wise men) despite his personal corruption is that he catches a lot of bad guys. Alonzo himself claims he is only going after the big fish in the drug trade; he has 38 cases pending trial, 63 active investigations, 350 log cases he has yet to clear, and is supervising five other officers besides Hoyt.
• Dirty Cop: Alonzo's modus operandi. Observe the scene in which he roughs up Snoop Dogg's character. Later, he casually boasts that he was the one who put Snoop Dogg in a wheelchair. The entire day turns out to be a result of Alonzo's dirty ways, specifically how his attempts at ripping off the Russian Mafiya went bad and he has until the end of the day to make good or be killed.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Smiley is very protective of his cousin, and gives off Big Brother Instinct when it comes to her... which is why he refuses to kill Jake when he learns that he saved her from a couple of rapists earlier that day.
• Even Evil Has Standards: This is how Smiley, the gang banger that Alonzo hires to kill Jake, feels about Alonzo. And it may be this higher standard that leads him to spare Jake.
  Moreno: Alonzo is a low-down, ruthless vato, eh, but I like that, homes. I like that.
  Smiley: No, that's why I never shake his hand, homes. He don't respect nada.
  • Even Alonzo gets a moment of human compassion when he encounters two would-be rapists, even though he wouldn't have stepped in if Hoyt hadn't gone back to save the girl.
  • Also, it's never made clear if the residents of The Jungle are all convicted felons or if they're just scared of what would happen if they stepped out of line, but in the end, Bone defends Jake as he walks away with Alonzo yelling for him to come back.
• Evil Is Petty: After Alonzo refuses to book in the crackheads/attempted rapists, he spends two minutes harassing and torturing one of them for calling him a 'bitch' and telling him to 'suck [his] dick.'
• Evil Mentor: Alonzo tries to groom Jake into becoming a Dirty Cop. When Alonzo fails to corrupt Jake, who's willing to stick to his principles, he ultimately sets him up to be killed by a bunch of gangsters.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The entire movie takes place over about 12 hours.
• Fatal Flaw: For Alonzo, Wrath. Despite usually been smooth and calculating, his temper often gets the better of him. His killing of a courier for the Mafiya in Las Vegas is that gets him in trouble, and serves the backbone for the movie's plot. One could argue, Lust as well, since Jake accurately deduces that he would be at his mistress' home, after abandoning Jake to be killed by gangsters.
• Faux Affably Evil: Alonzo. The DVD synopsis even calls him 'twisted but charismatic.'
• Flat 'What': Alonzo gives this when Bone walks back to grab his gun, and tells Jake he's free to go, and what he'll take care of things from here, holding Alonzo at gunpoint.
• Forced Friendly Fire: Jake is trying to bring Alonzo (who's currently unarmed) to justice. But as he's climbing over a railing, Alonzo gets the drop on him and causes Jake's gun to be discharged into the local projects (the Jungle), thereby turning the confrontation into a fist fight. This act was probably the final straw for the disillusioned people living on that street, considering Alonzo's history of using them for his own needs.
• Foreshadowing: Two of the first three jobs Alonzo does with Jake involve him stealing money from someone. The next 'arrest' turns out to be an excuse to kill a dealer and take his money. Not only that, but Alonzo is in desperate need of money to keep the Russian mob from killing him.
  • When driving through the projects to the house of Alonzo's mistress, Alonzo warns Jake to never come there without him and his protection. Jake ends up going there alone, though Alonzo's subordinates let him through without issue when they realize he's come to take him down.
• Frame-Up: Alonzo and the other Narcotics officers discuss how to do this after Roger is killed.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: All of Alonzo's subordinates dislike being around him.
• Gang Bangers: Specifically those in The Jungle and the house that Alonzo drops Jake off at near the end.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Late in the film, audiences are treated to an odd visual of a police officer (Jake) playing cards with a trio of gangsters.
• Good Is Not Nice: Jake Hoyt and the other cops of the LAPD. Being policemen doesn't mean they will be nice people.
• Good Is Not Soft: Jake Hoyt. As shown as early as when he prevents two drug-addicts from raping a teenage girl. Alonzo even notes that he applied an illegal chokehold on one of them, and applauds him for it. Later during his final confrontation with Alonzo, he beats him up, holds him at gunpoint, and shoots him in the buttocks, after Alonzo hired three Gang Bangers to kill him.
• Groin Attack: Alonzo does this to the crackhead who said “suck my dick bitch” and boy did it look PAINFUL, but considering he tried to rape a teenage girl?? It’s hard to feel sorry for him.
• Guns Akimbo: Alonzo combines this with Gangsta Style.
• He Who Fights Monsters: A central premise of the film. In order to survive in the world of gangsters, the cops have to act more like gangsters. Alonzo and his crew have, at some point, become actual gangsters.
• If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten: Alonzo makes Jake smoke pipe PCP to prove that he's fully committed to do whatever it takes to survive on the street. In reality, Alonzo is making sure that Jake can't testify against him later without failing a drugs test and getting fired.
• I Have a Family: Jake shouts this out when he is confronted with three Gang Bangers holding a shotgun to his face. It doesn't work by itself, but it does motivate them to check out whether he's telling the truth about his Chekhov's Gun.
