Poker

When Daniel Ocean is released from prison in New Jersey, his next robbery is already planned. Danny Ocean (Clooney) wants to score the biggest robbery in history. He combines an eleven team member, including Frank Catton (Mac), Rusty Ryan (Pitt) and Linus Caldwell (Damon). Danny’s target are three Las Vegas casinos: The Bellagio, the Mirage and the MGM Grand. They all belong to hard and selfish entrepreneur Terry Benedict, who, by the way, also shows a certain interest in Danny’s beautiful ex-wife Tess. During a much-anticipated boxing event (Lennox Lewis vs. Wladimir Klitschko), there will be $150 million in the safe, 70 yards below the strip. So, Danny starts to hire professionals from all over the country: There’s the card magician Rusty Ryan, the perfect pickpocket Linus Caldwell and the ingenious pyrotechnician Basher Tarr. Reuben Tishkoff, who lost a casino to Benedict, provides funding, the brothers Virgil and Turk Malloy will drive and help, and Frank Catton, a professional card dealer, gets a job at the casino to watch the routines. Saul Bloom, already retired, will play the rich heavy weaponry dealer and live in the hotel, while Livingston Dell bugs the place to have a look over the shoulders of the security personnel. Finally, the chinese acrobat artist Yen will be the one to move inside the safe before the motion detectors are turned off. There are three rules to be followed: First: no blood. Second: Rob only who deserves it. Third: Do it as if you have nothing to lose.

What makes the story so intriguing is the fact that Danny’s mission seems so impossible: security in the casinos is paramount and the route to the reward is littered with obstacles. The number of close calls that the gang is faced with is great fun and one can’t help but root for these crooks throughout the film. It is also refreshing to watch a film which is dominated by male stars and is not filled with macho swearing. Instead, we have a banter between the stars which is indicative of their camaraderie.

‘Ocean’s Eleven’ is a welcome option in the choice of movies available at the moment which is dominated by Oscar nominees that are not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. With this film, it’s simply a case of sit back and enjoy the fun!

A Big Hand for the Little Lady (released in the UK as Big Deal at Dodge City) is a 1966 western film, made by Eden Productions Inc. and released by Warner Bros. Settlers Meredith (Henry Fonda), his staid wife Mary (Joanne Woodward), and their young son Jackie are passing through, on their way to purchase a farm near San Antonio, when a wheel on their wagon breaks. They wait at Sam’s while the local blacksmith repairs it. Just as the five richest men of the area, are settling down to play the biggest game of poker of the year. The man cannot resist it and though he is a very bad poker player, enters the game betting all the money/savings of his family. In the climax of the game he suffers a heart-attack. His wife then takes his place in the table. That’s the only way of regaining their savings. But there is a little problem. Can anybody explain her how to play poker? When the wife disappears, the husband, after watching a few hands, joins in the game, only to lose most of the family’s savings. As the wife returns, he finds that he has dealt himself a winning hand, but does not have the cash to continue. In the following argument, he crumbles, and his wife has no choice, but to continue with his hand, in order to conquer back their money, the only problem being, she can’t play poker. When Mary accumulates her sizable winnings and leaves, the game breaks up. Her determination earns her the honour of the men.

The final resolution takes place in the gambling town of Black Creek, where it is revealed that Meredith, Mary, and even their “son” are confidence tricksters and expert card sharps. Led by Ballinger and with the collusion of Scully, they committed a scam on the five poker players, who had defraud the banker in a real estate deal sixteen years ago. “Mary” is actually Ballinger’s girlfriend Ruby. She had promised him she would give up gambling after the caper, but it is clear that she had no such intention, when she sits down to a no-limit poker game.

Casino is an Academy Award nominated 1995 crime drama film directed by Martin Scorsese. It is based on the book of the same name by Nicholas Pileggi and Larry Shandling. Robert De Niro stars as Sam “Ace” Rothstein, a chain-smoking top gambling handicapper who is called by the colloquial to look after his day-to-day operations at the fictional Tangiers Casino in Las Vegas. The story is based on Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, who ran the Stardust, Fremont and the Hacienda casinos in Las Vegas for the Chicago Outfit from the 1970s until the early 1980s

This Martin Scorsese film illustrates the Janus -like quality of Las Vegas–it has a showiness, glamorous face, as well as a mercilessly frank one. Ace Rothstein and Nicky Santoro, gangsters who came to Las Vegas to make their lasting effect, live and work in this improbable world. Seen through their eyes, each as a foil to the other, the details of mob involvement in the casinos of the 1970’s and ’80’s are disclosed.

Besides winnings and losings, playing online poker costs money through rake that poker rooms charge as a service fee. For example joining a $20+2 tournament costs $2 of rake. A poker player can save on rake by using a rakeback service, which get about one third of all rake refunded back to poker account. Rakeback is not only for small poker rooms. Even notorious big sites like 27% Full Tilt rakeback and 30% UltimateBet rakeback are on the menu.

Ace is the effective controller of the Tangiers casino, while Nicky is his boyhood friend and tough strongman, robbing and shaking down the locals. However, they each have a fallacy–Ace falls in love with a hustler, Ginger, and Nicky falls into lust of drugs and violence. Ace Rothstein aspires a civilized lifestyle with his money-conditional wife, Ginger.But Nicky Santoro, a boyhood friend of Ace and now a Made-Man of the Mafia, reaches in town with an ambitious agenda of his own that soon upsets Ace’s life. Before long, Ginger and her long-time leeching lover Lester, along with Nicky’s mistakes, causing problems. In the end Sam is seen in San Diego, making bets for the mob and watching sporting events on multiple televisions. Sam notes that he ended up right back where he started before taking over the Tangiers, picking winners and making money for the bosses back home.