Sunday, March 7, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Live-blogging "Rounders", Part 1
When I give introductory lessons at tournaments, I often begin by asking if anyone has played Texas Hold 'em before. Then I broaden it to if anyone has played any kind of poker before. Then even broader: Have any of you ever watched poker on TV? And finally: Has anyone here seen "Rounders"?
I like the movie, don't love it, but I recommend it to new players because it recreates the feel of an actual poker game better than any film I know of. "The Cincinnati Kid" and "A Big Hand for the Little Lady" are more entertaining and ultimately satisfying, but "Rounders", aside from featuring a great cast, fairly sharp dialogue, and the most hilariously tortured Russian accent you'll ever hear, does the best job of convincingly putting you at a poker table. Unfortunately, it also feature a horribly wrong-headed climax that nearly wrecks the movie (I'll address it when we get there), and it omits some pretty vital information about the game that makes it rough going, at times even incomprehensible, for the uninitiated.
Unless, of course, they have ME to live-blog in their ear the whole time, so without further ado...
1: 39 - Mike, played by the solidly affable Matt Damon, sums up his strategy in voice-over: "Your goal is to win one big bet an hour. That's it. Get your money in when you have the best of it, protect it when you don't." The advice Mike dispenses throughout the movie is, for the most part, reasonable. Actually, a lot of it is so reasonable that it borders on the bleedin' obvious.
3:46 - John Turturro as "Joey Knish" (this movie is crammed with good names), advising Michael to play a more moderately priced game rather than risk his entire $30,000 bankroll at the big table. You gotta like a movie where John Turturro is the voice of reason.
5:04 - Damon summarizes No-Limit Texas Hold 'em very briefly. TOO briefly, in fact. Would it have killed them to take an additional 30 seconds to run down the hand rankings for the poker illiterate? Imagine watching a baseball movie and not knowing what strikeouts, walks and home runs are. Anyone who knows nothing about poker just got left behind.
Damon goes on, "The key to the game is playing the man, not the cards." Which is NOT what the movie goes on to demonstrate, nor is it specific to Hold 'em...but okay.
"There's no other game in which fortunes can change so much from hand to hand." Um...Really?
As a side note, though, I quite like Malkovich's shirt in this scene.
6:26 - Speaking of Malkovich...Here's that aforementioned tortured Russian accent. He pronounces "Go ahead" as "Ga-chead", harshening the "ch" like it's Hebrew. Just priceless. It's also polarizing: You either love it or hate it, no in-between. I gotta admit, it's grown on me over the years.
Damon gets A-9 suited, and the flop comes A-9-8, two of them spades. Damon tells us, "Against your average guy, I'd set a bear trap, hardly bet at all, let him walk into it." Really? With two spades on the flop and a possible straight draw as well? Not to mention the possibility of him hitting a higher two-pair on the turn or river if he's got Ace-10 through King? Umm...Okay.
Also, apparently in this weird little underground club, they don't push their money in the pot after each betting round. Recipe for disaster, I'd say...especially with Malkovich gleefully splashing the pot now and then.
7:01 - So, as we learn later, when Malkovich has a hand, he "listens" to his Oreo cookie, opens it with a flourish, and eats it. When he's bluffing, he sets it aside. Seriously? The antagonist, the ultimate bully, the guy everyone is quaking in their boots around, has the most wildly obvious tell in the history of poker?
"Bur-run and tur-run," Malkovich purrs, turning three syllables into five. Those in the audience who don't know what "Burn and turn" means are frantically whispering to each other in mass confusion.
Damon hits full house, 9's over Aces, or 9's full of Aces, (in voice-over, he redundantly calls them "9's full over Aces") on the turn. 3 of spades comes on the river, and NOW he finally explains that a full house beats a flush (whatever a "flush" is, think the newbies). Better late than never, I guess.
