favourite poker themed movie..
Anyone have one other than rounders?
I've heard there is another poker movie coming out, but haven't found much info on it anywhere.
I saw on a forum somewhere that picked apart rounders with all the errors made from a poker viewpoint, wish I could find that too, but can't for the life of me.
I've heard there is another poker movie coming out, but haven't found much info on it anywhere.
I saw on a forum somewhere that picked apart rounders with all the errors made from a poker viewpoint, wish I could find that too, but can't for the life of me.
Comments
Also, I always hear the Cincinnati kid is good although I haven't seen it myself.
ScottyZ
yes on both counts.
I did see "A Big Hand for the Little Lady" and I thought it was terrible. Almost no poker content at all, and not intersting otherwise.
Plus, they are playing non-table stakes poker. How can you possibly take that remotely seriously?
Here is the optimal strategy for non-table stakes poker:
1. Have more money than every player
2. Play a game with some kind of ante or forced bet (as usual)
3. Move all-in every hand
Not exactly a game with rich strategic depth.
ScottyZ
ScottyZ
An excellent film, check it out.
Rounders is great.
"The Sting" has a poker scene, but it's more about cheating than playing.
"House of Games" opens with a poker scene, though it's not really a poker movie. More of a
"grifter" movie. Joe Montagna stars and he's pretty good, but the whole movie is, I'd say, uneven. There's kind of a funny twist to the poker scene, though, and I won't spoil it.
"American Buffalo" has a poker game during the credits, and references to the game throughout, but it's not about poker. Mainly just a vehicle for David Mamet to write a good rant for Dustin Hoffman. Which he does. The story is about a bunch of losers though.
BTW Scotty, I thought "Big Hand for the Little Lady" was hilarious!
I saw that in the hotel at a conference in Texas, and laughed my head off. After about 15 minutes I was saying to myself "If that was a real game there'd be blood on the floor already!" It *IS* pretty damn silly.
I think that's the point. Fonda was great.
I'll have to check out Cincinnatti Kid, everyone says it's the best poker movie
she remembered me laying awake in bed in the wee hours of the morning...it was on late night, and i laughed my a$$ off.
and i agree with scotts disappointment....rounders dvd having NO special features. oh wait, i'm sorry, there are special features afterall:
"interactive menus" and "scene selection"
i hate when dvd's list those...they're not special at all...default features if anything
Some poker beefs with the movie:
Jodie Foster's character tokes a dealer 1000 tournament chips. "Thank ya ma'am."
"Two small pair. Eights... and eights."
The penalty for being late returning from a break was disqualification--- maybe a little harsh. Nobody has heard of post & fold?
ScottyZ
Worse yet, try a DVD *without* scene selection. David Lynch's Mulholland Drive is a great movie, but Lynch is some kind of "purist" and didn't include scene selection points on the DVD. This is exactly one of those movies where you *do* want to go back and review small parts of the film looking for certain details, and it's maddenning when you have to manually search through the disc to find what you want.
I also ended up seeing Owning Mahoney, and I thought is was excellent, but it might not be for everyone. It was more based on characters than story (so some people might find it slow moving), but I think it was very well done in that respect. You probably also have to be (or have been) a gambler to really get most of it.
ScottyZ
but now i want to see it
I would rent it if you have a chance to find it ...
Also on this week's WPT episode they mentioned 3 poker movies that I've never even heard of (and I can't remember the names right now) in one of their cut-to-commercial multiple choice questions.
Guess there are still a few poker movies out there for me to see. 8)
ScottyZ
also, there is a canadian movie called Luck which may be a decent movie to see, if you can find it.
Another one -- not poker mind you -- as Owning Mahony(sp). It was just a plain sick gambling movie. Rent it! I gaurantee if you have spent any time in casinos there will be parts where you say to yourself "damn that is just like so-and-so". :evil:
One of the best parts was when the Canadian cop goes "You're being charged with suspicion of theft over $200."
And the [comic book guy voice] worst...police chase...everrrrr leading up to that was damn funny too.
"Take him."
It's as if that was the maximum amount of action you could put into a Canadian movie or something like that.
ScottyZ
it's on this morning and this afternoon even (28th)
I like the part where he bets on the baseball games ... give me all the home teams in the AL and all the away teams in the NL ... for the maximum. LOL
I think it would have been good if somehow they updated you with his current up/down throughout the movie. i.e. it would have been cool when he was in AC almost busting them to see that he was actually up 100k or something. I guess I am saying they didn't give you his bottomline very much.
Another good part was near the beginning where his gf asks him how he did and he says I came home with $100 (or whatever) rather then telling her how much he lost. LOL Who hasn't used that one?
Owning Mahowny was sick, I also loved the baseball betting...and ALSO my gf could not watch it with me, she couldnt handle it.
stp
Unfortunately, it's rare that a gambler ever finds anything even close to "support" after confiding in someone about a loss. It's more typical to get a reaction along the lines of "You should quit gambling", or in worse cases you'll be attacked with things like, "What a stupid waste of money, you're an idiot."
I'm pretty lucky that I personally don't hear too much of that kind of negativity after a loss, and I know myself that I am a long-term winner at poker. So stating my results honestly has never been a big problem for me. But I'm not at all trying to say that I'm somehow "doing the right thing", or that this is a "better way to do it". This is a very personal decision, and different approaches will work for different people.
In terms of poker specifically, if you give yourself the freedom to *not* necessarily discuss short-term wins or losses, you may be relieving a lot of single-session "performance pressure" that can be on you if you are playing and know that you "can't lose" this particular session.
Also, again with poker, there are significant "differences of scale" involved in profit/loss. Someone will probably shrug it off as nothing special if I tell them I won $10 per hour playing poker last year. The same person might be absolutely stunned and suggest that I quit playing if I told them I just booked a single session $400 loss. And they'd probably be thrilled and want a super-fancy dinner if I told them I have made a $3,000 profit at poker last year; even though they shrugged off that same result when it was stated as an hourly rate, and they are possibly unaware the fact that the very last session I played happened to be the $400 loss which upset them earlier.
As you can see from the previous example, it's often easy to spin your results in a way you might prefer talking about with others.
One thing I should be absolutely clear about here is that regardless of how you choose to communicate your results to others, I believe it is absolutely necessary for everyone to at least keep track of their own results carefully, even if it's only for their own eyes. I'm glad to see that Dave Scharf chose to discuss this point emphatically in his book. No matter how serious or casual a gambler you are, or what you play, or how often; in my opinion, keeping track of your results honestly, accurately, and thoroughly is vital.
ScottyZ
Why not? Were they just bored and didn't like the movie, or was it more along the lines that it was "disturbing" for them to watch?
If it's the latter case, are they gamblers, or non-gamblers?
Also, I wonder what the typical non-gambler's reaction would be to this movie, and how much the reaction depends on whether or not they have a close relationship with a gambler.
Another thing that struck me when he was in the car with the $500 chip was that the pure scale of things. I remeber thinking that I would generally be pretty happy coming home with a purple chip, and this is when the magnitude of the betting really hit me.
ScottyZ