Ocean's 11 (the movie)

I've just seen Oceans 11 with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Julia Robers, Carl Reiner, and about 20 other "superstars".


I have two points that brought up questions in my mind that I've been pondering.


POINT/QUESTION #1


Have you seen the scene in which Brad Pitt's character is "teaching poker" to a bunch of stars?


The scene was absolutely terrible from a technical standpoint. They were playing 5 card draw high and doing the same old "I see your 500" (while splashing the pot) and then (string raising) "raise you 2000 more".


At the point where the "Ocean" character came into the game Pitt's character says (after a large $500 raise into a small pot) "This early in the game, he must be bluffing to bet that much"(paraphrased). After the re-raise came from one of the suckers, Ocean makes the $2000 string raise and Pitt says (again paraphrasing) "Now he has to try to over bet to make it look like he has strength" (at this time the pot was OVER 2000).


Why can't they find someone with just a LITTLE MORE poker knowledge and technical skill to advise poker scenes in movies? This was filmed in LV for God's sake. Damon plays, couldn't even HE have said something to the director?


POINT/QUESTION #2


Besides the (obvious) product placement, why would The Bellagio want to be portrayed as being run by a vindictive thug rich guy and let the world believe their vault was easily robbed?


Just some thoughts about the movie.


Rick "DaVoice" Charles

rick@voiceofpoker.com

Please!


As for point number one, well, I think part of the point is that these guys are clearly not very good at the game. They splashed the pot? So what! If you think people don't splash the pot all the time in back room games then you're very naive. People only learn that this is bad form with experience--and it's abundantly clear that these guys weren't supposed to be experienced. The same with "I call, and raise." People do this all the time until they start playing in serious games, when somebody (hopefully politely, but often not) tells them it's poor form.


As for Pitt's lousy advice, I think it was abundantly clear he was leading the sheep to the slaughter. (And to think people complain when movies feel they have to explain every little detail!).


Rather than being technical miscues, these are in fact clues to the sophisticated about who these characters are.


As for your second point, I think it's simply the free advertising. The Bellagio is probably smart enough to know that nobody's really going to think that the movie is accurate on details of vault construction. I would hope that audiences are smart enough to know that they're watching a piece of fiction and I think the filmmakers deserve credit for assuming we're intelligent, rather than the other way around.

Boy you saved me a great deal of writing. I agree on all points. However, add this, the movie as a whole, I give it two stars only because they had so many big stars.


SPM,...skip this one and you won't be missing anything...

I enjoyed the movie a great deal. I do have one question though, was the whole scene with the acrobat in the vault supposed to have been just taped or did they actually break in prior to showing up in the SWAT gear. It seems to suggest it was all taped to get the owner panicked into opening the vault for them, but then what the hell was Clooney crawling around through vents for?

Assume you are a con man playing with a bunch of rich young hollywood brats who think "all reds" is a big hand.


Are you going to


1) Call string raises?


2) Give them a true explanation of what betting patterns are likely to indicate?


I thought the poker scene was well done and a true look at what might happen in that situation. It wasn't supposed to be the final table of the WSOP.


re: question 2:


The guy who ran the Bellagio in the movie was the villain, but he certainly probably fit the mold of what your average casino owner probably likes to think of himself; ruthless, driven, insanely brilliant. I'd also hardly categorize the robbery as "easy".


I thought it was a great movie for entertainment purposes. It didn't save the world, but I didn't expect it to.