I like the movie, don't love it, but I recommend it to new players because it recreates the feel of an actual poker game better than any film I know of. "The Cincinnati Kid" and "A Big Hand for the Little Lady" are more entertaining and ultimately satisfying, but "Rounders", aside from featuring a great cast, fairly sharp dialogue, and the most hilariously tortured Russian accent you'll ever hear, does the best job of convincingly putting you at a poker table. Unfortunately, it also feature a horribly wrong-headed climax that nearly wrecks the movie (I'll address it when we get there), and it omits some pretty vital information about the game that makes it rough going, at times even incomprehensible, for the uninitiated.
Unless, of course, they have ME to live-blog in their ear the whole time, so without further ado...
1: 39 - Mike, played by the solidly affable Matt Damon, sums up his strategy in voice-over: "Your goal is to win one big bet an hour. That's it. Get your money in when you have the best of it, protect it when you don't." The advice Mike dispenses throughout the movie is, for the most part, reasonable. Actually, a lot of it is so reasonable that it borders on the bleedin' obvious.
3:46 - John Turturro as "Joey Knish" (this movie is crammed with good names), advising Michael to play a more moderately priced game rather than risk his entire $30,000 bankroll at the big table. You gotta like a movie where John Turturro is the voice of reason.
5:04 - Damon summarizes No-Limit Texas Hold 'em very briefly. TOO briefly, in fact. Would it have killed them to take an additional 30 seconds to run down the hand rankings for the poker illiterate? Imagine watching a baseball movie and not knowing what strikeouts, walks and home runs are. Anyone who knows nothing about poker just got left behind.
Damon goes on, "The key to the game is playing the man, not the cards." Which is NOT what the movie goes on to demonstrate, nor is it specific to Hold 'em...but okay.
"There's no other game in which fortunes can change so much from hand to hand." Um...Really?
As a side note, though, I quite like Malkovich's shirt in this scene.
6:26 - Speaking of Malkovich...Here's that aforementioned tortured Russian accent. He pronounces "Go ahead" as "Ga-chead", harshening the "ch" like it's Hebrew. Just priceless. It's also polarizing: You either love it or hate it, no in-between. I gotta admit, it's grown on me over the years.
Damon gets A-9 suited, and the flop comes A-9-8, two of them spades. Damon tells us, "Against your average guy, I'd set a bear trap, hardly bet at all, let him walk into it." Really? With two spades on the flop and a possible straight draw as well? Not to mention the possibility of him hitting a higher two-pair on the turn or river if he's got Ace-10 through King? Umm...Okay.
Also, apparently in this weird little underground club, they don't push their money in the pot after each betting round. Recipe for disaster, I'd say...especially with Malkovich gleefully splashing the pot now and then.
7:01 - So, as we learn later, when Malkovich has a hand, he "listens" to his Oreo cookie, opens it with a flourish, and eats it. When he's bluffing, he sets it aside. Seriously? The antagonist, the ultimate bully, the guy everyone is quaking in their boots around, has the most wildly obvious tell in the history of poker?
"Bur-run and tur-run," Malkovich purrs, turning three syllables into five. Those in the audience who don't know what "Burn and turn" means are frantically whispering to each other in mass confusion.
Damon hits full house, 9's over Aces, or 9's full of Aces, (in voice-over, he redundantly calls them "9's full over Aces") on the turn. 3 of spades comes on the river, and NOW he finally explains that a full house beats a flush (whatever a "flush" is, think the newbies). Better late than never, I guess.
Live-blogging "Rounders", Part 2
11:16: - Damon is forced to get a day job that Turturro hands down "to rounders who forget the cardinal fucking rule: Always leave yourself outs." I have no idea what that means, and am pretty sure it's not the cardinal fucking rule (of...poker? Life?). "Outs" is the amount of cards you need to improve your hand. How exactly do you "leave yourself outs"?
15:00 - The judges are playing 7-card Stud. For a movie that touts No-Limit Hold 'em as "the Cadillac of poker", it has a bizarre amount of Stud in it. But Stud is the right game for this type of group (Read: Old people play this game.), so it makes sense here.
