My Fill of Phil

Phil Hellmuth recently appeared as a guest on Rounders co-scriptor Brian Koppelman’s “The Moment” podcast which is part of the Grantland “pop culture” category of content.

I’d heard something about the appearance, but hadn’t got around to listening. Then after all of the ruckus regarding Daniel Colman’s comment in a Two Plus Two thread about the show calling Hellmuth -- or, at least, “people of his attitude and character” -- “a cancer to this world,” I decided to dial it up, perhaps to listen and weigh in here about it.

Hellmuth is no doubt a fascinating character in poker. He’s also one of a very few in the game known to non-players or casual observers of the game and its subculture.

Occasionally I’ll get asked about him by those who’ve seen his antics on television. “Is he really such a jerk?” the question usually goes. I can’t really answer without lots of qualifications. Yes, I’ll say, he’s awful at the tables. But those who know him best insist he’s a “good guy.” And he’s also highly diverting for those of us who report on tourneys, always adding an extra layer of entertainment (for better or worse) to what can sometimes be plodding proceedings.

I don’t go deeper into Hellmuth’s troubling association with UltimateBet or other possible marks against him. Or for him, for that matter.

I’ve written here before about my ambivalence toward the Poker Brat. A couple of years ago there was a lot of talk following his 13th bracelet win (in the WSOP Europe Main Event) that perhaps the WSOP would be signing him up in some capacity to represent the brand and/or the (then still-to-come) online site.

Some seemed weirdly enthusiastic about such a possibility, but I wasn’t. Referring both to his UB/Cereus past and consistently poor behavior at the tables, I concluded “the WSOP could do much, much better than to hire the world’s whiniest winner and poker’s poorest sport” as a representative.

All of which probably explains why I couldn’t even get through the first half-hour of Koppelman’s podcast, during which Hellmuth…

shares details regarding his extensive charity work,

suggests that he’s earned everything he’s got in poker without being backed,

insists “the only place to measure poker greatness is by bracelets won,”

brags “I’ve crushed people in the mixed games” and “I’m the biggest winner on Poker Night in America,”

notes how everyone respects him and he gets along with everybody,

laments how he missed out on a big contract with an online site worth $20 million-ish when Black Friday arrived,

drops names (including Tiger Woods and Bill Clinton),

reports “I’m under siege for autographs everywhere I go,”

and also -- repeatedly -- explains that he’s never cheated on his wife despite having had opportunities to do so.

Koppelman does gamely try during that opening blast to dig beneath the surface a little, and perhaps he gets there later on. But I found it too much of a struggle to give another moment to “The Moment,” having heard enough PR from PH to last a while.

Poker, First Hand

There was a nice tribute a few days ago penned by Rounders co-scriptors Brian Koppelman and David Levien to their friend Joel “Bagels” Rosenberg who died last week. As they explain in the piece (posted on Grantland), Rosenberg had been a primary inspiration for the character of Joey Knish (portrayed by John Turturro), and a more general influence on the film as a whole.

As the screenwriters tell it, they played their very first hand at the Mayfair with Rosenberg, with his character and personality clearly becoming a central feature of the place for them going forward, and still an important part of their memory of it today.

“We tried to suffuse Rounders with Bagel’s attitude, which was wry, wise, and full of heart,” they write of their friend while relating the story of how he’d become a kind of “tour guide” for them helping them understand the life of a professional grinder -- the pre-”boom,” pre-tourney kind, that is, such as represented by Knish.

I like especially the note regarding Rosenberg’s kindness -- yes, there are friends in poker -- with the reference to his generosity again reminding us of Knish helping out Mike after his early gutting by Teddy KGB.

We’ve known for a long time how much of the world of Rounders and most (if not all) of its characters were inspired by the Mayfair as Koppelman and Levien experienced it during the years preceding the film’s release in 1998, just a couple of years before the club was shut down as part of Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s campaign to clean up New York City.

A similar tutelage is arguably necessary for any storyteller -- that is, to have experienced something resembling the world one wishes to create and share with others in a fictional form. And if your subject is poker and most of your themes are rooted in the game, too, it’s probably even more important that there be some actual experience with the game and the subculture surrounding it to provide the needed support for one’s tale.

