Tuesday, August 15: Mike Mc-Who?
Far and away, the comment I hear most often from the few people with whom I share my disillusioned-law-student-turns-to-poker story is "oh, you're just like Matt Damon in Rounders." Yep, good ol' Mike McDermott. Hard to believe that movie was made a freakin' decade ago -- I watched it again in its entirety this past weekend and always forget just how eminently watchable it is. In fact, two things struck me about it:
a) just how far ahead of its time it was (I'm not saying it's "1984", but come 'on: it was made when most major casinos didn't have poker rooms, and those that did had just a couple lower-stakes tables in the corner, and it preceded the poker boom by at least 5 years), and
b) just how quickly so many of the scenes in it have been not only mirrored, but even surpassed by current poker trends, to the point of being rendered almost comical in their naivety.
By our contemporary poker standards, is there a more transparent line than Mike's "I'm gonna go all-in because I don't think you have the spades," schtick as he tries to goad Teddy-KGB into calling (presumably with a flush) when he held the 2nd-nut full-houe? I don't remember the exact numbers, but I think the pot was around $5,000 before Teddy led out with a $15,000 bet, Mike saw the $15K and raised an additional $33,000 (into the ~$35,000 pot). Forget for a moment that few expert players will call there with a mere flush on a paired board...but come one: "I don't think you have the spades"? Is any player worth his salt really going to fall for such a first-level-thinking trap thinking: "Guess what? I do have the spade flush, so you're in trouble buddy"!?? Then again, as a novice I never understood any of that stuff, which is probably much closer to the mindset of the average moviegoer, but it's still kind of funny to watch given my current understanding of the high-stakes poker world. It's also cute to see how dominant Mike's poker skill is portrayed: e.g.:
"I didn't have it"
"Since when do you have to 'have it' to take a pot off a hump like that??"
In the montage where he needs to run up $15,000 to avoid having his head smashed in by Gramma/KGB, they cast him as this poker prodigy whose ability is such that he is a mortal lock to eventually bust anyone less skilled than he. Sure, he might be a poker badass, but he's sitting in some pretty tough games...and taking thousands upon thousands out of live $20/$40 games? Really?? And don't get me started on the Johnny Chan scene...I think it's been pointed out on internet forums several times, but they were playing $300/$600 limit. So Johnny Chan 3-bets and folds to Mike's 4-bet, and then asks "did you have it?" Think about that for a second: "Did you have it?"...and remember, it's a LIMIT hold'em game. Seems to imply that 'it' is some sort of made hand such as a straight, flush, or full house...no one would refer to two pair or even a set as "it"..."it", as Chan uses it, clearly implies that there's some obvious texture to the community cards, like 3 to a straight, or flush, and he folds for one additional bet into a pot when it appears as though he's getting at least 10:1 odds?? It's fun to think about, because the more you deconstruct it, the less sense it makes (but still -- awesome scene.) Mike brags with a steely-gaze to Kanish: "I'm gonna outplay this guy, this hand......I sat with the best, and I won!" Uh...yeah, cuz it sounds like your allegedly world-class opponent made an absolutely inexplicable laydown in a limit game. You "won"? Sounds like you took a pot. Uncork the champagne. Anyway, despite the fun that I have at the movie's expense above, it's still got to be one of my favorite flicks to watch start-to-finish.
Non-sequiter: for sports-fans, if you haven't read Bill Simmons' Rounders-inspired article from a few years ago at ESPN here, it's, for my money, one of the best articles by one of the most popular sports-writers of our generation. He also did one Swingers-style, which was equally as enjoyable. I love how he rips on Gretchen Mol as one of the most objectionable girlfriends ever cast on the big screen -- I never realized it until I read Simmons' article, but now every time I watch the movie, I can't help but want to rip her tongue out.
***Damn, I tried to provide links to the Simmons' columns, but it appears as though ESPN, in their infinite wisdom, has made all sorts of back issues, which previously had appeared on the site free of charge, available only to ESPN "Insiders". You need a password now. Sorry...but if you have a password, and want to read them, just google "Bill Simmons" +Rounders and it's like the first result.
More non-sequiter gossip: When I was at the Bellagio earlier this year, I was in a game with a dealer who regularly dealt the "Big Game" in Bobby's Room, and he was telling some great stories about who the biggest winners and losers were in that game. A few tidbits that I remember: Doyle is a modest but steady winner in the game. His son Todd also does well on a consistent basis. David Benyamine is also consistently in the black. Ivey, allegedly, absolutely crushes it. The fish? Dealer told us that Hellmuth regularly gets his ass handed to him, as does Gus Hansen, but that far and away one of the biggest 'fish' in those cash games was Chan...pro's allegedly can't wait to get into the game when Chan sits because he's apparently such an awful cash game player. ("Awful", is of course relative.) Bellande is a complete dick, as is Farha, and most of them are absolute cheap-asses, hardly ever tipping; Dealer mentioned Ivey as a more gentlemanly exception. He also mentioned that all the pro's make huge loans to each other -- think 7-figures -- on an undocumented honor system right across the table in cash/chips. My legal spidey-senses have serious problems with that, and you can bet your ass whn I sit in that game someday I'll put that shit in writing, if for no other reason than not to forget the details. As I was cashing in my measly $2,000 at the window, Gus Hansen comes up beside me and casually drops $800,000 in loose chips from his pockets into his security deposit box. Suddenly my meager successes don't look so impressive.