19:37 - We meet Edward Norton's character, Worm, playing cards in prison. I've always kind of been of the mindset that naming a character "Worm" when his main characteristic is worminess is kind of clumsy, but what do I know? Incidentally, they're not playing poker at all, they're playing Hearts. Not how I picture prison, but it's an arena I'm happy to remain ignorant about.
28:27 - Michael joins the preppy home game, feigning ignorance. They're playing Chicago, which as they explain, is a stud game in which the high spade in the hole (meaning one of your three face-down cards) wins half the pot. This seems to be a dealer's choice game, so yeah, weird-ass games like this tend to come up.
29:24 - Damon rationalizes cheating the college students: "Like they teach you in One L, caveat emptor, pal." You probably know this, but so we're clear: "One L" isn't a poker term, it means the first year of law school. Or maybe he means Scott Turow's book ABOUT the first year of law school.
29:33 - Damon marvels at Norton's mastery of "discard calls, pick-up calls, overhand run-offs, the double duke." I've never heard any of these terms. They sound cool, though, don't they?
30:01 - Norton feigns frustration with Damon: "Fuck you and your never-ending string of boats, okay?" Again, they omit explaining that "boats" are full houses. The uninformed might assume that Damon has been pretending to be some sort of shipping magnate.
37:55 - Seven-card stud with the Russians. MORE stud? Norton "slow-rolls" his two pair, meaning that he reveals his winning hand with deliberate, sadistic slowness. Maurice calls him a "Motherfucker" for doing this. Maurice is right. Don't slow-roll, kids.
48:44 - Damon advises the reliably paternal Martin Landau: "You want to play premium hands...If it's good enough to call, you gotta be in there raising, all right, I mean tight, but aggressive, and I do mean aggressive, that's your style, Professor, I mean you gotta... you gotta think of it as a war." Again, not really what the movie ultimately demonstrates (i.e. Damon wins by checking and calling repeatedly. More on this later.), but fairly sound advice.
51:22 - Landau summarizes his rather long story: "We can't run from who we are. Our destiny chooses us." Did Landau just tell Damon that he's destined to be a poker player? Umm...Okay.
57:29: - "If a fish acts strong, he's bluffing. If he acts meek, he's got a hand. It's that simple." Hasn't been my experience, but okay.
15:00 - The judges are playing 7-card Stud. For a movie that touts No-Limit Hold 'em as "the Cadillac of poker", it has a bizarre amount of Stud in it. But Stud is the right game for this type of group (Read: Old people play this game.), so it makes sense here.
19:37 - We meet Edward Norton's character, Worm, playing cards in prison. I've always kind of been of the mindset that naming a character "Worm" when his main characteristic is worminess is kind of clumsy, but what do I know? Incidentally, they're not playing poker at all, they're playing Hearts. Not how I picture prison, but it's an arena I'm happy to remain ignorant about.
28:27 - Michael joins the preppy home game, feigning ignorance. They're playing Chicago, which as they explain, is a stud game in which the high spade in the hole (meaning one of your three face-down cards) wins half the pot. This seems to be a dealer's choice game, so yeah, weird-ass games like this tend to come up.
29:24 - Damon rationalizes cheating the college students: "Like they teach you in One L, caveat emptor, pal." You probably know this, but so we're clear: "One L" isn't a poker term, it means the first year of law school. Or maybe he means Scott Turow's book ABOUT the first year of law school.
29:33 - Damon marvels at Norton's mastery of "discard calls, pick-up calls, overhand run-offs, the double duke." I've never heard any of these terms. They sound cool, though, don't they?
30:01 - Norton feigns frustration with Damon: "Fuck you and your never-ending string of boats, okay?" Again, they omit explaining that "boats" are full houses. The uninformed might assume that Damon has been pretending to be some sort of shipping magnate.
37:55 - Seven-card stud with the Russians. MORE stud? Norton "slow-rolls" his two pair, meaning that he reveals his winning hand with deliberate, sadistic slowness. Maurice calls him a "Motherfucker" for doing this. Maurice is right. Don't slow-roll, kids.
