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.