‘Rounders’ Live From New York With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, Sean Fennessey, and Van Lathan
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This might be the best quarterback draft class in years. And we have huge franchises like Chicago, New England, and Washington with a ton on the line. My name is Craig Horlbeck and I host the Ringer NFL Draft Show with Danny Kelly, Ben Solak, and Danny Heifetz. We cover trades, free agency, the draft obviously, everything. We'll tell you all about which quarterbacks are going to be good, which quarterbacks are going to be bad, like Kenny Pickett, and if there's a diamond in the rough, like Brock Purdy. Follow us at the Ringer NFL Draft Show on Spotify.

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The Rewatchables is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find the Bill Simmons Podcast. You can find The Watch with Chris Ryan. You can find The Big Picture with Sean Fantasy. You can find Higher Learning and The Ringerverse, Midnight Boys with Van Lathan. All four of us were on the last of the Cold Weather Tour podcast, the live shows. You already heard Forrest Gump and The Fugitive and Creed.

On previous episodes, this is the one we did about rounders in New York City at Webster Hall. We had a great time, super fun. And next week, we'll be back with brand new podcasts, including a week from now, a movie that for me is a rewatchables Hall of Famer. So I'll get due to the new Larry David. I don't know if you heard Larry David on my podcast, but he was berating me for not tipping off people ahead of time on what the next rewatchables podcast is.

So I'll tell you what the movie is probably on Thursday's BS podcast. But if you want to watch any of these live shows, go to youtube.com slash Bill Simmons, and you can watch all the cold weather tour live shows we did. And eventually this one as well. So here it is rounders live from New York. Let's go.

Mike McDermott's best friend just got out of jail. I need money. I gotta get together some roll here. And already he's got himself in debt. I don't have to tell you my collection, Matt. The cops up in arms. You're fixing to go down hard. And the Russian mob breathing down their necks. If you don't give my money, then you are mine. Matt Damon, Edward Norton, John Turturro, Vomka Jensen, Gretchen Maugh.

with John Malkovich and Martin Landau. Rounders, rated R, starts September 11th in theaters everywhere. Hello. What's up, New York? Hey. Oh. Over on the corner, you know him as Wayne Jenkins. You know him as Harling Mayo. You know him as Chris Ryan. The one, the only, the first midnight boy, Van Lathan. The king of Staten Island. Sean Fennessey. Hi. Hi.

So we're doing rounders for the rewatchables. You guys agree with this choice? We want to do a New York movie. What do we bat around for New York movies? I think rounders was always the number one draft pick. It's the one that we said we could actually do, like I have notes, without notes, like just do it blind. Yeah. Could we just do blind rounders? But we got to watch rounders like three or four times over the last couple of weeks, which is the most rewarding thing I've done with my time. Yeah.

Sean, this movie changed your life. Yeah, but you don't want to tell them you were going to do Taxi Driver solo just by yourself. Just wearing a brown jacket. Yeah, we batted around. We knew Van was going to be here. Van, you wanted this. This was you. I wanted to do Avengers, but...

No, I definitely wanted to do this movie. It's like one of those movies that during my formative movie watching years, I watched over and over and over and over again. So it's dope to be talking about it with you guys. So in the 90s, there was this slow burn movie phenomenon where sometimes a movie would come out and it wouldn't hit right away.

And then something happened, and then it would hit. And it happened with Swingers. It happened with Days of Confused. It happened with this movie. Does it really, does it happen anymore? Like, I guess it happened with John Wick. That was like nine years ago. But does it, does this still happen? It's not the same. It's Matt Damon who has pointed this out. But DVDs for losers in dorm rooms like me, huge for a movie like this. When did this hit for you, C.R.?

I don't remember the first time I saw this. I just remember it always being on. You know, this was like Sean said, a DVD movie that you would walk into rooms and either it was on cable or somebody had the DVD going in the house you were living in and you were like, oh, did Worm get the hot dog yet? Can I sit down and watch this? And then you were there for 45 minutes.

Happy event. Yeah, same thing. It's like not just DVDs, but linear cable to where the cable would give you a movie. I mean, we got excited over all kinds of crazy movies. Like, yo, my nigga, did you see that Suicide Kings? You know what I mean? The Boondock Saints, like really movies. Y'all like that, right?

And so, like, there was a whole genre of films that meant a lot more to people than they do now. Now it's either the top of the top or it goes to streaming and you don't really hear anything about it. I saw this in the movie theater with my future wife and my roommate, Ricky, who eventually moved out because he went to live with his girlfriend. So the three of y'all went to the movie together? We did. Three of us. Like at 10 o'clock in Somerville, Massachusetts. Who liked it more, Ricky or your future wife? I think he liked it more. But all of us were like...

I didn't really understand poker. Was this like a Mike Worm Joe kind of a thing? What's weird about going to a movie with a roommate and a girlfriend? I'm under attack. Um,

So let me just real quick before we move off this. What did you think? We had like a threesome after? I'm asking because like, because so you guys went, whose idea was it for Ricky to come? Because that's very, you know what I'm saying? Because if it was Ricky's idea, it's like you have to ask whose idea was it for Ricky to come? It's like we're in the movies. Come on with us. It was the 90s. We were much more forthcoming. It was the 90s.

I liked it, I didn't love it. And I didn't really understand the poker stuff. And then Ricky had this illegal cable box that he got for us from this guy named Big Al. And they used to have all these pay-per-view channels. And the pay-per-view would just run 24 hours a day so you could jump in whenever. So like four months later, Rounders comes on like two of the pay-per-view channels.

And I start watching it and I'm hopping in. And then within two weeks, I'm like, this is my favorite movie of all time. And that was it. And I've been watching it ever since. And it's gaining steam. I think you could make a case

I don't know if it's the greatest rewatchable of all time, but it's in the running. Wow. It's in the running. No, Seth, I'm going to land the plane on this. It's 26 years old. I'm still, like, finding stuff and seeing stuff. Like, obviously, The Godfather is probably the best ever, but this one, from the movies of the last 30 years, I think I've watched this the most other than maybe Almost Famous. Boogie Nights? Boogie Nights. Oh.

Of the ones that we've done, I mean, I've watched Heat probably the most. Well, that's 95. So yeah, all right. That's last 30 years. Maybe last 26 or whatever.

The thing about this one is that also it's like once you've seen this movie four or five times, you start talking differently. Like the vocabulary, it's a vocabulary movie. Why do you think I am the way that I am? Because of this movie. Because you're from here? Yeah. No, but like you start talking like Worm. You start talking like Mike. You start talking like Teddy. And like that's only like this, Glenn Gary, Michael Clayton, a bunch of storking movies. But they'll have like an impact on just even the way you talk.

You mentioned John Wick earlier, and obviously John Wick kills like 557,000 people in the movie, so that's very fun to watch. But another thing about John Wick is the fact that the movie exists in this weird, inaccessible universe that you've never seen before. And so when I'm first watching this movie, I'm like 19, I'm like, a motherfucker can play poker for 36 hours in a row? Yeah.

Like, what kind of cocaine they doing out here in Manhattan? And so that thing about the movie, it's like so singularly cool. And you reaccess that cool every time you watch it.

It had this unbelievable cable run because it could run on TNT. They could bleep a few things and it was fine. It could run on HBO. It could run on VHS, DVD. It just kind of kept going and kept going and kept going. You could jump in. How many different spots in this movie can you just jump in and be ready to roll? Any spot. You can see the beginning or I come in?

You could see when his girlfriend moves out, I'm in. You could see when they're about to, they got to make $15,000 in five days, I'm in. Like, it doesn't matter. If Mike and Joe were having a conversation, I'm out. I'm not sure I want to jump in. All right, fair. One of the great opening lines ever, listen, here's the thing, if you can't spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker. I wish somebody had told Isaiah Thomas this when he was the next GM. Um...

Is he here? Starting early. Starting early. Are people booing because of the Knicks? He's gone. Things are great now. We did it. We did it. Chris, very few movies get you in the mood

and make you want to do the thing that the movie is actually about. Yes. You watch this movie and you're like, I just want to play poker for nine hours with random guys who smell. I cannot play poker. I do not understand the rules of poker. Sean can attest we've played poker before. I just start chatting. Like, I'm just like, you guys see SportsCenter earlier? Like, but I love hanging out.

And this is one of the great hangout movies of all time. Nobody works. They're just up all night. They do night stuff during the day and day stuff during the night. And it's just an amazing hangout movie. Yeah, I mean, I can relate because I know a lot of people that got out of jail. And so that was the thing. You know, you got to go get somebody. You visit them a couple of times and he comes home and you're like, I love you, man. Don't fuck my life up.

And then they do. And so, like, that thing, I'm being serious, though. Like, feeling that sort of obligation to someone who went away for a little while, you can't explain it to your girl. You know what I'm saying? Why the dude named Lil Bobby is taking over your whole life. But, like, what he felt for him, like, I get that. Sean, you saw this movie, and now as an adult with a child, you will still drive to Vegas to...

put in headphones and play poker for nine straight hours with a bunch of strangers at a casino. Yeah, I'm going in April. Yeah, I mean, this is the movie that made me want to play cards. And watching it over and over again in college led to degenerate card games till five o'clock in the morning. Sorry, dad. My dad's here. Sorry, dad.

