(The title of 'Rounders' refers to people who earn their living at poker.) As the puffy-eyed, scruffy Worm, Norton is a walking personification of self-defeat: He's a liar and a cheat, but his essential vulnerability keeps peeking out - he's a sweetie with a psychotic edge. Youre therefore getting 100:40, or 5:2 odds on your money. You need to put in an additional 40 (on top of the 30 youve already put in) in order to have a chance at winning 100. You raise to 30, the button comes over top to 70. In 1998, Rounders came into cinemas a full five years before Chris Moneymaker hit the. The button calls the big blind for 10, small blind folds. Will Mike return to the life for keeps? Or will he join the suckers 'humping the graveyard shift wondering how they came up short'? Mike's choice makes up the ballast of 'Rounders,' one of the chief strengths of which is its refusal to resort to easy moral answers.ĭamon plays Mike with the same fluoridated cleanliness he brought to the title character of 'Good Will Hunting,' meaning he's decent enough to be a preppy but knowing enough to be a professional card shark. Here are five of the best examples of the John Dahl movie doing just that. Worm has already set up a game with some country-club suckers and needs Mike to double-team them, and Mike makes a good show of demurring, for a minute or two.

But the straight-and-narrow routine is interrupted when Mike's best friend, Worm (Edward Norton), is released from prison.