Corrected entry: In the final showdown with Mike & KGB, Mike goes to the poker showdown with $10,000. In the first game, he beats KGB in a winner take all and doubles up. If that is the case, Mike would now have $20,000. Mike gets ready to leave, but KGB goads him into playing another game for double or nothing. Mike again beats KGB to double up to $40,000. However, Mike states his winnings to be $60,000 with the breakdown of his winnings as follows: $15,000 back to KGB and Gramma, $10,000 back to the law professor and $6,000 back to the Chesterfield. This totals $31,000 which would leave only $9,000 left. Where did the other $20,000 come from? This amount is never accounted for in the movie in the final showdown with KGB.
Correction: In the last hand when it cuts to Grama after the 2K bet you see 6 or 7 racks. In the beginning a full rack was 10K as Mike was given 3 stacks of High Society. So we can safely assume that KGB reloaded twice 20K and 20K with Mike's 20K.
Corrected entry: During the Judge's game, when Mike calls out everyone's hand after the flop, Judge Gene Mariucci seems to scoff and drop three cards from his hand, on to the table. If they are playing Hold 'Em; Gene and the rest of the players would only be holding two cards in their hands.
Correction: They're not playing Hold 'em. It looks like 7-card stud.
That's quite possible. The way Mike was calling out of the "community" cards; made me think it was hold em. I just notice the 3 card "folds" by the players.
Corrected entry: In the second to last scene of the movie where Mike is playing heads-up with Teddy KGB, there is an inconsistency in the bets that are made. Previously in the movie, the black chips are shown to be worth $100 each. When Mike raises $1000 straight, he places 20 chips down, a total of $2000.
Correction: Yea he calls the 1k and raises 1k...2k.
Corrected entry: When KGB and Mike are playing heads up in the end of the film and Mike is dealing the cards he first deals the "turn card" i.e. the fourth community card and then deals the "river", fifth community card, without discarding one card. In Texas Hold 'em you always take the top card away when dealing the community cards because cards can be marked and by doing so no-one will know which cards are coming even if some of them are marked.
Correction: That is not correct. You only see them play four hands in total, the rest are just implied by their stacks changing size, and only once is Mike shown to be dealing. When he does, the camera comes on him just as he deals the turn card (so you can not tell if he discarded one before this), and a little while later you can see him discard one card before dealing the river.
Corrected entry: During the part where Matt (Mike) is on the bed he tosses his hat on it, but in the next shot the hat is gone.
Correction: Mike takes off his coat, and while the camera is focused on his girlfriend, he knocks the hat on the floor.
Corrected entry: When Mike is playing KGB at the end of the movie, in the last hand of the first game they play when Mike wins with Jacks Up, Mike is the dealer. However when Mike reaches out to rake the chips in, the deck of cards is sitting in front of KGB, to the right of where his chips were.
Correction: They have 2 decks at the table, one on each side.
Corrected entry: There are several instances of improper poker playing in this movie. 1. When KGB is going to bet 15,000 into Mike early on, he puts one stack of chips out, then reaches for more and announces his bet. This is called a string bet, going back for more without FIRST announcing how much you are putting in. KGB's bet should have only been his first stack. 2. In one of the home games while Mike is trying to win back money, a man says, "I call your 1,500, and bet all-in" or something. He should have said, "I see your 1,500..." By saying "call" he is calling, and therefore can't put any more money in the pot. 3. There are several players who "splash the pot." Putting chips right into the middle, instead of a little in front of you until the betting round is over.
Correction: Mike tells KGB to stop splashing the pot, and Teddy says that in his club he will splash the pot if he wants to. Not really a trivia, since they acknowledge it.
Correction: String bet nonsense. Maybe at a full table but playing head up Mike wouldn't call him for that. Teddy wasn't playing games trying to get a read off him, there was no action, and no-one to ref the game.
Corrected entry: In the final card hand between Teddy KGB and Mike, Teddy lays down an ace and goes "all in," commenting menacingly to Mike that "Your fate is sitting right beside you," implying that loan shark Grama is waiting to break a few bones once Mike cannot pay off the debt he inherited from Worm. But if you look at the table, Mike has at least three times the number of chips that Teddy has, even more than when Mike won the $10,000 from Teddy earlier. Mike does not have to go "all in" (which he does), but merely call the bet. Even if he were to lose that hand, he would still have more chips than Teddy, enough to pay Grama off. You would think Teddy would know that, since the chips are right there on the table. His comment that Mike will not be able to pay Grama doesn't make any sense, although it does heighten the drama.