As for yours-truly as Mike McD: well, the analogy's not altogether misplaced. He's an analytically-minded law student whose legal acumen is vastly outweighed by his poker prowess, played by one of Hollywood's most sought-after ladies'-men...and I'm...well....most of those things. As far as clear progress markers in my poker career, it's been easy to identify the graduated steps as I've moved up through the stakes from 3/6 to 5/10 to 15/30 to 30/60 and even my latest (less succesful) foray into 100/200 and $5,000NL. But I also remember feeling somewhat proud when I eclipsed the poker accomplishments of the vaunted Mike McDermott (or at least matched him in stakes). In the opening scene, he drops his entire $30,000 bankroll (we'll leave a discussion of the wisdom of playing for your entire bankroll 3-handed against other known sharks for another day). A 30-grand downswing? Shit, I've done that 3 times in he last 2 months alone! I remember watching the movie for the first time (not until around 2001) and wondering how a simple law student could lose "3 stacks of high society" and still function as a human being. I mean, 30 grand in the blink of an eye!! You'd have to be nuts to put that much money on the table, right?!! Well now that I'm also 'drinking the Koolaid', so to speak, it's funny that my mindset in viewing that scene has shifted from identifying more with Mike's "$30,000 / life savings goes poof, someone kill me now" to Kanish's more even-keeled reaction of "meh, everyone goes bust every once in a while -- get back on the horse, I'll stake you." (You might also have noticed, as I did, that the big hand he lost was a $100,000 or greater pot, meaning he'd run his initial $30,000 up to at least $50,000 before getting stacked...uh...I'd have been mighty tempted to get up and walk away having nearly doubled my entire bankroll in one night.)
Relatively unnoticed in the last couple years is how rapidly online stakes have risen. A mere 2 years ago, 15/30 was the highest game offerred by Party, and there were only 6 to 8 tables going. (I remember I was playing 2/4 and 3/6 at the time, and occasionally peered in on those games, wondering how anyone could play at stakes that high and not go beserk when they lost to a suckout.) Then they opened up 2 30/60 tables, for which the waitlists were always 20+ people...and my sense of incredulity about the amount of money that was being won and lost increased only further. Hard to believe that just 18 months later, I'm buying into 100/200 games, deigning the 15/30 'microlimits' -- tables that used to represent the highest echelon of online ranks and elicit feelings of wonderment and awe as barely worth my time. That's not intended to be a brag, but more of an observation on how rapidly our standards have changed; sort of reminds me of growing up and playing the old-school Final Fantasy and Zelda video games...after I'd spent weeks playing to build up my characters' strength, agility, and fighting experience, and outfitted them with the most powerful weapons and armor that you could find in the game, I'd go back to the novice-level villages where they start you out at the beginning of the game, and wander around the forest until I was attacked by the 'entry-level' villains like weak imps, orks, and wolves -- bad guys who were actually kind of hard to defeat when you were at the start of the game and didn't have any strength or good equipment -- and I'd beat the living hell out of them with whatever advanced gamma-ray blaster weaponry I had bought for my players in the more advanced levels...alright I'm not sure where I was originally going with this analogy, but I'm sure that anyone who grew up on Final Fantasy knows what I'm talking about appreciates the effort nonetheless.
By the way: RSS set up!
I finally got off my lazy butt to enable an RSS feed for this blog. The address is http://zbasic.com/atom.xml -- don't ask me any RSS questions...I really don't understand what it is or does and can't answer technical questions...but perhaps some of you who do use RSS feeds can confirm for me that it's working properly. I just followed RSS-for-dummy-bloggers instructions.
a) just how far ahead of its time it was (I'm not saying it's "1984", but come 'on: it was made when most major casinos didn't have poker rooms, and those that did had just a couple lower-stakes tables in the corner, and it preceded the poker boom by at least 5 years), and
b) just how quickly so many of the scenes in it have been not only mirrored, but even surpassed by current poker trends, to the point of being rendered almost comical in their naivety.