48:44 - Damon advises the reliably paternal Martin Landau: "You want to play premium hands...If it's good enough to call, you gotta be in there raising, all right, I mean tight, but aggressive, and I do mean aggressive, that's your style, Professor, I mean you gotta... you gotta think of it as a war." Again, not really what the movie ultimately demonstrates (i.e. Damon wins by checking and calling repeatedly. More on this later.), but fairly sound advice.
51:22 - Landau summarizes his rather long story: "We can't run from who we are. Our destiny chooses us." Did Landau just tell Damon that he's destined to be a poker player? Umm...Okay.
57:29: - "If a fish acts strong, he's bluffing. If he acts meek, he's got a hand. It's that simple." Hasn't been my experience, but okay.
Live-blogging "Rounders", Part 3
1:03:42 - Now we come to a really weird scene.
1. Damon is watching and re-watching Johnny Chan call Eric Seidel's all-in after flopping nut straight.
Seriously? He's replaying a shot of a man calling an all-in when he has the nut straight? Like it's the Willie Mays catch or the John Paxson buzzer shot in the '93 Finals? I could see him being fascinated by a brilliant bluff or a risky call or some hugely unexpected bad beat...but calling an all-in with the nuts? It's like replaying the final 10 seconds of a football game when the winning team has the ball. What's worth the scrutiny here?
2. The absurdly sexy Famke Janssen enters and instantly recognizes what Damon's watching: "Ah, the '88 Series." Like it's Casablanca or something. She remarks in awe: "Johnny Chan flops the nut straight and has the discipline to wait him out." I'm still not seeing the fascination here; what else WOULD Chan do?
3. Damon rebuffs her advances. For some reason. Even the filmmakers, on the commentary track, admit how nutzoid this is.
1:15:15 - They're playing a hi-lo game here, and according to IMDb, it's 7-card Stud. Again with the Stud? How did this movie turn Hold 'em into the national craze instead of Stud? Anyway, Damon shows down "The wheel", meaning a 5-high straight, which is the best "low" hand possible and a decent high hand, so he scoops the whole pot.
1:20:00 - The game with the cops. Stud AGAIN! This time, Worm gets caught cheating, and they both get beaten up. Wait, so a roomful of cops catches some guys cheating them at poker...and all they wind up with is some cuts on their faces? Not a single broken bone? Cracked rib? Bruise? These are apparently the gentlest cops in America.
1. Damon is watching and re-watching Johnny Chan call Eric Seidel's all-in after flopping nut straight.
Seriously? He's replaying a shot of a man calling an all-in when he has the nut straight? Like it's the Willie Mays catch or the John Paxson buzzer shot in the '93 Finals? I could see him being fascinated by a brilliant bluff or a risky call or some hugely unexpected bad beat...but calling an all-in with the nuts? It's like replaying the final 10 seconds of a football game when the winning team has the ball. What's worth the scrutiny here?
2. The absurdly sexy Famke Janssen enters and instantly recognizes what Damon's watching: "Ah, the '88 Series." Like it's Casablanca or something. She remarks in awe: "Johnny Chan flops the nut straight and has the discipline to wait him out." I'm still not seeing the fascination here; what else WOULD Chan do?
3. Damon rebuffs her advances. For some reason. Even the filmmakers, on the commentary track, admit how nutzoid this is.
1:15:15 - They're playing a hi-lo game here, and according to IMDb, it's 7-card Stud. Again with the Stud? How did this movie turn Hold 'em into the national craze instead of Stud? Anyway, Damon shows down "The wheel", meaning a 5-high straight, which is the best "low" hand possible and a decent high hand, so he scoops the whole pot.
1:20:00 - The game with the cops. Stud AGAIN! This time, Worm gets caught cheating, and they both get beaten up. Wait, so a roomful of cops catches some guys cheating them at poker...and all they wind up with is some cuts on their faces? Not a single broken bone? Cracked rib? Bruise? These are apparently the gentlest cops in America.