And I play to this day, and I love the game. It's like, this is one of the very rare movies about a world that Van is talking about that doesn't even really work that hard to explain the world to you. It's like, it jumps right into the lingo. It jumps right into the details, and you have to catch up, and I love that about it.

I started, I had never played before in this movie once it became rewatchable for me. I was always a blackjack guy. And all of a sudden, I'm driving to the Mohegan, I'm driving to Foxwoods, I was living in Boston. And my future wife...

Didn't really fully understand it, and I'm not positive she believed me. I'm like, I'm going to be back at like four in the morning. She's like, where are you going? Did Ricky go with you? No, Ricky did not go. You guys imagine Bill with a fucking visor. He's showing up. So you went through, you did a thing, you were trying to take down people at the Johnny Chan at the Taj? Yeah. Did you play poker before you saw Rounders?

No, I'd never played in my life. I didn't even really understand it, but it made me want to play. We also caught Matt Damon, Ed Norton at great points of their career. And the cast is loaded, which we'll get to. The Damon Norton thing, though, unbelievable together. Every scene with them, I think, is a home run. A really great point.

of their career as CR. Where you have Damon coming off Good Will Hunting, Norton's coming off Primal Fear and the Larry Flint movie and he just filmed American History X and feels like he's going to become one of our most important actors. And now they're together in this poker movie. But it's that moment before the moment. Like, they know something big is coming but there's not the self-consciousness of who they are yet. I mean, Norton's got...

the American History X goatee when he's coming out of prison, right? Yeah. And I think... Thank God that's all he had from American History X. Rewatching this, I was kind of like...

It's a crime that these guys didn't make more movies together. They had so much chemistry, like, in all of those scenes. Not to take away from Damon and Affleck, but it would have been interesting. Yeah, it's weird that you don't... I can't think of the last time, and I'm sure Sean knows, but I can't think of the last time that two actors at that particular point in their career, because...

I was attached to both Matt Damon and Edward Norton, and not because they were these huge box office stars. It's because everything they were doing was so goddamn good at the time. The talented Mr. Ripley, Fight Club would be after that, American History X, People vs. Larry Flint, Primal Fear. They were both on these heaters, and then they complemented each other perfectly. I can't think of another time.

And Saving Private Ryan came out three months before this movie. And that was what most people had seen Matt Damon to that point too. Crazy boom era, late 90s, looking back where you had all these under 35 leading men. You had Damon and Norton. You had Leo, Jim Carrey, Sandler, Will Smith, Vince Vaughn, Mark Wahlberg, McConaughey, Pitt, Clooney. I think he was under 35. Ben Stiller. And then you had Matthew Perry and Mike Myers, Billy Crudup, Don Cheadle.

And your guy, Philip Seymour Hoffman. And they're all, it's like this amazing class that we kind of didn't realize was a class as it was happening. Now you look back and it was. Big question. I'll just, this is an unanswerable, but we'll do it now. Could Damon and Norton have switched parts in this movie? I don't think so. I don't think so. Dirtbag energy is really hard. I think Norton could have played Mike. I don't know if Matt could have played Warren. See, I feel the opposite. I think Damon could have grown some bad facial hair

And you could have thrown a leather jacket on him. He could have done it. But I'm not sure Norton had the sweetness to be Mike McD. Damon is so square-jawed. There's something about him that screams like straight-laced wasp. Yeah, it's hard to imagine Damon being like, she was a good-looking older woman. You know what I mean? There's something. Norton is wormy. He's got these little small hands. What's the scummiest guy Matt Damon's ever played?

It's not the Mr. Ripa guy who's a homicidal maniac? It's the guy from fucking Interstellar. That guy's a scumbag. That motherfucker's a piece of shit. Wait. Is that guy's name Captain Worm? Yeah. Wait, what about the school ties guy? That guy was horrible. In a different way. Listen to the guys you're talking about. You're talking about...

Ripley and the school ties guys who are perversions of that very classic American guy. They're swarmy because you trust them because you believe in like all of the shit that they're saying. Like, you got to see him coming. You know what I mean? Do you think rounders launched the poker room?

No, I think Chris Moneymaker winning the World Series launched the poker boom. But I think it helped that we had all been watching Rounders on DVD for three years when that happened. And that got us excited about watching it on ESPN. What do you think? I have no idea. I started checking out poker because of Rounders. I'll say that. So I asked the writers of this movie, our friends, Brian Kaufman and David Levine.

I asked them this, like, we did a back and forth in 2006, and Levine said it was the whole card cam and probably their movie, and those were two things. Because when they were filming poker, you never knew what the cards were. And then all of a sudden, somebody was like, what if we put a camera on the cards? And people were like, whoa. But before that, you just didn't know what was going to happen. Now it's to the point, I think it's impossible to play poker without thinking arounders in some way. Like, there's been a million basketball movies, right? Yeah.

You don't think of like one basketball movie when you're playing basketball, but with poker for some reason, you just have these different rounders moments in your head and nobody's really challenged it. - There've been good ones, Mississippi Grinds, great. - Casino Royale had the poker scene. - There's some debate about that. - I think every generation gets one. Like you had Cincinnati Kid in the 60s, you had California Split in the 70s, Cool Hand Luke, there's poker in Cool Hand Luke.

Maverick in the 90s and then and then rounders at the end of the decade nothing in the 21st century though besides Mississippi grind. That's what I could think of 21 Is that ironic The tower rounders this movie has a lot of life lessons, I don't know if you guys realize I'm gonna read you some of them These are actual quotes from the movie. We can't run from who we are our destiny chooses us. They're like fortune cookies. I

From time to time, everyone goes bust. You agree with that, Van? Yeah, for sure. Oh, Bobby, he went bust. Was the last time I went bust? No, little Bobby. Come on, don't, don't. It's too early. Don't get him going. Don't antagonize him. Come on. Always leave yourself outs. Sure. That's, we see that with sports teams sometimes. Like the Deshaun Watson trade. No outs. Three first round picks. Guaranteed contract, no outs. That's why I always got Barstool on speed dial. You know? Just...

Just in case you push it too far. Hey, hey, hey. Everybody look at Bill's face real close. That fucking hurt. He's made that joke before. You don't hear much about guys who take their shot and miss, but I'll tell you what happens to them. They end up pumping crappy jobs and graveyard shifts trying to figure out how they came up short. That's the Detroit Lions right now. Oh.

Are they here? It's Jared Goff, everybody! It's immoral to let a sucker keep his money. You can't lose what you don't put in the middle, but you can't win much either. Just like the saying goes in the poker game of life, women are the rake. Controversial, we'll get to that later. And if you're too careful, your whole life can become a fucking grind.

You didn't even get my favorite one. What is it? Like, that's not me. I see a mark, I fucking take him down. That's good. That's the coldest line of the whole movie. He can't help but eat the fucking week. Directed by John Dahl, $12 million budget, made $22.9 million. Miramax pulled it from the theater after three weeks. But if they made a dollar every time one of the four of us watched it? Yeah. Avatar.

Roger Ebert, three stars. He said, it's essentially a sports picture in which the talented hero wins, loses, faces disaster, and then is paired off one last time against the champ. Not wrong. He liked it, though. So did Siskel. All right, so if you're not familiar with our podcast, we go through categories. We break the movie down with some categories. First one is most rewatchable scene. Got to start with Teddy KGB crushing Mike at the beginning, right? No.

He doesn't look like much, but KGB is connected all the way to the top of the Russian mob. He's the one guy in the game you don't want to fuck with. But if you're looking for high stakes, this is the only place in town. They all know me as a small-timer, but that's about to change. They all know me as a small-timer, but that's about to change. Three stacks of high society, Sean?

I like that they invented that phrase, but now it's something we all use. So you don't think that existed? No. Koppelman says that they came up with that. They were calling it three big dimes, three big dimes. That's what it was going to be in the script. And then at the last minute, they came up with three stacks of high society. And now jerks in casinos all the time are like, oh, three stacks of high society, please. So there's a lot of real stuff in this movie, but I like the inventions too. So Mike McD has Ace 9.

What we could see is ace-nine-nine, so he's got a full house but two aces and the three nines. And he goes all in, thinking that Teddy KGB has the spades. Yeah, I'm gonna go all in because I don't think you got the spades. You're right. I don't have spades. I know before the cards are even turned over. I sees full Mike. Was that bad card playing by Mike McD? What's he doing there?

You want to do this right now? Yeah. You want to do that, breaking down that hand right now? Just quickly. I mean, put yourself in his position. You've got $30,000. You're sitting down with a Russian gangster. And he's a great poker player on top of being a gangster. And you're trying to make as much money as possible so that you can go to Las Vegas to participate in the World Series of Poker. And it never once occurs to you that maybe he's holding aces. The only thing you're thinking is, I hope he's not holding aces. So...

