Being a macho man is fun. Just ask Michael Mann. This is the guy who made Miami Vice (as TV series and movie), Thief, Last of the Mohicans, Heat, Ali, Collateral and now Public Enemies , which is a remake of Heat in everything but name. For Mike, life's about men doing man stuff (ie hunting down crims and having amazing shootouts in urban settings) and grimly waiting for the inevitable consequences (a, like, rilly cool death). Hey, the guy's entitled to his worldview, and to be fair it's exactly the same worldview as Sam Peckinpah, who's thought of as a great director (well, a great dead director, but being dead is cool, remember). And he's only putting on film what goes through many men's heads anyway. It's just we're a bit embarrassed to admit it. Public Enemies extracts the John Dillinger story from Bryan Burroughs' epic non-fiction book of the same name, starting with the legendary bank robber being sprung from jail in 1933 in an action ...
Each year I enjoy sitting on my fat arse at home and watching young people sliding around in the Glastonbury mud while I channel hop from stage to stage, knock back beers and enjoy only having to walk twenty steps to a toilet. This year, finding myself off work on Thursday and Friday, and with the weekend kind of ooooh how shall I put this, free as well, I thought I’d turn my annual Glasto watching into a bit of fun. How about an MTT spin-up while I’m watching? Okay, that’s enough intro, because let’s face it, everyone – especially on pocketfives – is doing some kind of bloody “zero dollars to ten thousand dollars” challenge right now, so let’s get started. Suffice to say, yesterday (Thurs) afternoon I stashed a notional $50 into my imaginary marijuana-motif wallet and said let’s see if I can turn this up into a grand before the end of play Sunday. I was expecting to lose the lot in the name of entertainment or else turn some kind of pisspoor $40 profit; I wasn’t ...
10) The delays for tournaments to start. Oh, the delays. And the terrible wait when you bust out early in a home tourney. It’s at times like these that you ponder the big one: WHY? 9) The food. What’s that – you don’t like burger and chips? Then you’re going to die. And the closest you’ll get to fibre in here is the napkin. Cracking picture, isn't it? Bet the photographer punched the air when he saw how it had come out. 8) Smelly people. There are a lot of them around. Smelly smokers with smoky-smelling clothes, or the vile, shapeless smocks that pass for clothes. Smelly smokers with smoky-smelling clothes who come in from a smelly smoking break and smell of smoke because they couldn’t be arsed to exhale their smelly smoke. 7) It seems more like real money you're winning/losing. That's because it is real money. 6) If you’re not numerically dextrous, not knowing exactly how much your opponents have/you have/is in the pot. “Hmmm, let’s ...
Der-der-der-der-der, der-der-der-der-der, Der-der-der-der-der, der-der-der-der-der, Der-derrrrrr!!!!! That was, of course, the opening to John Barry’s legendary James Bond theme, performed by the Raildog Youth Orchestra. A stirring way to kick off our Movie Player Notes series. First under the spotlight is the poker action in Casino Royale , in which Daniel Craig made his memorable debut as 007. The movie-makers knew what they were doing here – no seven-card stud, no variations of draw to befuddle the Haribo-crazed multiplex masses. This was 2006 and it was no-limit hold ’em all the way. So without further ado, let’s get down to the filmic felt to see if we can’t work out how James – and his naughty opponents – like to play those beautiful two cards down, five cards up... The players Name: James Bond The lowdown: The world’s most famous movie spy travels to Nassau in the Bahamas on the trail of ...
The official scoreboard, but don't believe a word of it. hurryuuup got $1,500 more than that. With blinds at 2500/5000 I thankfully get some decent hands and my stack starts to rocket. Over the next 33 hands I get KJ, KQ, AK and aces (aces won the smallest pot – just the blinds – typical) and my stack increases to 217k, with only a couple of very minor losing hands. The rest of the time I just sit very tight. Watching my games on Poker Tracker can be a real wake-up call and it’s shocking watching some of the plays I make sometimes. I know you lose some of the context when you’re just skimming your stats but I don’t know why I risked my entire stack with AK in the next massive hand. With blinds 8500/1700-2125, UTG raises to 51k, I shove (it might be that I’d pegged him as one of these players who likes the voguish new “steal from UTG” crap) and I push with big slick. I was probably trigger happy by now as I’d been winning big pots every time I played a hand. ...