Live-blogging "Rounders", Part 4
1:33:07 - Damon's Johnny Chan story. I call bullshit on it, and not just because it ends with Chan asking "Did you have it?" like some high school twerp. Follow me on this:
So it's a 300/600 game. Damon sat down with $6000, so 10 Big Blinds, and he says he's been mostly folding for a while, so he's probably still got around that amount when the story starts, which is to say...he's short-stacked.
That in mind: He bets the flop. Now he's already got at least one BB in, and he'd have to be betting at least one more to stay in, so now he's got at most, 8 BB's left.
Chan raises him. Why wouldn't Chan just put the short stack all-in? Dunno, but okay, he doesn't. But he must have raised him MOST of his stack at least, right?
Except no, Damon apparently has enough left to RE-re-raise. Why not just go all-in? Dunno, but okay.
Chan now RE-re-re-raises. Wha? He's STILL not putting Damon all in? For God's sake, WHY? And HOW could Damon possibly have any money left on top of that?
Dunno, but guess what...Damon RE-re-re-re-raises! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?
Dunno...but surely NOW Chan puts him all-in, like he should have in the first place, right? I mean, he's got so much money in already, and Damon HAS to be close to being all-in at this point, so it would make absolutely no sense to do anything but put Damon all...
Wha?!?
Chan folds!?!?!?!?
Ummm...Okay. But you left out the Monty Pythonesque subtitle, "THIS DIDN'T HAPPEN, NOR WAS IT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE." Total freakin' fish story, and Turturro completely bought it.
Whatever. Let's just move on.
1:39:00 - Malkovich warns Damon about the money being due: "Eef you don't haf eet all by then, then you are mine!" Which means...what, exactly? Malkovich will kill him? Enslave him? Sell him? Generally, as a moviegoer, I like to know what's at stake for the protagonist if he loses, but what do I know?
1:43:39 - Okay, HERE'S where my big problems with this movie really begin.
Damon wins the $5K he needs to pay his debt, and he starts to leave. But Malkovich taunts him into staying and letting it ride, reminding him that "I em payink you weeth your monney!" and pantomiming how he "stuck it in him" last time. In other words, Malkovich is acting like an infant.
Now presumably, what's happened to Damon over the course of this story is that he's learned his lesson, he's matured, he's put away childish things, he's immune to such puerility and has the good sense to walk away when he's got what he wants, right?
No! Damon can't resist such teasing, and sits back down.
So THIS is the lesson he learns? Don't walk away when someone's teasing you? Damon explains: "I told Worm you can't lose what you don't put in the middle...but you can't win much either." Dude, in the course of a few hours, you just won the debt you've spent half the movie running yourself ragged for! That's not winning much? You haven't put enough in the middle yet?
1:45:30 - It gets weirder. FINALLY, Damon spots Malkovich's Oreo tell, and then makes it deliberately obvious that he's spotted it. So a) It took THIS LONG for Damon, the poker genius who could read the judges' hands just by watching their eyes, to notice the most telling tell in the history of tells? B) It took Malkovich, the most fearsome, intimidating player in the movie, this many years of playing to realize that he has this tell? None of his goons ever pointed it out to him? C) Damon tells us that he pointed it out because he doesn't have time to let Malk munch those Oreos all night.
Wha? He doesn't have time? It's SLOWER to play a guy whose tell you've spotted? Or is Malkovich eating the Oreos that slowly? If he'd said "I wanted to beat Teddy fair and square" I might have bought it, but he does this because of TIME? Sorry, but this makes no sense at all.
1:47:58 - Damon flops a straight (JUST LIKE JOHNNY CHAN! GET IT NOW?). He checks each round, lets Malkovich bet, calls each time. Again: Who WOULDN'T play it this way? It doesn't take brilliant Chanesque discipline to check the nuts and let the opponent bet, just common friggin' sense.