We're already getting into unanswerable questions. No, it's... He fucks up. He realizes later. But we find out why. We find out why he was full of gas, right? Because of Johnny. Because of Johnny Chan. It is kind of weird. You know what I mean? It's tough. Because, like, I hoop sometimes at the Equinox. And, you know, every once in a while in the Equinox, you in there, you're like, a motherfucker can't miss.

And they might have a pro on the other team. If I bust his ass, I'm not going to try out for the Lakers. Like, he had one good night and then basically cut his dick off in front of the whole world. Yeah, I agree. It's kind of weird, right? That tells you what he thinks about himself. He had a good night against Chan and then he wants to go to Vegas and he just fucking shit the bed in front of everybody. It's what he deserved.

You're right. I don't have the spades. And then the Mike McDermott face. I don't think there's ever been a better I just got my ass kicked face. No. It was like, it's that and Zay Flowers two weeks ago. Sorry. I like Kanish telling him to get up. Get up. Get out of the seat.

The judges game is my next one, which is just an absolute heat check from Mike. He comes in, he's there for two and a half seconds, reads everybody's cards. It's your money the kid's betting with. That's plenty wise. We know what we're holding and we know what you're holding. The fuck you know what we all got? Summer clerkship in your office says I know what you're holding. I don't bet with jobs like that. Let's just say I'll put you at the top of the list if you're right. Okay.

Well, you were looking for that third three, but you forgot that Professor Greenfold did it on 4th Street, and now you're representing that you have it. The D.A. made his two pair, but he knows they're no good. Judge Kaplan was trying to squeeze out a diamond flush, but he came up short, and Mr. Eisen is futilely hoping that his queens are gonna stand up. So, like I said, the dean's bet is $20. Well, kiss my ass. Kiss my ass.

It's all people that he has to get a grade for. It doesn't matter. And I just like that game. I like what the corny old guy, like, Czechoslovakia. Czech to Martin and Lewis. Yeah. And then Damon just lays it out. Did you believe this, Sean? That sequence? That he could read everybody that fast?

Because Kaplan and Levine swear that they saw Phil Hellman. It was seven cards stud, which makes it a little easier. Yeah, I mean, Chris's favorite player is Daniel Negreanu. And Daniel Negreanu, if you watch him on TV, he's just putting guys on their hands in real time. There's incredible YouTube comps like this. What kind of dark arts do you have? So guys can do that. But some people say that the flaw of Mike as a character is that he worries too much about that. He worries too much about other people's cards and not enough about his own cards. What do you think? I have no idea what y'all are talking about. Yeah.

But I don't know nothing about poker. To me, it was cool. It looked like the Joint Chiefs of Staff sitting around. And he came in and impressed them. And later on, he gets to ask the motherfucker for $10,000. I can't wait till we talk about that. Yeah.

Because if something happens to me right now, there's nobody I can just go and ask for 10 grand to help get my... He's not going to give it to me. We'll talk later. Next scene, Worm and Mike finally start playing together. They go to that mansion and...

And he says, Worm and I fall into a world rhythm like Clyde Frazier and Earl Monroe. There's some billions, Dana, in some of the dialogue. We get to see Worm in action. We get to see Worm say, my Uncle Les always says, when the money's gone, it's time to move on. So enjoy it, you secret handshake motherfuckers. You're missing a part about that, though, that I like. The girl. Come on, Bill. Oh, I know. I was guessing. That's very important to me, and we'll get to that later, but...

The quote I gave about, or Worm gave about seeing a mark, Mike is a mark to Worm. And the way that you know that is because Mike says that he is leaving. Yes. And then Worm goes in and she says to him,

He told me you will be running a little bit late. He already knows what he's going to do. So he's actually conning him into doing what he knows he's going to do. It's amazing too because Norton or Worm says I'm sorry the exact same way like 25 times during the movie always to Mike and Mike's like, okay, like every time. He's like, I'm sorry. Next one is Mike's girlfriend moves out and thank God

Mike sees his stuff missing and he's like, "Oh man, I knew she always knew how to throw away a shitty hand." And Worm says, "I mean, look at you, you domesticated yourself for her." He does that whole thing and then, you know what cheers me up when I'm feeling shitty? You know what cheers me up when I'm feeling shitty? What? Rolled up aces over kings. Is that right? Yeah. Check raising stupid tourists and taking huge pots off them. Yeah?

Stacks and towers of checks I can't even see over. Playing all night, high limit hold'em at the Taj, where the sand turns to gold. Fuck it, let's go. Don't tease me. Let's play some fucking cards.

I don't think any scene that doesn't involve actual sports gets me more fired up. And then Damon does it. All right, fuck it, let's go. Let's play some fucking cards. And then what song is that that kicks in? It's Funk No. 49 by the James Gang. Oh, man. An elite scene. Worm does the little fist pump. Yeah. I'm giving that the Kid Cudi Pursuit of Happiness award for best needle drop, too. What's the best we're-about-to-go-gambling movie moment ever?

This or Vegas Baby Vegas, you mean? Vegas Baby Vegas, yeah. What else do we have? What's in the running? It's probably those two. Color of Money? In the finals? Oh, Color of Money when he starts playing again? Yeah. Oh, Hangover. Hangover. Hangover's a good one. Rain Man. Oh, that escalator with the suits. Yeah, that's pretty good. That's good. Yeah, that scene could have been longer. I really enjoyed watching Rain Man play Blackjack. It was great. That guy was awesome. That's like you and Jacoby up there playing Blackjack.

So this scene leads right into, this is beautiful. Welcome to the Chesterfield South. And all their friends are there. And then they do the nature channel thing. I like that one as well. Anything else you want to add with that one? Or should I keep going? Just the time in the Chesterfield? Yeah.

It feels like a very real representation of the kind of guys you would find in those secret poker clubs in the late 90s based on the way they describe it. This one's all based on the Mayfair, which is a real club, and just full of guys who look like they haven't walked more than 100 feet in five years. I like when Worms says to...

Yeah, you keep grinding out that rent money, Joe. That's noble work you're doing. He's got good insults for him. Next one, the card game with the municipal workers. Generally, the rule is the nicer the guy, the poorer the card player. These guys, despite being cops, are real sweethearts. I'm right on schedule, up 4,200. The morning can't get here soon enough.

- Holy shit, that's a hell of an elk. - My grandfather got that one, ain't that a beauty? Hey, fellas! - Hey, Bear. - Let this guy down at the bowling alley. He says he likes to play a little cards. - Now you've come to the right place. - How you doing? - Yes. - Mike should have left when he heard Worm's voice. - Excuse me, I don't understand. So, like, thank you. So, he hears Worm's voice. - He's up 4,200 bucks.

Automatically, he knows that is a harbinger of doom.

His face is like, oh my God. Can I just interject? Why just not, just break out? When he hears Worm's voice, he goes, holy shit, that's a hell of an elk. That's the Arbinger of Doom for Mike. His face, there's so many moments in this where Damon does like subtle stuff with his face to let you know just how defeated he is. And that's one of them. Hey man, I'm tired. I got to go back and watch Wild on Ibiza on the E! Channel. It's 98. Yeah.

Let me get out of here. Like, why did... Y'all used to watch that shit. Like, so, why did he stay? Why did he stay? I'm literally asking. I should ask compliments next time. I mean, it's $4,000 more dollars is what he needed. They needed to get to 15. They were really close. Took a chance. They're working those Binghamton cops. Next one is... Hate to get punched in the throat many times by a state trooper. That's not what you want. Yeah.

Mike telling Kanish how he bluffed Johnny Chan. Leading to Johnny Chan playing himself in a flashback scene. The Danny McBride Award? Yeah. The Sorry John I Don't Remember. And some good tortura here, right? How many scenes is he in? Probably three, four? Kanish? Four? Yeah, four or five. He's amazing in this movie. You look like Dwayne Bobbitt after we went one round with Norton. And then the final Teddy Mike hand is the last rewatchable scene. I mean, you could split it up.

Where he blasts him early, does the Wario trick on him, but really gets to the end in the big hand. And Teddy just goes to another level. It hurts, doesn't it? You can't believe what fell. All your dreams just hopped down the fucking drain. Your fate is sitting right beside you. That ace could not have helped you. That's it. All right.

You're right, Teddy. The ace didn't help me. I flopped the nut straight. Motherfucker! You fool, you're mad! Motherfucker! That is it! That's it? What the fuck are you talking about, that's it? Take him down, Teddy! No more! No! Not tonight! This son of a bitch all night, he... Chick, chick, chick! He trapped me! Well, you feeling satisfied now, Teddy? Because I can go on busting you up all night. No! No!

I don't even understand. He's ripping off line after line. He's doing splash the pot. He's just, it's, what is it, like a six minute heat check, Chris? Oh my God. I mean, just like everything he says to Rispoli where it's just like, your fate is sitting next to you. All of your dreams go up. That's so crazy. I'm just like, I know. He just does Borat and he thinks it's...

