Hey everyone,
I just watched this movie, and i liked it... but was anyone else a little disspointed at the amount of poker in this movie, orlack of poker. I guess i was expecting somthing more like rounders, but still. i figured a movie about stu ungar would have more scenes with him playing poker. well... anyone else get this?
- Juicy
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Yeah, I would've liked to have seen more, but the Mr. Leo Gin scene is a classic! Really shows what a genius Stuey was... The DJ bluff is good, too, but you have to watch it a couple of times.
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The DJ bluff is easy to pick up, and in fact it's something that poker pro Jack "Treetop" Strauss really did pull off while playing poker in either the 70's or 80's (I forget which). I knew what it was the second I saw his cards and the flop.
DJ knew that if Mario called down (called each of his bluff bets), DJ would lose and Mario would take a huge pot. Even if Mario thought he had A-A, it's likely he'd still call him just to see it. Trust me, he would have.
Anyways, DJ tells Mario he does not have A-A and offers to show one of his hole cards to Mario. The beauty here is that it doesn't matter which hole card is shown, the bluff would work either way. It's also ingenious to ask for a $100 (at least that's what black checks are normally worth) check as if he would have shown one for free, Mario could have picked up on the fact that he was bluffing. By asking for the $100, DJ is telling Mario that he may be beaten and wants to get SOMETHING out of this hand.
DJ's Hand: 7-2
Mario's Hand: K-K
Board: 7-3-3-2
It makes no difference which card is shown, as it will give Mario the illusion that he is beat. Right now hand-wise, Mario has two pair, K's and 3's and DJ has 7's and 3's.
DJ also makes it seem to Mario that he doesn't care which hole card he sees since he lets him pick. This way, Mario can only assume that the second (and still hidden) hole card is the same as the first. Why else would he not care which card is shown? was the thinking of Mario here.
Mario can only reason that both cards are the same (either 2-2 as what was shown or 7-7 if he picked the other one). Thus, he now figures his K-K is no good and mucks to save himself more money since DJ had bet the hand the whole way and Mario believes he will continue to do so, costing Mario more money.
And again, yes this was an offshoot of a real poker bluff that really was used and worked by a poker pro.
Keep in mind that Stu Ungar was a GAMBLER moreso than he was a poker player. Stuey simply loved action. It made no difference what the game was, although his fondness for Gin and No-Limit Hold-em' came from his (correctly) calculating that those were games in which skill prevailed over luck more of the time than other games.
Somebody once said about Stuey (as quoted in this month's CardPlayer magazine)- "His cheapest commodity was money". Money to Stuey was simply a means to gamble more and get more action. To him, winning $100,000 did not provide the means to a new car or investment fund, it provided a way to gamble more or for higher stakes. He never looked at money as a way to buy goods and services, it was a way to get more action.
That's what this movie was about. Stuey took up No-Limit Hold-em' over halfway through his life and thus it was a relatively minor part of it, more minor than his craving for gambling. He was one of those people who would bet whatever amount you wanted on whether the next pitch in a baseball game would be a ball or strike.
While Ungar will be remembered for his poker playing because of his WSOP wins, he was a gambler in every sense of the word. If there was no action (gamble) going on, Stuey was bored. The drugs were just an offshoot of that lifestyle in those times.
Thanks for the detail on the bluff -- It took me a view or 2, but I got it. Double great that it was TRUE!
The thing about the end of that scene, which is really telling, is how Stuey reacts to DJ's scam: complete admiration. It seems that if you weren't a gambler, he didn't give a rat's ass about you. But if you liked action, he liked you, too.... and you're right, that's what the movie is REALLY about.
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it was a good, but i wish there were more poker in it, like rounders. i love poker.
i never go looking for a sucker. i look for a champion and make a sucker out of him-amarillo slim