But more to the point, the movie's notion of a character arc is completely out of whack. When you start out with a character losing everything because he did something stupid, what you're generally going for, arc-wise, is that at the crucial climactic moment, he demonstrates that he's learned from this mistake. So what was Damon's initial screw-up? Did he play badly at the beginning? No, he actually played that hand perfectly well; he went all-in with an extremely strong hand and had the incredibly bad luck of facing one of the few hands that could beat him.
If he did anything wrong, it was risking his entire bankroll on a game which, despite it requiring a great deal of skill, is also not insignificantly dependent on luck. As much as the pros hate to admit it, it's not a game where the best players always win.
So if anything, Damon's lesson should be: Don't put EVERYTHING on the line when luck is involved. (Maybe that's what he means by "Always leave yourself outs"?). But in fact, Damon DOES do this again, and this time it's even WORSE, because he's not just risking his own savings this time, he's risking money he OWES, to Grama and to the judge. And what happens as a result? He is rewarded for it, with a no-brainer hand that any newbie would clean up with!
Now don't get me wrong here. I'm okay with a protagonist not learning something over the course of a movie, and I'm okay with a protagonist being rewarded in the end despite not having learned his lesson. But you can't do that and then PLAY IT like the hero is being rewarded for having learned his lesson. Yet that's how it feels, and the writers confirm this on the commentary track, that the idea is that Damon has learned that you have to take risks sometimes if you want to win anything. Uh, guys...He risked HIS ENTIRE SAVINGS at the beginning and lost it! Where were you?
Anyway, beyond that...Why is Grama so upset? He gets his money. What was he hoping would happen if Damon can't pay him? He gets to kill Damon? Force Damon to be his butler? Sleep with Gretchen Mol? First, he was pissed because Norton didn't have his money, and now he's pissed that Damon DOES? There's no pleasing this guy!
1:53:48 - Damon, the guy who took all night just to spot that insane Oreo tell and then pointed it out for some baffling reason, and then went on to win the game by the pure luck of flopping the nut straight, is off to Vegas. His feeble closing line: "First prize at the WS is a million bucks. Does it have my name on it? I don't know. But I'm gonna find out."
Ummm...Lemme save you some time, Matt...
So it's a 300/600 game. Damon sat down with $6000, so 10 Big Blinds, and he says he's been mostly folding for a while, so he's probably still got around that amount when the story starts, which is to say...he's short-stacked.
That in mind: He bets the flop. Now he's already got at least one BB in, and he'd have to be betting at least one more to stay in, so now he's got at most, 8 BB's left.
Chan raises him. Why wouldn't Chan just put the short stack all-in? Dunno, but okay, he doesn't. But he must have raised him MOST of his stack at least, right?
Except no, Damon apparently has enough left to RE-re-raise. Why not just go all-in? Dunno, but okay.
Chan now RE-re-re-raises. Wha? He's STILL not putting Damon all in? For God's sake, WHY? And HOW could Damon possibly have any money left on top of that?
Dunno, but guess what...Damon RE-re-re-re-raises! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?
Dunno...but surely NOW Chan puts him all-in, like he should have in the first place, right? I mean, he's got so much money in already, and Damon HAS to be close to being all-in at this point, so it would make absolutely no sense to do anything but put Damon all...
Wha?!?
Chan folds!?!?!?!?
Ummm...Okay. But you left out the Monty Pythonesque subtitle, "THIS DIDN'T HAPPEN, NOR WAS IT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE." Total freakin' fish story, and Turturro completely bought it.
Whatever. Let's just move on.
1:39:00 - Malkovich warns Damon about the money being due: "Eef you don't haf eet all by then, then you are mine!" Which means...what, exactly? Malkovich will kill him? Enslave him? Sell him? Generally, as a moviegoer, I like to know what's at stake for the protagonist if he loses, but what do I know?
1:43:39 - Okay, HERE'S where my big problems with this movie really begin.
Damon wins the $5K he needs to pay his debt, and he starts to leave. But Malkovich taunts him into staying and letting it ride, reminding him that "I em payink you weeth your monney!" and pantomiming how he "stuck it in him" last time. In other words, Malkovich is acting like an infant.