That's Borat. You should have made Joe your wife. My wife, grandma. You would never kiss. But the way he gets them to keep playing though.

That was my shit for years, man. You know, because I told you guys before. That was during my, you know, pointing at my crotch era because of DX. Yeah. You know, walking down the street, you see a nun. Suck it, sister Anne. And the fact that he. You would do that to nuns? Whoever, bro. Like, whoever. I remember it really went too far when I hit. Yeah. I was so ingrained with it that I hit my mom with it.

Oh, no. It was such a part of me. My mom's like, Ben, come in here. I'm like, yo, what's up, mom? And she's like, boy, did you just point at your dick? But like, the last time I stick it in you. And he's like, I was like, but he does it. And then it doesn't quite work. And he's like, nah, he need a little bit more. He need a couple more inches.

It's like the best thing in the world. I was doing that for like five years. Can I just say also the most amazing part about that is Teddy keeps turning around to watch like late 90s German soccer. Right. So he'll fuck with Mike and he'll be like, hey, you go ahead. And he's just like, oh, 2-1. I imagine he probably fixed that match or something like that. He does the hanging around, hanging around alligator butt. He does the respect is all you have in the morning. Just taunting him, taunting him, taunting him. Then it flips on him.

Mike McD gets him. He flops a nut straight. And then that's it. Mike wins his money back. Any other rewatchable scenes? Yeah. When Mike and Worm first go to the Chesterfield and Mike leaves him there and he's with Roman and Maurice. The Roman and Maurice scene out into the hot dog, Norton is Benny Hanna cooking. It is unreal how good he is. He's like, you want to see this seventh card? You better stop speaking fucking Sputnik. Yeah.

You got any other ones? The first scene between Mike and the judge. Like, you know, when Mike is talking to the judge and the judge is telling Mike how he... Oh, the yeshiva? Yeah, he's talking about the yeshiva situation. Should we power rank yeshiva stories in this one? It felt like the same story twice. I don't mean to nitpick, but... They did, but, like, the judge's yeshiva story is very important to the overall theme of the film. So, like, that was, like, a rewatchable scene for me.

I remember I told a similar story to Sean when I was trying to get you to move to Los Angeles. Look at me now. I followed my calling. What do you have for most rewatchable scene? We're not going to talk about Petra coming to visit Mike. No, we're doing that later. But that's not rewatchable, you don't think? That's what's made it worse. I mean, it is for me. Yeah. It's a notable sequence. Yeah, no, save it. What do you have for most rewatchable? I think it's rolled up aces over kings. I have that too. What do you got, Van? The most rewatchable scene is the final scene to me.

Yeah, Mike taking down KGB. That's like the most rewatchable scene. What do you have, Chris? I go with the last Teddy KGB hand. This episode is supported by State Farm. Think about your first reaction after you have an accident. What do you do? You scream, oh no, or man, why did this happen? On the flip side, let's say you buy a new car or you lease a new car. Get in there and it smells great and you're like, man, this is awesome.

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What's aged the best? We mentioned one of the best opening lines of 90s. Worm's last line I really like. Hey, at least you're rounding again. You're going to thank me for that someday. He's right. Mike's probably like a multimillionaire now. We're definitely going to talk about that. But then he disappears for the last 25 minutes. I always forget that Worm leaves and does not come back.

A great movie with narration? Yes. Tough. The narration also, the jargon, like you were saying, the jargon just drops you right in. But it's crucial that the VO...

Kind of explains the rules of poker and kind of explains what they're doing but at the same time Still uses vocab that you wouldn't know as a novice So it's like somebody's on till he doesn't explain what that is But you you do get more about poker because of the voiceover It's like actually ingenious use of it the amount of exposition that would be needed if not for the voiceover would ruin the pacing of the movie which is something that would

never happen at the table. Right. So it would seem really fake. I have established myself on the rewatchables as anti-narration and yet many of my favorite movies have narration. So as usual, I'm an idiot. But this, I think, has some of the best narration of anything. What do you think that's about? Well, it's usually when it's a movie where the narration is bad, it feels more profound where it's just like, ugh.

You guys couldn't figure out how to edit this thing, so you just had the character. So I grew up in Alabama. And then it's like, oh my God. So Forrest Gump. Yeah. What do you got for what's the best? Oh gosh. Well, I love the stakes of this movie. I hadn't really thought about this until the most recent viewing of it, but like,

Even in the late 90s, like, their life is hanging on 15 grand. And, like, the judge is like, I can, I'm not a wealthy man. Like, I can give you 10. I can't give you 15. Like, this isn't hundreds of millions of dollars. It's, like, real money to real people. And it actually makes the drama really hit for me. The Russian mob. I'm serious. Because, like, up to this point, I was only really familiar with the tenacity of the Italian mob.

And then after this, the Russian mob had their moment until John Wick killed them all. Rest in peace. But think about it. After this movie, it was this movie. Then it was fucking... Eastern Promises. It was Eastern Promises. Yeah. And it was training day. And the Russians took the mob over until they killed the wrong dog. I like it. What do you got, Sean?

I'm getting over the Russian mob. I think the Russian mob has always been here, just for the record. No, but I've never seen them in movies, though. I didn't really know them. They weren't the mob. This is their movie rookie season. I think the allure of...

the poker clubs of that time when you could sit down with a pro if you got initiated into that world. And things are not like that anymore. That hidden world has all been shut down. The Mayfair is gone. All those places are gone now. But that is a very nostalgic time. Bill, I have one that I think you and I will share. Is there anything better or anything that's aged the best? Like the scene when a guy is getting out of jail and he gets his stuff back? That's great. It is...

Never fails. Should that be just a YouTube montage that never ends? Like one toothpick. Yeah. What would you get back? Like a Ben Simmons jersey and like a ski hat? Yeah, Nicorette, Ben Simmons jersey. Your beanie? Yeah.

Another one's aged the best. So way back when, when I was writing for Page Two at ESPN.com, it was like my first or second year. And I used to do this gimmick for awards where I would hand out awards, but I would hand out movie quotes. And I did rounders and my editors were like, rounders? And I'm like...

yeah, this movie's like, I'm just watching a lot. I love this movie. But I didn't know if people liked it because I'm living in Boston. Like, I had no idea. You put it out there and everybody was like, fuck yeah, Rounders. I'm like, oh yeah. And it's like pre-Twitter, like pre-Reddit. You have no idea what people like, don't like. So you just kind of throw shit out. And that was when I was like, oh, this movie's going to have real legs. Like, this is probably like four years after. The name Johnny Chan...

So when I saw this movie, I didn't know Johnny Chan was a real person. I didn't know if they had faked all this stuff and it seemed too good to be true. But no, he was a back-to-back World Series of Poker guy and his name was Johnny Chan. Like, you can't even make that shit up. It's like he should be in Street Fighter 2 or something. What's a better name than that? Just walking back in here makes me queasy. I feel like Buckner walking back in his shade. That's a great line. It hurts every time, but I respect the writing. Settle down.

Hey, let me ask you a question about that line. Do you think that's Damon coming with that joint right there? The Buckner joke? I mean, do you think Matt Damon goes, like, when he sees that, because he's a Red Sox guy. Every time it feels so, like, sincere to the character and who I know Matt Damon to be. Do you think that's Damon coming up with that one? No, I think Koppelman's a big New York fan. That was a little fucking to the Red Sox fans. I know what he was up to. Where do you think Mike McDea's from?

Well, because he wears the fucking hat with no logo, which like nobody actually does except for like Chris Evans in Avengers movies. So he's from like... But I was like, I wonder whether or not he's not wearing a Red Sox hat because he doesn't want to get punched, but he's not going to wear a New York hat. And I was just curious whether or not you guys thought Mike was like... So he's from like Simsbury, Connecticut? Jersey? Everything's Jersey. Jersey? Rhode Island?

I like this one because I think it's true. When they say few players can remember the best hands they won, but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy the tough beats of their career. This is so true. I think about the terrible Boston losses way more than I think about the wins. There's science to that. Sean, same with you. You think about the Jets losses way more than the big Jets wins. You're in my town tonight. Hey!

Bill, I have to tell you, we actually all think about the terrible Boston losses more than anything. Yeah. What about the beats of your career, though? Do you think about those or just your sports teams? Sports beats. Bill has no bad beats in his career. She's really got him by the balls. That's not so bad, is it? Depends on the grip. Great exchange. So Mike McD trying to go to the WSOP at the end.

Makes so much more sense now in 2024 than I think it did to me in 1998. In 1998, it's like, where's it going? It's a tournament. They play like once a year. Now it's like, oh yeah, it's going to WSOP. Martin Landau, who plays Petrovsky, the law professor. And then he ended up on Entourage in the mid-2000s as the Bob Evans character. And it was like a nice little Petrovsky sequel almost. He won an Academy Award for Ed Wood. Ed Wood.

