Not only is this a realistic hand I have been ruined by and which has ruined plenty of others in poker, but it’s one that allows Mike’s judgment to feel reasonable and foolish at the same time.
After he and Teddy eventually shove, the latter flips his higher full house, aces full of nines. In what starts out as a modest pot, Mike hits a full house, nines full of aces. On a confident streak, Mike ventures to The Chesterfield, a seedy, noirish hideout run by Russian mobster Teddy KGB (John Malkovich, “Velvet Buzzsaw”). But the reason I find it so entertaining on repeat viewings is that it actually uses poker to shape its narrative.įirst, let’s take a look at the film’s first big hand and one of its most upsetting moments.
It would be one thing for “Rounders” to simply employ reasonable card game behavior. It’s a poker movie that refuses to hold a viewer’s hand, clearly constructed by screenwriters (David Levien and Brian Koppelman, “Billions”) who understand the card game and its enigmatic draw. While the previous films I discussed, “Maverick” and “Casino Royale,” missed the mark in their poker games, “Rounders” is far more reliable. For this final installment of my series on poker hands in movies, I’ll take a look at how “Rounders” takes advantage of the logic of poker to sharpen its story and characters.