Now presumably, what's happened to Damon over the course of this story is that he's learned his lesson, he's matured, he's put away childish things, he's immune to such puerility and has the good sense to walk away when he's got what he wants, right?
No! Damon can't resist such teasing, and sits back down.
So THIS is the lesson he learns? Don't walk away when someone's teasing you? Damon explains: "I told Worm you can't lose what you don't put in the middle...but you can't win much either." Dude, in the course of a few hours, you just won the debt you've spent half the movie running yourself ragged for! That's not winning much? You haven't put enough in the middle yet?
1:45:30 - It gets weirder. FINALLY, Damon spots Malkovich's Oreo tell, and then makes it deliberately obvious that he's spotted it. So a) It took THIS LONG for Damon, the poker genius who could read the judges' hands just by watching their eyes, to notice the most telling tell in the history of tells? B) It took Malkovich, the most fearsome, intimidating player in the movie, this many years of playing to realize that he has this tell? None of his goons ever pointed it out to him? C) Damon tells us that he pointed it out because he doesn't have time to let Malk munch those Oreos all night.
Wha? He doesn't have time? It's SLOWER to play a guy whose tell you've spotted? Or is Malkovich eating the Oreos that slowly? If he'd said "I wanted to beat Teddy fair and square" I might have bought it, but he does this because of TIME? Sorry, but this makes no sense at all.
1:47:58 - Damon flops a straight (JUST LIKE JOHNNY CHAN! GET IT NOW?). He checks each round, lets Malkovich bet, calls each time. Again: Who WOULDN'T play it this way? It doesn't take brilliant Chanesque discipline to check the nuts and let the opponent bet, just common friggin' sense.
But more to the point, the movie's notion of a character arc is completely out of whack. When you start out with a character losing everything because he did something stupid, what you're generally going for, arc-wise, is that at the crucial climactic moment, he demonstrates that he's learned from this mistake. So what was Damon's initial screw-up? Did he play badly at the beginning? No, he actually played that hand perfectly well; he went all-in with an extremely strong hand and had the incredibly bad luck of facing one of the few hands that could beat him.
If he did anything wrong, it was risking his entire bankroll on a game which, despite it requiring a great deal of skill, is also not insignificantly dependent on luck. As much as the pros hate to admit it, it's not a game where the best players always win.
So if anything, Damon's lesson should be: Don't put EVERYTHING on the line when luck is involved. (Maybe that's what he means by "Always leave yourself outs"?). But in fact, Damon DOES do this again, and this time it's even WORSE, because he's not just risking his own savings this time, he's risking money he OWES, to Grama and to the judge. And what happens as a result? He is rewarded for it, with a no-brainer hand that any newbie would clean up with!
Now don't get me wrong here. I'm okay with a protagonist not learning something over the course of a movie, and I'm okay with a protagonist being rewarded in the end despite not having learned his lesson. But you can't do that and then PLAY IT like the hero is being rewarded for having learned his lesson. Yet that's how it feels, and the writers confirm this on the commentary track, that the idea is that Damon has learned that you have to take risks sometimes if you want to win anything. Uh, guys...He risked HIS ENTIRE SAVINGS at the beginning and lost it! Where were you?
Anyway, beyond that...Why is Grama so upset? He gets his money. What was he hoping would happen if Damon can't pay him? He gets to kill Damon? Force Damon to be his butler? Sleep with Gretchen Mol? First, he was pissed because Norton didn't have his money, and now he's pissed that Damon DOES? There's no pleasing this guy!
1:53:48 - Damon, the guy who took all night just to spot that insane Oreo tell and then pointed it out for some baffling reason, and then went on to win the game by the pure luck of flopping the nut straight, is off to Vegas. His feeble closing line: "First prize at the WS is a million bucks. Does it have my name on it? I don't know. But I'm gonna find out."
Ummm...Lemme save you some time, Matt...
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