Yeah, we have some issues with that one. And then Johnny Champ playing himself. So I was thinking the best athlete playing himself cameos, which is obviously Kareem in Airplane is a classic. Xavier McDaniel in Singles. Amazing. Yeah. Brett Favre, there's something about Mary. Yeah.

He's a guy stealing millions of dollars from welfare people in Mississippi. I'm just doing movies, Van. Bob Watson and Cesar Cedeno in Bad News Bears Break of Training. And we just covered this. Dr. J in Philadelphia. Yeah. Who ends up in a cameo with the villains of the movie. And it's like nobody in Dr. J's life told him. Hey, Chuck. What's going on? Hey, let me ask you a question. What's your issue with Space Jam? Is that not on there?

Does that count as cameos? Space Jam? That's not a cameo. He stars in it. Oh, but you're saying it has to be a cameo. One scene cameo. What about Bird and Ewing and all them in Space Jam? Bird. Oh, Mike Tyson in The Hangover. Oh, Mike Tyson. That's a good one. Mike Tyson in The Hangover. Dan Marino in Ace Ventura. Oh, Ace Ventura. That's a good one. Yeah, Ace is out, Dan. I should have crowdsourced this better. All right.

Larry Bird and blue chips. So, Big Kahuna Burger Award for best use of food and drink. It's got to be the Oreos, right? Yeah, for sure. You're a prominent Oreos scene. I don't know if Oreos have ever been more involved. Yeah, runner up would go the hot dog and the amount of soy sauce Worm puts in his noodles. Yeah. It's just like... Chris, what do you got for Den of Thieves Benny Hanna Award for scene steal and location? Grandma's brothel.

Love the red. What a choice. What a statement choice. By the way, what I like about Grandma's brothel is... Yeah. Why don't you just leave that hanging for a second? It's the attainability of the women that were inside. Yeah. Got family here. I'm just saying. You go in Grandma's brothel, you're like, that was casted correctly. Yeah. He's got stains on his shirt. I feel like the Taj is scene-stealing location. It's the Taj.

What do you have for great shot Gordo? Best most cinematic shot. This is easy. Kanish and Mike outside of KGB's the first time. The steam rising up out of the vents. The shot of the city. So cool. Great. The Vincent Chase Award named after Vincent Chase and Entourage. Are we sure this character was actually good at his job?

Miramax, which released this movie and then panicked and pulled it three weeks after it got released. Why'd you make a careful Bill face? I didn't. No. No, you made a careful Bill face. Let's do an hour on Miramax. Yeah. We're going to move on. The Butch's Girlfriend Award. Wait, I actually have a Vincent Chase for you guys. What is it? I do too. Worm is a card cheat. Was Worm a good card cheat? He seems to be getting called out a lot.

He picked up some tricks in the joint. Apparently not. Well, you had to lose to the brothers to pay off the cops, but like... Can I say something about that? This is real quick. I appreciate the use of the word brothers. Because I'm with y'all in these movies, baby. I'm with y'all, good fellas. I'm with y'all in The Sopranos. I watch these movies with y'all. And I gotta eat a lot of N-words. Yeah.

And Worm used Brothers. I'm like, fucking with you, dawg. But he gets spotted by Kanish, Mike, and the cops, like, pretty easily. And Petra probably knows, too. So it's like, who is he actually successfully cheating? It's almost like he was a lifelong loser. What do you got? Are Mike and Teddy bad at poker? Have we considered that? Because they both lose on, like, pretty lame hands.

It's like a big, fat, open straight draw on the table, and Teddy's like, there's no way he's got the straight. Why not? It's the most obvious hand on the board. No? Maybe it was, maybe nobody was, because they weren't playing millions of poker hands on the internet yet. They just weren't good enough at it yet. Before we do this next category, I'd like to thank the Home Depot for helping to sponsor this event. Okay, let's get into it. The Butch's Girlfriend Award for weak link of the film.

Which is also the Mally Rubin Award for "Did This Movie Need a Better Sex Scene?" All right, Van, knock on the door. It's Petra. Walk us through what happens next. Okay. So, Petra's like six feet tall. I mean, she's Jean Grey, like, in a couple of years. You know, it's like, she's a comic book character. And I know that Mike is supposed to be this sort of pure, "I got all of this stuff, but give me a fucking break."

You just broke up with your girl. It's right there for you, Mike. What are you thinking, bruh? It's so, every time I watch it, I think that there's a director's cut somewhere where they wake up the next morning, just cigarettes all around them. Not even thinking about Worm anymore. Now Mike's thinking about starting a family. It's like a completely different situation. That juxtaposed with the fact. God bless Gretchen Maul.

But his girl is so fucking annoying in this movie. It's unbearable. My girl is here somewhere. Shout out to Kalika. And every once in a while, I come home, and you know what she knows about me? I got to play Spider-Man 2 for three hours. Does it cost $30,000 to do that? I'm just saying. She knows. Guess what? He been talking to Bill all day. Let my brother play the game. I almost dropped the N-word right there.

So he won't let this man play any... She surging through his shit, takes the money, puts the money on passive-aggressive bullshit. If you see that much money, you supposed to take your shit off and get in the shower with this motherfucker. I'm done. I just got... The older I get, at first, you know, it's all, Gretchen Maul, she's so cute and all of this stuff. I have theories about this, by the way. Later on, we'll talk about it. But the more I watch it, it's unbearable.

How annoying she is in this film. She's coming up in later categories. Patrick comes over, six foot, drop dead gorgeous Russian. Comes in, Mike's watching the 88 World Series of Poker. She immediately knows what tournament we're watching and what's about to happen in the hand.

And then she's doing the, oh, look, he knows this man well enough to check all the way. She's like narrating it. And then asks for some money and then throws herself at him, starts making out with him, and he pulls back. And it's the most unrealistic scene in movie history. I was trying to think of what... There's no way. The 2024 corollary to this would be for you. So Famke Jansen shows up, knocks on your door, is like, hey, Bill, I brought Joe and the juice over.

You like the kale smoothie, right? Oh, are you watching Pacers Magic on League Pass? Halliburton might make All-NBA. Is Halliburton playing? And if he does, what happens to his trade value? Yeah. Can I make you a latte? She literally says, why don't I stay for a while? No, no, that's not what she says. That's not sexy. That's her last thing. What she says, she says, I can stay.

Yeah, you can stay. And by the way, you know what else is the thing? Think about how bad she wants him. This motherfucker don't have no furniture. He's in there watching, he's watching the World Series on poker on VHS. She really wants it. Mike! Mike wants, you know. I did such a good job of not talking during this part of the conversation. Yeah, you did great. Cobman and Levine said in 2006 that it was the biggest mistake of the film probably of our entire career. What?

They said they wanted to make the debt of money seem so important to Mike that he had to deal with it right away. In hindsight, we were totally wrong. So there you go. What's aged the worst? Van mentioned Gretchen Maul. There's a wet blanket sports movie girlfriend legacy in 70s, 80s, 90s movies with, you know, we talked about this last time we did Creed, but Adrian, Rocky IV.

Doesn't fucking go to Russia. Never forgive her for that. Ned Braden's wife in Slapshot. The lady in Hoosiers who tries to get Normandale fired for like an hour. And then the team starts winning and she's like, hey, Norman, let's go. There's been a lot of bad ones. This is a really rough character where it's just every... And it's not even... It's just a... It was...

They're trying to get it so that he's got to move back to his old life. Yeah. And this new life has to go away. But every scene, she's like, Mike, why do you play poker? What's going on? And it's just brutal. But she's not shrill, and she uses poker logic against Mike. I'm just playing devil's advocate. Oh, you're in on her now? I'm not in. I'm in.

But I'm just saying, when she's like, I'm cutting my losses, you're a bum hand. She's not yelling at him because he wants to play poker. She's just like, you can't do it with me. His boy just got out of jail. Hey, hey. Thank you, Chris. We're standing up for Joe. I'm an ally to Joe. I can be honest with you. Hey, give me that woke shit. I walk with Joe. We talking shit up here. Now look, I get it. She's been hurt before.

But your man got one passion in the world. You got to help him. You got to stoke that passion, man. You know what I'm saying? That's what ends up... You took all this motherfucker's furniture and left. His boy had to see that. His man got out of jail. She don't want to go hang out with his boy. I'm not with it. There's nothing you can say, Susan B. Anthony, that can make me...

I don't think it's that at all. I don't think it's either of those things. Joe is not the romantic lead of the film. It's Worm. Worm is the guy who Mike is hooked on and in love with. It's a noir, and the femme fatale is Worm. He's the one who keeps leading him down the wrong path. That's the idea of the movie. It's unfortunate that Joe is written the way that Joe is written. She's not the greatest character. But Worm is really his love affair, and it breaks at the end because they're not good for each other.

So initially, they wrote the script and he had a buddy named... Brokeback Rounders. You would know. Well, we talked about it last night. Last night. You missed last night. Well, not last night. Like, last night at the other show. Last night at the other show, I said something. Van had a theory about Apollo and Rocky that almost caused a riot in the city of Philadelphia. Koppelman and Levine, they...