By our contemporary poker standards, is there a more transparent line than Mike's "I'm gonna go all-in because I don't think you have the spades," schtick as he tries to goad Teddy-KGB into calling (presumably with a flush) when he held the 2nd-nut full-houe? I don't remember the exact numbers, but I think the pot was around $5,000 before Teddy led out with a $15,000 bet, Mike saw the $15K and raised an additional $33,000 (into the ~$35,000 pot). Forget for a moment that few expert players will call there with a mere flush on a paired board...but come one: "I don't think you have the spades"? Is any player worth his salt really going to fall for such a first-level-thinking trap thinking: "Guess what? I do have the spade flush, so you're in trouble buddy"!?? Then again, as a novice I never understood any of that stuff, which is probably much closer to the mindset of the average moviegoer, but it's still kind of funny to watch given my current understanding of the high-stakes poker world. It's also cute to see how dominant Mike's poker skill is portrayed: e.g.:
"I didn't have it"
"Since when do you have to 'have it' to take a pot off a hump like that??"
In the montage where he needs to run up $15,000 to avoid having his head smashed in by Gramma/KGB, they cast him as this poker prodigy whose ability is such that he is a mortal lock to eventually bust anyone less skilled than he. Sure, he might be a poker badass, but he's sitting in some pretty tough games...and taking thousands upon thousands out of live $20/$40 games? Really?? And don't get me started on the Johnny Chan scene...I think it's been pointed out on internet forums several times, but they were playing $300/$600 limit. So Johnny Chan 3-bets and folds to Mike's 4-bet, and then asks "did you have it?" Think about that for a second: "Did you have it?"...and remember, it's a LIMIT hold'em game. Seems to imply that 'it' is some sort of made hand such as a straight, flush, or full house...no one would refer to two pair or even a set as "it"..."it", as Chan uses it, clearly implies that there's some obvious texture to the community cards, like 3 to a straight, or flush, and he folds for one additional bet into a pot when it appears as though he's getting at least 10:1 odds?? It's fun to think about, because the more you deconstruct it, the less sense it makes (but still -- awesome scene.) Mike brags with a steely-gaze to Kanish: "I'm gonna outplay this guy, this hand...
Non-sequiter: for sports-fans, if you haven't read Bill Simmons' Rounders-inspired article from a few years ago at ESPN here, it's, for my money, one of the best articles by one of the most popular sports-writers of our generation. He also did one Swingers-style, which was equally as enjoyable. I love how he rips on Gretchen Mol as one of the most objectionable girlfriends ever cast on the big screen -- I never realized it until I read Simmons' article, but now every time I watch the movie, I can't help but want to rip her tongue out.
***Damn, I tried to provide links to the Simmons' columns, but it appears as though ESPN, in their infinite wisdom, has made all sorts of back issues, which previously had appeared on the site free of charge, available only to ESPN "Insiders". You need a password now. Sorry...but if you have a password, and want to read them, just google "Bill Simmons" +Rounders and it's like the first result.
More non-sequiter gossip: When I was at the Bellagio earlier this year, I was in a game with a dealer who regularly dealt the "Big Game" in Bobby's Room, and he was telling some great stories about who the biggest winners and losers were in that game. A few tidbits that I remember: Doyle is a modest but steady winner in the game. His son Todd also does well on a consistent basis. David Benyamine is also consistently in the black. Ivey, allegedly, absolutely crushes it. The fish? Dealer told us that Hellmuth regularly gets his ass handed to him, as does Gus Hansen, but that far and away one of the biggest 'fish' in those cash games was Chan...pro's allegedly can't wait to get into the game when Chan sits because he's apparently such an awful cash game player. ("Awful", is of course relative.) Bellande is a complete dick, as is Farha, and most of them are absolute cheap-asses, hardly ever tipping; Dealer mentioned Ivey as a more gentlemanly exception. He also mentioned that all the pro's make huge loans to each other -- think 7-figures -- on an undocumented honor system right across the table in cash/chips. My legal spidey-senses have serious problems with that, and you can bet your ass whn I sit in that game someday I'll put that shit in writing, if for no other reason than not to forget the details. As I was cashing in my measly $2,000 at the window, Gus Hansen comes up beside me and casually drops $800,000 in loose chips from his pockets into his security deposit box. Suddenly my meager successes don't look so impressive.
