Puggy Pearson Quotes

Cigar-chomping Puggy Pearson was a gambling legend. Born dirt poor and with only an eighth-grade education (“that’s about equivalent to a third grade education today,” he quipped), Pearson amassed an impressive record: he won the World Series of Poker in 1973, was once one of the top ten pool players in the world, and managed to take a golf pro for $7,000—on the links. How did he do it? Puggy explained, “Ain’t only three things to gambling: Knowin’ the 60-40 end of a proposition, money management, and knowin’ yourself.” For good measure, he added, “Any donkey knows that.”1

As Puggy Pearson once said, “Everything’s mental in life.”2