They wrote the extra character named Atkinson, who is Mike's law school buddy. He was kind of like the good side of Worm. And they ended up, the studio made them cut it. And then they had to just give more jokes. Is that supposed to be the annoying guy from Mock Court who's like, not only are you not punctual, but you don't know anything. No, I think it's a different guy. It's like, fuck out of here, man. That's Mike McD. Come on. This guy took down Johnny Chin. Yeah.

More what's aged the worst. Poor Eric Seidel, who I think was one of the best poker players of the 90s, right? He's one of the best poker players of all time. And in this movie, just gets annihilated by Johnny Chan, and is just crestfallen and devastated. And probably more people have seen him in this movie than anything else he's done, right? Yeah, he always says whenever he sees anybody involved with rounders, thank you so much for putting a spotlight on the worst moment of my life. Yeah.

What do you got for what's aged the worst? I don't think that this movie has fared well with 20 years of poker Reddit analyzing it because there's 10 years of guys just being like, no, that's not how that hand would have gone. And now it's devolved to dudes being like, how I would have closed Petra in five steps. It's just like, I did the work. Don't just, don't read poker Reddit about this. Y'all already told mine.

What do you got, Sean? Anything? I got a couple more. Go ahead. Let's talk about the biggest reach in the movie, which was Petrovsky giving Mike 10 grand. Mike's, his face is fucked up. He's just been in a fight. He's just no-showed a bunch of classes and fake trials. And then he's like, I need 15 grand. And Petrovsky's like... And I'm dropping out of law school, which means I won't make a lawyer's salary to pay you back. Yeah, he might never see me again. And Petrovsky's like...

I have 10, but I got one more yeshiva story. That's the price. Just one more. I'm just going to rip through this. I think I actually would have left and just gotten beaten up by the mob over here at the yeshiva story again. I don't know. What would you have done? Yeshiva story, second yeshiva story, or the mob? So it's either grandma kills me or I sit with an old man for five minutes. Another what's aged the worst. I mean, I've seen this movie too many times, but...

When he starts trash-talking Teddy KGB, and he does, "You feeling satisfied now, Teddy? We gonna bust you all night." It's like, he's just immediately shot to death. That's it. He's just dead. They tried. KGB has too much integrity. They were about to come get him, but KGB's paid that man his money. That was gonna be one of my picky nits was, "Why does Teddy have integrity? He's a Russian mobster." It's like, "Niet!" More categories. Was there a better title for this movie? I have some.

One, leave that bitch, Mike. I don't know if that would have crossed all the quadrants that we were looking for. Is there a comma? Leave that bitch comma, Mike? Or just leave that bitch comma, Mike. Okay. I have a huge theory, but I don't want to tell my other title until after we get to hottest take. What about flop the nuts straight? Want to do hottest take award? What do you got, Chris? Okay. Mike actually should have spotted KGB's tell like...

long before. The whole thing at Atlantic City is he's Spock and he can just be like, that guy touches his face and this person plays with their crucifix or whatever. And then in the meantime, he's at KGB staring at this guy going like... God, the uncrackable Russian. The Sphinx, how will I ever read him? It's like, he speaks like Borat and plays with Oreos. Like, one of those things. So, Malkovich...

changed this a little bit from what was in the script, right? So originally it was just, does he eat the cookie or not eat the cookie? And that's the tell. And he included this idea of opening the cookie next to his ear, which would then tell him whether to eat it or not. I don't really understand. I think he was trying to get all the cream on one wafer. But he still eats the whole cookie. But some guys like splitting it up. You know what I mean? What kind of guy are you? Yeah.

Yeah, how much cream you like, Chris? Okay. Broke-back rounders. Yeah. Try to redirect. Finn, you got a hot steak? Yes, I do. Oh, boy. Put your fucking seatbelt on. It's not like the... So, this movie is actually a sequel to Cape Fear. Worm fucking hates Mike. And he was in jail for years with a picture of Mike...

All of these things together, plotting about how he was going to ruin Mike's fucking life when he got out of jail. And everything that he does in this movie is to fuck over Mike, including the wet blanket girlfriend. At the end of the movie, when he gives her the money to hand it to Petrovsky, Petrovsky never got that money. She gave that money to Worm. Yeah.

Worm is behind the scenes the whole time just figuring out, I'm going to fuck this dude over. I'm going to fuck this pretty boy over. I can't fucking stand this guy. Fuck this guy. Fuck this guy. Comes to Binghamton, gets a beat up. The whole nine. His whole job. Worm is out for 36 hours and Mike has dropped out of school.

lost his girl got the shit kicked out of him like it's literally the worst person in the world for him he's doing this on purpose and making mike feel bad about it that's my hottest take i like that you think it's good it's an incredible take but the idea of a guy who dresses like serpico eats hot dogs and never sleeps is actually kaiser soze is amazing yeah

I keep having to do hottest takes after Van. What's yours? The biggest winner of this movie is not Matt Damon or Edward Norton or Koppelman Levine or John Dahl, the director, or Miramax, or even poker. It's ESPN. Because ESPN...

somehow tricked people into thinking that they should watch poker for like 14 hours in the middle of July for like nine years. And I'm one of those people. Like, do you know how long the World Series of Poker is? How long it goes on? How many hours and hands are played in that time? And they...

Just programmed it through full summers with hand after hand after hand in all the tournaments that they played there. And everybody was like, this is a good idea. I should watch this. Did it happen because there was like a hockey strike? Isn't that like why they started putting poker on TV? I think it was because there was some interest and then all of a sudden it just blew up. We talked about how much this movie influenced the poker boom. But isn't it fair to say that there weren't really poker celebrities that were known writ large until after this movie came out?

But I didn't really know about any of those guys. Like, now you kind of know some of the guys that are out there making a lot of money playing poker. But I didn't really know about them. One of the things that ESPN did really well is they found a way to narrativize around the Phil Ivies and the Doyle Brunsons of the world. Two casting what-ifs. It was supposed to be Phil Helmuth instead of Johnny Chan.

Thank God. I don't like Phil Hellmuth. Would it have been better, though? Because... No, Johnny Chan's elite in this movie. But people love to see Phil Hellmuth get his ass kicked in poker. Like, that's very sadistic. I feel like he would have dined off it. It would have been annoying. Thank God. Wouldn't he have flipped out, though, if he was like, I'm sorry, Phil, I don't remember. Isn't Hellmuth, like, the big tilt guy? The poker brat. Nev Campbell turned down the role of Joe. She was red hot. This was Party of Five...

Scream. Wow, thanks. Did not want to do it. The Teddy KGB award for actor doing his own thing. We rarely get to hand out an award to somebody in the movie. Doubling as the Ruffalo Hannah Rubinick Partridge over acting award. Chris. Did Malkovich's Russian accent

It worked, right? Did it work? This is just such a perfect time in American history where we did not care. Where I was like, it's Malkovich. I don't care if this is like accurate to like West Belarus or not. It's like, this guy is cooking. I love it. I think as the years pass, I'm 100% in. I think initially I was like, what the fuck is this guy doing? Yeah. I think Matt Damon was like, what the fuck is this guy doing? I think it helped that it was immediately preceded by Con Air.

And so in culinary played Cyrus the virus and everybody was like sure. Malkovich belongs in this movie now so he could do anything and we'd buy it. You went on a van? All the way. Okay. Danny McBride award for playing yourself obviously Johnny Chan. The best that guy award we could go with the Serbian doctor from ER or Croatian doctor. Yeah. He plays Maurice or the other one. I think he plays Roman. Roman.

Or then Grandma... Maurice is the guy, Mike, they're putting a fucking bracelet on me. Grandma played by Michael Rispoli. Yeah. Do you know the Michael Rispoli? The great Michael Rispoli fact. Runner-up to Tony Soprano to Guindolfini. So, you know that...

I thought about this. So there's a, we did Creed last night. Yeah. We're doing rounders. There was a, that guy in back to back movies. Yes. Um, Brian Anthony Wilson, the guy who plays Adonis Creed's boss. Yeah. Turns in the typed out,

resignation letter to. Yeah. Hey, take this motherfucker. I quit. And he was one of the guys in jail that Worm was playing with before he got out of jail. He was the one who goes, Worm, you don't even smoke. You don't even smoke. Yeah. The brothers. Brothers. Yeah.

It's February. Dion Waiters Award. Can I just throw out one more that guy, actually? It's for Sal Richards, who is the golf club, the guy at the golf club. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That he holds to, and he's like, come back anytime. I'll bluff the big ringer. Dion Waiters, is Teddy KGB eligible? It's a movie like 30 minutes. Would you guys allow Fonka?

Petra is eligible, right? Petra has more scenes than Teddy. Okay. Kanish is only three scenes. It can't be Kanish. It can't be Kanish. Grandma? He's in it too much. Landau? Landau. It's like a slow heat check. Yeah. It's a third Yeshiva story. How can you give it to him after you've besmirched him? What about Bill Camp saying oily finish in the cigar bar? You guys know who's Bill Camp? Recasting couch, just quickly. Who's Johnny Chan in 2024?