You know, first hand knowledge. The kind of thing that with poker is very hard to bluff.

Check out the tribute and learn more about “Bagels.”

Transatlantic Triple Feature

On my flight from France to Philly on Sunday I watched three different movies.

The first was Gravity, a visual effects-laden spectacle of a film for which viewing on a small screen on the back of the seat in front of you isn’t necessarily ideal. But I had my noise-canceling headphones to help me enjoy the effective soundtrack and I was well engaged in from start to finish.

Experimental in some ways, the film does many interesting things throughout both technically with regard to editing, framing, and so on as well as narratively with its limited cast and relatively narrow plot. Sandra Bullock is especially good and George Clooney likewise effective in a smaller role.

It did feel at times like I was watching some sort of role-playing-slash-simulation video game, thereby causing some occasional emotional detachment, but there were some genuinely moving moments, too, that ably reinforced the various thematic suggestions made by the title. A satisfying hour-and-a-half.

From there it was We’re the Millers, the R-rated comedy purposely chosen for the contrast it suggested as a much less intense trifle. Which it was. A few yuks here and there, but pretty forgettable. Both Jason Sudeikis and Jennifer Aniston are great comedians, but they’re kind of weirdly cast here.

I was about to shut off the sucker when I scrolled through and saw Runner Runner among the choices, and so despite the preponderance of negative reviews I decided to dial it up to complete the triple feature. Sort of felt obligated to, given its poker connections and attempt to spin a thriller-type plot from the insider cheating scandals and other examples of fraud and corruption from online poker’s first decade.

Not going to give a full-blown review of this one, either, but will make three quick observations about the film.

1. Some effort has been made by proponents of regulated online poker to suggest Runner Runner provides a persuasive argument in favor of their cause. The film is set in what is essentially a pre-Black Friday, anything-goes environment, and thus some have suggested that it helps show the need for regulation as a means to prevent the shenanigans perpetrated by Ben Affleck’s character, the Costa Rica-based online gambling mogul Ivan Block.

Having watched the film, such a reading seems incredibly blinkered. Any clear-headed observer not ensconced within our narrow little world of poker couldn’t possibly view Runner Runner as representing anything positive when it came to our favorite card game.

From the opening montage it demonizes gambling of all kinds, with poker only barely distinguished as a game involving some form of decision-making by players. Sure, it starts out making a banal point that “everybody gambles,” but does nothing thereafter to suggest this truth about human nature is a good thing. To think the film actually supports any kind of gambling (including poker) seems like a crazily convoluted response.

2. I refer to an “opening montage,” but in truth the entire film plays like one long montage with ridiculously short, television-like scenes that feel more like a sequence of YouTube clips than a coherent narrative.

The Rounders guys, Brian Koppelman and David Levien, co-scripted the film, and I see Koppelman on Twitter sharing his “six-second screenwriting lessons.” I almost feel like the editor of this film was observing a similarly abbreviated limit throughout when it came to scene length -- not six seconds, but not much more.

Characters are presented hastily and for the most part aren’t developed at all. Only the main protagonist, Richie Furst (Justin Timberlake), experiences any kind of change in outlook over the course of the film, a change that is not just obvious but also tedious to watch play out.

3. Justin Timberlake is a talented performer and definitely has some comic instincts that have served him well in other contexts (e.g., SNL, Bad Teacher). But he’s a huge deficit in a drama requiring any sort of real presence.

It was the third movie in a row for me -- and something like 12-14 hours into my day of travel -- but I literally was struggling to keep my eyes open during the predictable, unsatisfying finale.

In other words, kind of like the ending of the Super Bowl.

Nothing Funner: New Trailer for Poker-Themed Runner, Runner

Not much time available today for scribbling, and so I’m just going to pass along this item that popped up today, the trailer for the film Runner, Runner, due out in late September.

The film has captured the attention of poker people thanks to its subject matter and the fact that it was scripted by Brian Koppelman and David Levien, the same duo who wrote Rounders. Indeed, if you go back a couple of years, some of the first references to Runner, Runner suggested the film might be a sequel, although it clearly isn’t that.