• Insanity Defense: Mentioned by one of the three wise men when he recaps to Alonzo how an off-screen criminal recently got off this way by pulling a stunt in court that made him seem mentally unsound.
• Insignia Rip-Off Ritual: Jake takes Alonzo's badge, saying, 'You don't deserve this.'
• I Own This Town: Alonzo feels this way about The Jungle. The Jungle doesn't feel the same way though.
• Ironic Echo:
  • Alonzo tells Jake that if he doesn't start getting with the program, he could end up in the news as a dead cop who died in the line of duty, leaving behind his wife and kid. After Alonzo dies, this is what the TV report says about him.
  • Also, Alonzo loved to say 'Do you want to go to jail, or do you want to go home' to the people he would harsh. In the end,Jake repeated the same line to Alonzo after he took the stolen money from him. More subtly, after using the line with most of the criminals he and Jake encounter, we then hear him say it to fellow cops as they plot to cover up a murder.
  • Jake and Alonzo argue over 'street justice' when the latter doesn't even attempt to take in the attempted rapists of a high-school girl, and himself notes that they'll probably be killed by the gangsters she's related to. Alonzo even says that they hope that the 'scum sort each out', as it gives the LAPD less work to deal with. It seems out of all the lessons Alonzo taught him, Jake took this one to heart, as by the end, Jake has Alonzo at gunpoint - the latter as much a scumbag as those he fights, when a Gang Banger assures him that they'll deal with him, and he can leave. Jake complies, leaving him to 'street justice'.
• It's All About Me: Alonzo thinks that just because he's a policeman, he can do whatever he wants and whatever he pleases.
• Jerkass: Alonzo is a rather nasty person who often enjoy roughing up his suspects when he wants to.
• Kick the Dog: Alonzo makes a habit of doing this.
• Knight Templar: Alonzo.
• Large Ham:
  • Alonzo turns his scenery chewing on and off according to his needs.
  • Also the Gang Bangers, homes.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Alonzo leaves Jake to die at the hands of Smiley and his cronies, but Jake manages to get out alive. Following this, Jake not only takes Alonzo's badge, but the money he needs to pay off the Russians.
  • It goes even further because Smiley and the gangbangers Alonzo enlists to kill Jake end up sparing him because the girl he saved from getting raped earlier in the movie was Smiley's cousin. (Something Alonzo didn't seem interested in doing and didn't bother helping Jake to stop)
• Let Me Tell You a Story: Alonzo's friend Roger decides to tell Jake a joke. He tells him about a snail that gets thrown off some guy's porch into the backyard and nearly dies. After about a year, the man encounters the snail on his porch again, and asks it 'What the fuck's your problem!?' Jake laughs until he sees Roger and Alonzo's serious expressions and realize that it isn't a joke at all. Roger tells him that when he figures the joke out, he'll figure the streets out^note .
• The Mafiya: Alonzo is in big with them for attacking and killing an important member of theirs in Las Vegas, and is given until midnight on Tuesday to come up with a million dollars or he will be executed.
• Make It Look Like a Struggle: Roger's murder is disguised as the result of a shootout during a drug raid. Alonzo shoots another officer in his bulletproof vest^note using a 'throw down' gun which he places in the hands of Roger's corpse.
• Man Behind the Man: The Three Wise Men are corrupt members of law enforcement who pull the strings of the underworld.
• Manipulative Bastard: Alonzo.
• The Mistress: Sara is Alonzo's.
• Mushroom Samba: After Jake takes the marijuana laced with PCP, he gets one of these.
• Naïve Newcomer: The majority of this movie concerns Jake's relation to Alonzo as this.
• Noble Demon: Smiley is a notorious criminal (we don't know what precisely his crimes are though) hired by Alonzo to kill Jake. However he decides to spare him when he finds out Jake saved his young cousin from being raped. Also the fact that, as he says, he dislikes Alonzo just as Jake since he (Alonzo) 'don't respect nada' implies that Smiley might have some sort of code of honor.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Alonzo delivers a pretty vicious one to Jake in their final fight.
• Not So Different: More than one character remarks that Alonzo was just like Jake when he was starting out and was equally idealistic about using his position to save the day.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Moreno, one of Smiley's cohorts, comes off as very laid-back, but no less dangerous. In fact, he smashes a beer bottle over Jake's head when the latter tries to escape the house.
• Nothing Personal: Smiley says this after he spares Jake's life. In this case, it really isn't; Smiley hates the guy who ordered the hit a lot more than the actual victim, towards whom he harbors no particular ill will beyond a general dislike of cops. It's when the target makes it personal that his life is spared—Smiley has to show his gratitude to the guy who rescued his little cousin from a pair of rapists on the street, and sticking it to Alonzo is an added bonus.
• Oh No You Didn't!: Alonzo says this before his Villainous Breakdown at the end.
• One Last Smoke: Alonzo lights up a cigarette before being shot by Jake... in the ass. One scene later, he's killed by The Mafiya.