What poker player do they use that has the highest impact? I still think it's Phil Ivey. It's Phil Ivey? Okay. New category that we're doing just for the live shows. What does Tony Romo's director's commentary of this movie sound like? Chris, you want to take a whack? I think it would be best for the Petra scene. It's like, she's coming in the door, Jim! He's still emotional about Joe, though. I don't know if he's got it in him, Jim!

She knows every hand of the 88 World Series of Poker, Jim. It is a sports movie, though. Like, he could just do... He flopped the nuts, Jim! Say, say, start, Jim!

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Levine and Koppelman wrote Rounders in an apartment building's basement storage room that Koppelman's wife cleaned out for them. It was their first script they wrote together. All the law school stuff was filmed at Rutgers University. Just real quick, Koppelman's wife did what? Cleaned out... Oh, so she supported him. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. Just making sure. Malkovich got his Russian accent. This was on the internet. From listening to a Russian woman talk for long hours. Yes. Yes.

At grandma's. Yeah. That woman's name was Borat. And Matt Damon and Edward Norton played the 98 WSOP. And in the first day, Damon had pocket Kings and got knocked out by Doyle Brunson, who had pocket aces and sent his ass home. He's going home, Jim. Pocket Kings, not enough. Apex Mountain. Damon, no. Norton, no. Poker, not yet.

Have we done Damon's Apex Mountain in the past? It's got to be Bourne, right? The first Bourne? It's like a billion-dollar franchise. You guys don't think this is Norton? Norton's Apex Mountain? American History X is about to come out. Fight Club. Fight Club for Norton? Yeah. Fight Club. Sure. Maybe the Incredible Hulk? Malkovich...

Dangerous Liaisons? That's what I was thinking. Yeah. Being John Malkovich? What do you have for Famke Jansen? Or what about Being John Malkovich? Being John Malkovich. Oh, Being John Malkovich. Yeah, that's right. They did a movie after him. What about Famke? Famke. Famke. Jean Grey! Yeah. A telepath and a telekinetic. Is that a movie? Get out of here. X-Men. Totoro? X2? Which Totoro movie? Lebowski. Do the Right Thing. That's fair.

Some folks in the crowd are shouting out Oreos. I think that's a good shout. I had Oreos coming up. Great. What about Binghamton? When's it ever been better? A lot of alums tonight, huh? Yeah. That state school, love that. That tuition, nice. Johnny Chan, Apex Mountain, is it back-to-back World Series of Pokers or this movie? Or getting housed by Mike McDee at the end of Rounders. Pretty cool of him to just let that happen. Atlantic City? Yeah.

I think it was my bachelor party, actually. Too many big, huge fights there and stuff. 90s Atlantic City was pretty good. Yeah, I don't know. Russians? Just as an overall. Gretchen Mall, definitely not. Best racehorse name is the next category. We can go Teddy KGB, Mike McD, Rounder, or The Rake. The Rake. The Rake, you like that one? All right, let's pick some nits. What do you got, C.R.?

So one thing would just be like Mike and Mike referencing Clyde and Pearl as the Knicks. Like it was like, we just slipped right into it. Like Clyde and Pearl. It's the late nineties. Those guys, wouldn't they be like Rod Strickland and Mark Jackson or like what, why would they be going all the way back to seventies? That's like a compliment thing. Also it's not a nitpick, but Petrovsky having his own bottle of gin at the bar is

Is it choice? You know, I don't know. Does he bring it? Do they just give him the bottle of seagrams? Like, what's going on there? What do you got, Van? So, I love New York. Love you guys and city, right? But every time I come to New York and I stay in a hotel, you literally can do like this and this and you touching both sides of that motherfucker.

Oh yeah. Their apartment is so big. I had this too. Yeah. Their apartment in the movie, they're so big, which is another reason why if she's doing so well, she shouldn't have a problem with the fact that on the weekends, he likes to go out and just play a little poker. She's obviously a millionaire. First big hand, Sean, when Teddy KGB thinks he won, how did he know Mike didn't have four nines?

He didn't. We talked about this last time we talked about it. There's no way to know. Sean, how much time have you spent on poker Reddit? I've never been on poker Reddit, I promise. But really quickly, what is Teddy's job?

Is Teddy a mob boss or a full-time poker player in a mob den? Because Mike walks in at the end of the movie and he's like, let's play. And Teddy's not like, oh, I have to organize the books for this crime ring that I'm winning. I have a Zoom, but I can do this in 30 minutes. He's like, I got time. Let's do it right now. He doesn't have anything else to do, but

play with this flunky whose ass he already kicked three months ago? He's like a loan shark, basically, right? Probably a drug dealer. I think his club is protected by the mob, hence the connection. Yeah, he's connected to the outfit or he's high up in the outfit. But Mike says I'm in the worst kind of trouble with the worst guy. He's definitely in the Russian mob, but I think he runs that gambling room for them. That's his racket. Okay. When he doubles back and plays with Worm the first time and they win...

They'd say how much, because the girl gets 25%, and they give her $300, so they made $1,200 total. So $900 is left. They split it. So Mike has $450. Why is it like this giant gangster roll in his pocket after that? He's like, I saw how much money you won. He won $450. Like he started out with $230. Come on. Would Teddy really have to put...

Don't touch on his Oreos? That's a really good question. He fucking runs this Russian mob poker place. He has like a Mongolian bodyguard. Oh yeah, sorry Teddy. You gotta remember this is pre-COVID, you know? People were just grabbing your Oreos left and right. Real quick, what is grandma so mad about?

When Mike's winning. Yeah, he's getting his money anyway. So grandma is going to get paid no matter what? Yeah. Is he just like Jeffrey Dahmer? He just wants to kill people? Yeah. What is he so upset about? Well, that's why they had him hurt the dog before because they're like, this guy's evil. He hurts dogs. Worms plan when they're trying to make $15,000 in three days to drive to Binghamton for five hours to play a bunch of cops. 10-hour round trip. Yeah.

That might be your Cape Fear theory. It only makes sense if you know that Worm is trying to get Mike fucked. Sean, would Mike and Worm be a little more beaten up by 20 Binghamton cops? They got the shit kicked out of them. Are you getting up after that? I don't know. Dad? Dad?

Why did Mike McD tip Teddy off with the Oreo toe? Because he explains it like, I would have let him go and eat those Oreos all night, but it's a psychological trick. It's like, or just don't tell him you know every time he's going to. But he kind of puts him on tilt by letting him know, right? I'm asking. I think that that's the idea. Is that he really set him off by showing that he revealed his weakness and that actually worked in his favor ultimately. I don't know if that's, I don't know. I suck at poker. I love poker, but I don't know. Cobman Levine said it was a psychological tactic.

So Petrovsky just gives Mike 10K, which then immediately gets turned into $10,000 at night at 9 p.m. at a check cashing place with no fees. What are the fees to just turn a $10,000 check at $9 a day in New York City? A personal check. That's like 12%. Let's just throw that out. That would be a lot. How many times have you taken out 10K? 10K.

I got two more. So, Ed Norton hates smoking, but Worm should have been a smoker. Absolutely. He should have been cigarette smokes oozing out of him. Why does Ed Norton hate smoking? That just bums me out. That's what he... The character was supposed to be a smoker and he wouldn't smoke because Norton doesn't like smoking. What could have been? My last nitpick, guys, I just think Mike McDee is murdered within five minutes of the last game. Oh, my God.

He's like, yeah, here's your $60,000. I'm like, all right, good luck. And then he's just shot in the back of the head. How far does he go? Does he go a block? Nah, he doesn't. Did splatter his blood? Because grandma's got a bloodlust. He's filled up with testosterone and bloodlust like people told me the guys in Philly are. That's what they told me. I was trying to go out for Philly and they say, don't do it, you'll be killed. Next category, sequel, prequel, prestige TV, all black cast or untouchable.

We've been waiting for a sequel. I don't know what the fuck these guys are doing. Damon's in his 50s now. Make a sequel. Can we talk through the prequel of Worm in Jail? Well, Worm in Jail, also High School Mike and Worm, fixing basketball games. Little Worm. Little Worm. Green light right now. Little Worm. So like 1990 Worm and Mike? Yeah. What about Worm in Jail? Absolutely. Absolutely. Any Worm movie you want to do.

What's the sequel for you, Vin? The sequel to me is, well, the sequel to me, I've pitched this to Cobham before and he laughed in my face. Get out of my face. The sequel is Mike in some way gets into a situation. He has to go back and play his way through it, right? But this time Worm is KGB.

So Worm has become the big deal guy who runs the deal. And your third act is Mike playing Worm in a poker game for it all at the end of it. Would Worm have a Russian accent? Yes. And the name of that movie is Remember the Last Time I Stick It In You. I have a prestige TV pitch. What's here? Judges Night Out. And it's the judges game.