Correction: Even if this was a mistake, it's a character mistake on Teddy's part. Whether or not he realised that he had more is not a movie mistake. Besides, what Teddy was doing was more likely deliberate to try to put Mike off. Teddy knew that he had beaten Mike before, and it came from Mike being too overconfident and not betting wisely. If Mike bet large and lost, Teddy would probably get all his money back instead of losing a large amount of it.
Corrected entry: The story Mike tells of out playing Johnny Chan makes no sense if you do the math on all the raises. He sits down at a $300-$600 no limit table with $6,000, plays for an hour, and "folds mostly."
Correction: Once you're down to heads up in a limit game, the bets are no limit. I still don't see how Mike came away with 30k unless there was 10k in the pot before they got heads up. And if Mike wasn't raising more than than 1200 there's no way on God's green earth Chan would fold with 30k in the pot. He'd call to see Mike's hand at the least.
When down to heads-up in Limit hold'em, raises are uncapped, but they still follow the limit structure. And I don't know where you think it's implied he took $30,000 off that table. Is it because that's his roll at the start of the movie? Mike tells Knish he had $6000, that's what he had on him when he went to the casino. He didn't have his entire roll with him.
Correction: It's a 300/600 limit game. With blinds of 100/300, Johnny's first raise would be to 600 (which is seen when he throws out 6 black chips), Mike's raise would be to 900, Johnny's second raise would be to 1200 (which is seen when he throws out another 6 black chips), and finally Mike's raise would be to 1500.
I wrote my initial from memory, I just went back and looked at the scene again. The action starts on the flop. The whole movie is about No-Limit. It would make even less sense for him to sit down at a limit table. The first bet Johnny makes is a raise of Mikes initial bet, Mike re-raises, Johnny 4 bets, Mike 5 bets, Johnny folds. In Limit action stops at 4 bet.
The whole movie is not no limit hold'em, it's only the games at KGB's place. Almost every other poker game depicted in the entire movie is Stud. This is factually accurate because this movie took place pre-poker boom, and Stud was still the predominant game on the East Coast. Moreover, No limit Hold'em was rarely spread in casinos outside of major tournaments. The game Mike sat in with Chan was most certainly Limit Hold'em.
Incorrect. When you're down to 2 players only in a hand in a limit game, rules state the game is essentially no limit at that point and there in no cap on the bets.
Corrected entry: After Mike is taken for every penny, Judge Petrovisky writes him a personal check for $10,000, which he then takes to a check cashier. These businesses take between 2.5 to 5 percent for cashing a personal check, yet he is able to show up at KGB's club with the full ten thousand.
Correction: In a deleted scene the judge calls the money cashing place and he knows the owner, they know Mike is coming...and agreed not to charge him. Of course. You're right as the movie played out, they should have shown the judge calling the place.
Correction: After Mike says "They took every f*cking nickel," Worm says "I think I got $300 in my boot somewhere", which accounts for the 2-2.5 percent acquisition fee from the cashier station.
No, that money never leaves Worm's possession. He never gives it to Mike. The movie makes a point of mentioning that Worm has that money so the audience doesn't think Mike is taking the car and ditching Worm and leaving him with absolutely nothing.
No. Mike never takes that money from Worm and the deleted scene already accounts for the fee not being charged to Mike.
Corrected entry: When Mike is playing KGB for the second time, right before he throws his Oreos they are almost gone but in the next shot it is almost a half full again.
Correction: The Oreos don't change.
Correction: It was not mentioned how much KGB started the second game with, it could have been 40,000. Most likely though, KGB started with 20,000 and lost it, then brought another 20,000 into the game. Remember Mike said KGB could "reload at anytime".
People don't play with more money than their opponent. The only actual reasonable suggestion would be Mike perhaps played more overnight against other players winning an additional $20K. I don't believe KBG would have lost an additional $20k and Mike would have continued to allow the game to continue. It's just a mistake the movie made, probably too late to bother addressing it other than how they did.
Didn't they raise the stakes/blinds?