Rounders

A young man (Damon) is a reformed gambler who must return to playing big stakes poker to help a friend pay off loan sharks.

• Director:John Dahl
• Genre:Drama
• Runtime:121 minutes

Cast

Matt Damon : Mike McDermott
Edward Norton : Lester ‘Worm’ Murphy
Paul Cicero : Russian Thug
John Turturro : Joey Knish
Ray Iannicelli : Kenny

Based in New York City, Poker player Mike McDermott [Damon] loses his entire bankroll of $30,000 in a hand of Texas hold’em against Teddy “KGB,” a Russian Mobster, who runs an illegal underground poker room. Mike then decides to concentrate on his law school studies while promising his girlfriend and fellow law student Jo not to gamble. Mentor and fellow rounder Knish offers a part-time job driving a delivery truck to make ends meet.

Time passes, and Mike is true to his promise. He does not play cards, and assumedly focuses on school.

The movies main plot is introduced when Mike’s childhood friend Worm [Norton] is released from prison. Worm is also a card player, who owes an outstanding debt accumulated before his incarceration. It is discovered then that Grama, a former associate of Worm’s in a credit card printing operation, had purchased all of Worm’s debt. With interest, the total debt came to $25,000.

Due to Worm’s re-entrance into his life, Mike is soon rounding again, causing decreasing productivity in law school and turmoil amongst himself and girlfriend Jo.

When Worm is given a five day deadline to pay off the remaining $15,000 of debt, Mike joins him in a furious race to pay Grama. The two come close to making the $15,000 needed, yet end up losing their entire bankroll when they are caught cheating at a poker game, despite Mike’s insistence on playing the game straight. After this incident, Worm decides to leave the City, and advises Mike to do the same. This is when he reveals to Mike that Grama is in fact backed by KGB, the very same Russian Mobster who had cleaned Mike out of his $30,000 bankroll months before.

Mike refuses to flee, and instead, with the help of a $10,000 loan from his law school judge Petrovsky, sits down to play KGB heads-up in a No-Limit, Texas Hold’em game. In a race against time to pay off Worm’s debt, and to prove himself as a poker player, Mike puts his life on the line against the man who had forced him out of the game.

Mike plays KGB, and beats him, taking $10,000 from him. This money, combined with the $10,000 from Petrovsky, gives him the $15,000 needed to pay off worms debt, and another $5,000 to go towards paying back Petrovsky. However, Mike is goaded back to the table when KGB mentions that he is paying off Mike with his own money, the $30,000 that Mike had lost to him before. Read more

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