• Pet the Dog: After Jake saves the girl from the rapists, Alonzo seems impressed, to the point where he tells a sullen Jake that he did good.
• Punch-Clock Villain: The three Gang Bangers, especially Smiley. It's pretty clear they don't really want to kill Jake, even if he hadn't saved Smiley's little cousin's life, and it's also obvious they don't like Alonzo very much.
• Rabid Cop: Alonzo.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Played straight with Jake and averted with Alonzo as far as their attitudes.
• Retirony: During his first appearance, Alonzo's long time drug contact and friend, Roger, talks about how he plans to retire from the drug dealing business and live the easy life on a beach. He is later setup and killed by Alonzo for the stash of money he was saving for his retirement. Can also count as Death by Irony, since like the joke he told about the snail, he was very close to fulfilling his dream, only to have it taken from him. But unlike the snail, he doesn't get to recover and try again.
• Reality Is Unrealistic: When the movie came out, many viewers and critics were skeptical of the scenes where Jake Hoyt smokes marijuana laced with PCP and Alonzo's explanation of how a cop who didn't take drugs offered to him on the street would be ID'd as police and murdered. David Ayer responded in an interview by holding up a highlighted section of the LAPD's rules and regulations; it stated that officers were allowed to use narcotics in very specific undercover situations, and hewed closely to what Alonzo told Jake.
• Revised Ending: An alternate ending had Jake getting a visit from The Three Wise Men.
• Rooftop Confrontation: The final showdown between Alonzo and Jake occurs on the rooftop of the former's apartment.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Jake ends up refusing $250,000 which does not make him popular with the other narcotics officers.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Alonzo thinks he's above the law because he works for the Three Wise Men, who are corrupt cops in high-ranking positions. It's through them that Alonzo gets permission to rob and kill his long time drug contact. However, the alternate ending revealed that it was the Three Wise Men who sent Hoyt to make sure Alonzo didn't pay off the Russians.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Alonzo more or less quotes the trope near the end of the film.
• Secret Test of Character: Jake initially interprets some of Alonzo's requests of him as such, when in fact they are nothing of the sort.
• Shot in the Ass: Jake shoots Alonzo in the buttocks to prevent him from picking up his pistol.
  Alonzo: Ooh, you motherfucker! You son of a bitch! You shot me in the ass!
• Sink-or-Swim Mentor: Alonzo, who starts slowly but amps it up until he's strong-arming Hoyt into killing and robbing Roger.
• Sliding Scale of Law Enforcement: Hoyt is definitely much closer to the positive end than Alonzo, given his unwillingness to stop dealing with individual crimes and look at the big picture.
• Smoky Gentlemen's Club: The smoky establishment where Alonzo goes to meet the Three Wise Men, the secret power players behind law enforcement, is implied to be one of these.
• Spanner in the Works: Jake effectively screws Alonzo's plot to get away from The Mafiya, in the most ironic way possible.
• Take a Third Option: Towards the end of the film, Hoyt corners Alonzo, and can either kill him, or take him in with no evidence, ruining his own career. He reaches out and takes Alonzo's badge. And the money he needs to pay off the Mafiya.
• There Are Two Kinds of People in the World: According to Alonzo, it's wolves and sheep. An obvious third option would be 'sheepdog,' which police often use as a metaphor for their profession, but it's never brought up, lampshading Alonzo's idea of justice as being a bigger, badder 'wolf'.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The Russian Mafia knows how to get the job done. The parallels to The Godfather are not without reason.
• Title Drop:
  Alonzo Harris: Today is a Training Day, Officer Hoyt.
• Took a Level in Badass: By the end of the film, its pretty apparent that Jake took one.
• Training from Hell: Alonzo makes Hoyt do all kinds of shit, including participating in an armed robbery and smoke PCP-laced marijuana at gunpoint...in his first day as a narc.
• Trickster Mentor: Alonzo masquerades as this.
• Villainous Breakdown: Alonzo himself at the end.
• Wham Shot: A doozy. Jake looks out the window to see Alonzo's car gone. He instantly realizes that Alonzo has left him there to be killed.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Some of Alonzo's actions can be interpreted this way. Others, not so much. He's a veteran police officer with a very high success rate on closing cases and is working a staggering number of them at any one time while supervising multiple younger officers, but his methods are generally brutal and extralegal. Others, such as his murder of a drug dealer friend of his so he can steal his money or putting out a hit on the main character to keep him from talking, not so much.
• Wrong Side of the Tracks: Jake comments that the police usually don't enter The Jungle with anything less than a platoon. This is true in Real Life as well: the neighborhood they enter is avoided by the LAPD as effectively un-police-able. Antoine Fuqua specifically approached the gangs to get permission to film there, as the city effectively has no authority there.
• You Wouldn't Shoot Me: In the climax, Alonzo taunts Jake as the latter holds him at gunpoint, calling his bluff on shooting a police officer, even going as far as turning around and walking to grab the gun of a Gang Banger laid on the ground to shoot him. He finds out the hard way that Jake would shoot him. In the ass. He even warns him what would happen if he tries a stunt like that again.
• Your Cheating Heart: Alonzo has 4 kids with his wife, and at least one more with Sara.