As for yours-truly as Mike McD: well, the analogy's not altogether misplaced. He's an analytically-minded law student whose legal acumen is vastly outweighed by his poker prowess, played by one of Hollywood's most sought-after ladies'-men...and I'm...well....most of those things. As far as clear progress markers in my poker career, it's been easy to identify the graduated steps as I've moved up through the stakes from 3/6 to 5/10 to 15/30 to 30/60 and even my latest (less succesful) foray into 100/200 and $5,000NL. But I also remember feeling somewhat proud when I eclipsed the poker accomplishments of the vaunted Mike McDermott (or at least matched him in stakes). In the opening scene, he drops his entire $30,000 bankroll (we'll leave a discussion of the wisdom of playing for your entire bankroll 3-handed against other known sharks for another day). A 30-grand downswing? Shit, I've done that 3 times in he last 2 months alone! I remember watching the movie for the first time (not until around 2001) and wondering how a simple law student could lose "3 stacks of high society" and still function as a human being. I mean, 30 grand in the blink of an eye!! You'd have to be nuts to put that much money on the table, right?!! Well now that I'm also 'drinking the Koolaid', so to speak, it's funny that my mindset in viewing that scene has shifted from identifying more with Mike's "$30,000 / life savings goes poof, someone kill me now" to Kanish's more even-keeled reaction of "meh, everyone goes bust every once in a while -- get back on the horse, I'll stake you." (You might also have noticed, as I did, that the big hand he lost was a $100,000 or greater pot, meaning he'd run his initial $30,000 up to at least $50,000 before getting stacked...uh...I'd have been mighty tempted to get up and walk away having nearly doubled my entire bankroll in one night.)
Relatively unnoticed in the last couple years is how rapidly online stakes have risen. A mere 2 years ago, 15/30 was the highest game offerred by Party, and there were only 6 to 8 tables going. (I remember I was playing 2/4 and 3/6 at the time, and occasionally peered in on those games, wondering how anyone could play at stakes that high and not go beserk when they lost to a suckout.) Then they opened up 2 30/60 tables, for which the waitlists were always 20+ people...and my sense of incredulity about the amount of money that was being won and lost increased only further. Hard to believe that just 18 months later, I'm buying into 100/200 games, deigning the 15/30 'microlimits' -- tables that used to represent the highest echelon of online ranks and elicit feelings of wonderment and awe as barely worth my time. That's not intended to be a brag, but more of an observation on how rapidly our standards have changed; sort of reminds me of growing up and playing the old-school Final Fantasy and Zelda video games...after I'd spent weeks playing to build up my characters' strength, agility, and fighting experience, and outfitted them with the most powerful weapons and armor that you could find in the game, I'd go back to the novice-level villages where they start you out at the beginning of the game, and wander around the forest until I was attacked by the 'entry-level' villains like weak imps, orks, and wolves -- bad guys who were actually kind of hard to defeat when you were at the start of the game and didn't have any strength or good equipment -- and I'd beat the living hell out of them with whatever advanced gamma-ray blaster weaponry I had bought for my players in the more advanced levels...alright I'm not sure where I was originally going with this analogy, but I'm sure that anyone who grew up on Final Fantasy knows what I'm talking about appreciates the effort nonetheless.
By the way: RSS set up!
I finally got off my lazy butt to enable an RSS feed for this blog. The address is http://zbasic.com/atom.xml -- don't ask me any RSS questions...I really don't understand what it is or does and can't answer technical questions...but perhaps some of you who do use RSS feeds can confirm for me that it's working properly. I just followed RSS-for-dummy-bloggers instructions.
posted by Blog Administrator at 6:36 AM
10 Comments:
To think that Bill Simmons is one of the best writers of our generation is so donkish. That guy dont even write that much anymore. He's one of the laziest ever, i'm waiting for his writing of this year's wsop forever. Probably it'll take another two months.
Not to mention Bill Simmons has an intern who's a law student in turn. For a self-proclaimed basketball junkie, I'm pretty sure Bill Simmons steals ideas from Charlie Rosen and then calls him names.
another great post!
You can easily tire of Bill Simmons' "all things Boston". And when I've heard him on the radio, it doesn't do much for me. In print, his writing almost always makes me laugh. You should read on espn.com his interview with the two guys who wrote "Rounders" and his long winded idea for a sequel. I fell over laughing, then wished they would make his movie.
I did read it -- it was great, and I almost copied it into my post, but the post was long enough as it was.
Great Blog. Just two misspellings though, non-sequitur and Knish.
I neer was quite sure whether his name was Knish (as in the food item) or Kanish...
Interesting, besides the Atom site feed it appears there is an RSS format feed at http://zbasic.com/rss.xml
Blogger must have generated that automatically like the Atom feed, once set up. Everyone should now be good for syndication.
gday,
you mentioned that you've not spoken about poker with anyone - except we spoke about it during that night at darling habour.
dan, you break my heart. i thought we had such a connection, but now i see that you thought of it as nothing more than a chance meeting.
i'm going to cry myself to sleep.
(oh, and btw, 2p2 whoiam arrives thursday - let me know if you wanna catch up sometime - michael@michaeljosem.com)
keep well,
aujoz
(mick)
p.s. your blog is cool and makes sense. you're not so bad after all.
Great post, as always. I'll be stealing a line from your post, but I'll give you full credit, of course.
And I know what you mean about the Final Fantasy/Zelda thing. I'm not at the "gamma ray blaster with kick ass armour" point of my poker career, but I'm pretty sure I've managed to upgrade from "club" to "sword" (or something equally nerdy, anyway).
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