But it's like five minutes of poker in the beginning and then one guy goes, I had a hell of a case this week. And then it's law and order for like 35 minutes. Wow. And then bang at the end, end of the hand. That's a good one. I think the obvious sequel would be Mike becomes one of the best poker players the last 25 years, right? And then... And Worm has been in prison for 20 years. Worm gets out. I had, when I pitched this to Cobb and Levine a million years ago, I had Worm's brother, Gerbil.

Played by Ben Affleck, because we've got to get Ben Affleck in this. And they come in. But then I thought of another wrinkle where it's the final table and it's gerbil and it's Mike McD and maybe Johnny Chan if he's still alive. And then Joe's son. Joe's son? Joe's son, who's an internet poker player who's trying to spite his parents. And he's just got that squinty face. He's like, Mike, check. Check.

And just fucking with Mike. Who's the father? Is it Petrovsky? Yeah. Oh, my God. Other kid, yeah. Petrovsky put that yeshiva on her? That's the third yeshiva story. That's the third yeshiva story. Is this movie better with Wayne Jenkins, Danny Trejo, Catherine Hahn, Steve Buscemi, Michael K. Williams, Sam Jackson, JT Walsh, Byron Mayo, Harling Mays,

Or Philip Baker Hall. Let's talk out the Byron Mayo piece first. So Petra comes over. Mike's turning her nose like, Mike, Petra, let's let bygones be bygones. The 88 World Series is on. Nothing's more erotic than that. But...

If Wayne Jenkins spotted Worm cheating, "Goddamn, Worm! I didn't know I was working with a super sharp! You're like fucking Ricky Jay over here! And a motherfucking ace up your sleeve tattoo! That's a little on the nose!"

As long as you're not distributing stolen credit cards anymore, otherwise you're going to be losing cigarettes to white guys, brothers, and cops for a long fucking time, big boy. Get them the fuck out of here. I think I lost my voice on that one. Thanks again to the Home Depot. Probably unanswerable questions. You guys could help out with this first one. Where was Teddy KGB's place located?

Well, Grandma's in Chinatown. West Village. West Village? Coney Island? Where's Teddy's? Remember, it's the 90s though, right? So where is it? Alphabet City? Alphabet City is a good shout. All right, we're getting a little poker technical for one minute here. Teddy KGB's last hand. The flop comes up 6-7-10. Mike has the straight already. Teddy raises, so he's got to have something good.

Did Teddy have two aces? Was that why he was so confident? Because then the last card is an ace, so he thinks he has three aces. I always thought it was pocket tens. So you think he had three tens? What do you think? Chris doesn't know poker. I have no idea. Van? He had Magic the Gathering cards. Yeah, I don't know. He had some Pokemon. Yeah, I'm not. So Teddy says the ace did not help you, which makes me think he had two aces because then he knows there's the third ace, so Mike couldn't have had two aces. So I think he had two aces. Could be.

Are we sure Kanish wasn't the smartest person in this movie? He's grinding out that rent money. He owns a business. Pretty smart. Can I ask another unanswerable Kanish question? Yeah. Good friend or loan shark? Because he's always there for my kind of, but immediately after the first KGB loss, he's like, I can stake you and you can just give me 50% of your winnings or you can drive a truck for me.

But those are like your two options. And he takes them all the way up and he just like refuses to give him money. I feel like he's always got like a price tag along with his friendship. I think he gave him a lot of wisdom along the way too. Dude, would you ever trust anybody who hangs out in a bathhouse van? No.

Probably. Look, I think Kanisha is the example of what they don't want to become. They don't want to become like career. A low ceiling. Yeah, they want glory. They want all of that. They want to maximize their talent. And Kanisha is kind of the safe play, like the movie says. So where did Worm go after Binghamton?

Where did he go? Ex-convict with no money, a bloody face, no cell phone. Sounds like Boston to me. I'm going to say more like Providence. So, Cobman Levine wrote this scene and they filmed it. Found his way to a backroom game in the Bronx. It was a game that he heard about from the guy in the beginning when he fleeced the guys for cigarettes. And the guy's like, you better hope that shit doesn't come back to haunt you, worm.

Runs into that guy and the guy chases him out and they decided it didn't work. It was better for worm to just disappear. So cutting room floor for that guy. I have one more. Oh, did you have another answer? Well, a lot of people wonder how Mike ended up with 60 K at the end. Started out with 10, one, 20, one, another 10. So he was up to 20. Went head to head.

And ends up with 60. And the answer is they kept like doubling up, but they didn't show it because they didn't want to get too, too pokery. He only says table stakes at the end by the time there's enough. They say the reload thing. So that's how he ends up at the, at the 60K. Are we sure Joe gave Petrovsky the money? I don't think, I know she didn't. You know she didn't. I already said I know she didn't. She's up to no good.

The entire movie, she was the rake. She was probably partying in Cancun going crazy. Go back and look, Girls Gone Wild, 2000, she's on it. I don't think she gave him the money at all. Remember him? He wouldn't show up, he's a dumb motherfucker. We're taking it. Wild on Ibiza, she's there. You've made three references to Wild on in this conversation. Right, it brings me back to the 90s, man. Cindy Margolis. I love you, baby. Yeah.

It's not a whole white woman thing. All right, we have one dorky movie question. What actor could have played all five male parts and rounders at various points of their career? So that would be Teddy KGB, Mike, Worm, Grandma, and Knish. And I asked Fantasy. I never prep Fantasy usually because I like when he panics.

But I actually figured like, ah, we're going to run in front of people. I'll give them a day of prep. What was your answer, Sean? So for a movie that could actually get made, I think Paul Newman. I think Paul Newman could do every single character. For the movie I want to see, it's Philip Seymour Hoffman. Hoffman was actually my, was what I was going to say. Ed Newman as well. There's a lot of people that could have played four.

But not all five. You don't think Jack Nicholson could pull off all of them? It's a good one. Yeah. I don't think he could have been Mike McD. He's got that devious look to him at all times. It'd be funny to go up to Jack Nicholson and be like, you couldn't pull off Mike McD, Jack. It's been a storied career, but that's the one that got away. Not quite good enough. I call this the wheel. What do you have for best double feature choice for this movie? I had California Split. No, I have Fight Club.

Oh. Because this movie is almost like a reverse Fight Club. That's a good one. Like Norton playing the actual incarnation of Tyler Durden. He's the Tyler Durden of poker. Yeah. Personal story, when I turned 40 years old, I got a present from Bill Simmons. It was a poster of an incredible movie that I would recommend for this, which is 1974's The Gambler, starring James Caan, which would be an absolutely awesome double with this movie.

I like it. I'm going with Van's idea of Cape Fear. Let's get dark. We'll go Cape Fear right in the rounders. The Indian Reds won an award for what happened the next day. When does Mike crack top 10 in the World Series of Poker? What year? The next five? Never? Is he just like working as a waiter at the Flamingo? Does Mike ever make the transition to online poker? And does Mike get wiped out like in that whole thing?

You could see him getting a bracelet playing Raz or something, but I don't know about the final table. Yeah. What piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie? Second to last category. Kanisha's bathrobe from the Russian bathhouse. KGB's cookie rack. The don't touch cookie rack. Yeah. Oh, that's a good one. How about that green Cherokee sport truck that he's driving around?

I like the worm's leather jacket. Yeah. It's pretty great. It's his only wardrobe of the thing. All right, who won the movie? Can I make the case for Koppelman and Levine? Okay. I think it's just an incredible script. I think it's got incredible dialogue all the way through. Maybe any other set of actors don't do it as well, but it's a unicorn script to me. I love the way that people speak in this. I thought Brian and David. I think Poker won.

It just makes poker feel like the coolest thing in the world to know about, right? The whole, and in a way New York too, but like that whole scene. I couldn't think of a single person that could play Worm besides Edward Norton. Word. And so it kind of makes me feel like, no. Michael Rapaport could not play Worm, man. Jesus Christ. And Worm is the soul of the movie. I have poker one and Ed Norton two. Yeah.

It's weird because Ed Norton's not in the last 25 minutes of the movie, but I just, Worm is such a good character and he's so good in it. So I think I would, I would go for him. Anything else you want to hit before we go? Oh yeah, the life lesson. Oh, well we did the Tower Rounders. I gave you like 20 of them. How much more do you want? If we come back to New York, what movie would you want the next time? Goodfellas? I love it. Oh, Goodfellas is a good one. Um,

We were in D.C., Chicago, Philly, and now here, and we had a blast this week. It's great getting out and seeing everybody and doing the pod. Thanks for the support. Great to see everybody. Thank you. All right, you just listened to Rounders, the live show. Second time we've done Rounders, first time we've done it live. It was produced by Craig Horlbeck, as always, and we'll be back.

A week from now with a brand new Rewatchables podcast. Don't forget, you can watch clips and entire shows, including all the cold weather tour shows, youtube.com slash Bill Simmons. They're all there. Check it out. See you next week.