Pyay Thet Myan Hees Mawney

Rounders, the 1998 John Dahl film about the underground poker scene, wasn't a hit.  It opened just before the poker boom, and wasn't what people wanted to see.  It turned classic Hollywood formula on its head. Poker demon Matt Damon has to choose: will he take the straight and narrow--law school and his true-blue girlfriend--or the sleazy world of cards. He chooses the latter.

But the film has become a cult classic, with lines quoted back and forth wherever poker is played.  It captures the tension and strategy in actual poker, and is filled with colorful characters.  Damon, as the lead, Mike McDermott--a decent guy with indecent talent at the table--is good, especially with the smart narration.  Then there's Worm (Edward Norton), the old friend who gets the plot moving by being a jerk and putting Mike in deeper and deeper trouble.  There's Knish (John Turturro), the veteran who's turned gambling into a job, and knows how to grind it out--a wise older figure but the kind of guy who doesn't take chances.  There's Grama (Michael Rispoli), the enforcer, ready to make Worm and then Mike pay in blood for their debts.  There's Petrovsky, the law professor who's a mentor to Mike.  And above all, there's Teddy KBG--played by John Malkovich with an outrageous Russian accent--a powerful man who runs the big underground poker joint. (There are also the women, who are ill-served--Gretchen Mol as the wet-blanket girlfriend who tries to pull Mike away from all the fun, and Famke Janssen as the very hot Petra who has a thing for Mikey because, I guess, he's the star of the film.)

I watched it again, recently.  It's the ending I want to talk about.  It's fun and it works, but it's full of all sorts of odd stuff.  Mike owes $15,000 to Teddy and his enforcer, Grama, after taking on the huge debt that Worm has stupidly got into. In fact, they'd have the money but due to other stupid things Worm has done (before he ran away), Mikey has only $10,000 and then because he was able to borrow it from the Professor.

So he walks into Teddy KGB's place with eight hours to go before he owes the debt, and offers to play Teddy head-on. He can either double his money and pay off his debt or lose and be owned by Teddy and Grama.

The story started with Mikey losing large to KGB, not to mention losing all his confidence. The rest of the film is about his gaining it back.  In the one-on-one, no-limit Texas Hold 'Em tournament, Mikey quickly doubles his money.  He can pay off Teddy and pay back half his debt to the Prof.  And here's where the odd stuff starts happening.

Teddy razzes him.  Mocks him. He's only paying Mikey the money he took from him a while ago.  He wants to goad Mike into playing more. (What is this, Back To The Future?) Mikey's about to leave when he turns around and decides to see if he can't double his money again.

This is insane.  Mike's life is in danger. We don't know what'll happen if he can't pay back the debt (the debt, remember, that his "friend" Worm originally rolled up), but it won't be pleasant, and may even lead to his death. So he could walk away with his life and a small bankroll that, as we've seen, he can grow into a bigger bankroll in games around town. But instead, he decides to put his life on the line in a high-stakes game with no guarantees, no matter how good he is.  This may be necessary for the big Hollywood finish, where everything is at stake, but there's no reason for him to do it.

So he and Teddy sit back down.  Teddy always had a stack of Oreos at the table.  Mike notices Teddy's "tell." When he's got the cards, he eats the Oreo, when he doesn't, he picks up the Oreo but doesn't eat it.

Come on. Most good players don't have any tells, but this is ridiculous. No one would have that obvious a tell, and if they did, they'd figure it out soon enough and stop doing it. (And if he didn't, everyone would be beating Teddy KGB all the time, not just Mikey.) So Mikey has two pair and realizes Teddy has made a straight, and tells Teddy as much.  What?!  You don't let on when you've found Teddy's tell. Sure, this rattles Teddy, but no way would a real poker player ever let on. Mikey's got this golden view into Teddy's hand, and that will get him the victory a thousand times more certainly than putting Teddy on tilt.

Then comes the big hand.  Mikey draws the nuts, and goes on checking as he has been all evening.  Teddy is drawn in.  Mikey keeps saying how weak he is as he calls Teddy.  This is a pretty obvious tell--acting weak when you're strong. But maybe it's buyable--who knows why he's saying what he's saying, he could be trying to double fool Teddy.  Except at the same time, Damon is acting up a storm.  He gets his final card (even though he's got the nuts well before this) and frowns openly.  This is the biggest tell of all.  You don't show anything, good or bad, when you get a card.  If you try to look like it's a bad one, and decent player will suspect you're sitting pretty. But not the great Teddy KGB, who puts all his chips in (splashing the pot all the way) and loses.

Then another strange thing happens.  Grama seems upset.  Take this guy down, he says. (Why doesn't Grama understand Teddy's lost--why even suggest this?) Grama doesn't make any money if Teddy wins, but the huge debt will be paid if Mikey wins. So why is Grama disturbed. He even knocks over a chair. Why?  Because he won't get the pleasure of beating someone up?  I would think it's preferable to get your $15,000 right there than having to act the enforcer.  At the very least, he shouldn't care much either way.  I can see Teddy being upset for losing, but Grama?

Then Mikey starts lipping off about how he's a better player.  He can probably get away with it, but why mess with a tough guy like Teddy?

So Mike walks away with a ton of money.  He pays off all his debts, and has a nice sum left over to start up again. (And his old girlfriend even seems sort of interested. It is a movie after all.) When last seen, Mikey is heading to Vegas and the World Series Of Poker. I haven't seen the name Mike McDermott at the finals table yet, so who knows where he ended up.