Rather the film looks like some sort of thriller that uses the Absolute Poker and UltimateBet insider cheating scandals as partial inspiration. A talented player and grad student (played by Justin Timberlake, who also played some poker in the ludicrous sci-fi flick In Time) gets cheated, then decides to go to Costa Rica to confront the site’s owner (played by Ben Affleck) who persuades him to work for the site. All is hunky dory until the FBI enters the picture, and from there it looks like the student becomes embroiled in a larger criminal plot that appears to extend considerably beyond just being able to see players’ hole cards. Also, there are crocodiles.

Here’s that trailer:

I’ve read a few items about Runner, Runner over the last several months, but I haven’t really looked into it that deeply as yet. I did exchange several messages with Koppelman at one point a long while back -- over a year ago -- and in fact he agreed to an interview with me about the project.

I was quite eager to speak with Koppelman after having taught Rounders several times in my “Poker in American Film and Culture” class. I also liked Koppelman’s Grantland piece from a couple of years ago called “The Beauty of Black Friday” which I shared with my class on a couple of occasions as it fit fairly well inside the larger historical narrative we construct in the course.

Alas, the interview never happened. Koppelman strung me along for a while with postponements and requests to get back to him. But after he put it off a third time I gave it up, as he clearly had more important things to do than talk to me.

Interesting to see this trailer this week amid all of the hubbub surrounding Ben Mezrich’s Straight Flush: The True Story of Six College Friends Who Dealt Their Way to a Billion-Dollar Empire -- and How It All Came Crashing Down (mentioned here on Monday), a book that purports to tell the story of Absolute Poker but weirdly tries to fashion the site’s criminal and fraudulent founders as unfairly-treated heroic figures.

Have been reading Mezrich trying to defend himself on Twitter and in a 2+2 thread about it, but the more he says about his book the more he reveals a lack of knowledge about what happened at AP, the recent history of online poker, and what is meant by the label “True Story.”

It looks like Runner, Runner probably takes a few liberties here and there, too. But it ain’t a documentary, and so in that context embellishments -- including crocodiles -- are obviously fair game.

Low Battery

Those of you with iPhones, ever notice how whenever you are told your battery’s charge has fallen dangerously low, you are given just one option to select before you are free to do something about it?

“Dismiss.”

I mean, really... we can’t just keep being dismissive about such things, can we? Seems unhealthy. I mean, if we have to recharge, we have to recharge. Why always put off such necessary action with denials?

Speaking of, I freely admit that I am running a bit low on both time and energy today.

Regarding the former, not much time remains before I leave for Las Vegas on Tuesday. In Phil Hellmuth-like fashion, I’ll be arriving late to help PokerNews cover the WSOP over these final four weeks of the Series until the November Nine is determined on July 19. I am looking forward to the trip, and especially to reuniting with my many friends and colleagues who are already there. Meanwhile I am trying to take care of a lot of different matters and tie up some loose ends before I go, which is further taking up these few hours I’ve left.

Energy-wise, I’m running a bit low as well, having committed a lot of brain power to writing other pieces in addition to pushing forward on that second novel. Am trying to reach a point with that where I feel comfortable enough to leave it for a while when I’m at the WSOP.

I did want to point you to one of those other pieces, a feature for Betfair that went up today called “On Poker’s Brave New World.”

You might recall how I commented here last week on an exchange between Jesse May and Brandon Adams over the whole online sponsorship issue and how Black Friday had fundamentally changed things with regard to the sponsored pro. This week another interesting op-ed appeared that also touched on the subject, a piece called “The Beauty of Black Friday” by Rounders co-scripter Brian Koppelman.

I thought it would be worthwhile to pull together and compare all three writers’ arguments in a piece of my own, and so that’s what you’ll find if you follow the link above. There are issues I’d probably take up with each of the commentators (May, Adams, and Koppelman), but I do think all make interesting arguments and provide genuine insight into how things have dramatically changed for sponsored pros and poker in general. Their writings evoke a lot of ideas about poker and its place in contemporary culture that are worth considering as well.

I hope everyone has a relaxing, revitalizing weekend. See you on Monday when we’re all back to 100%.