I thought this episode had at all: a black friday reference, a hellmuth cameo and a ten-high hero call. There were more than a few unrealistic stretches as far as poker but I found it pretty enjoyable...curious what others thought of the poker scenes

I was mentally prepared for the worst when I realized it would be a poker episode, but honestly the scenes weren't actually that bad. The hero call hand I think actually may have been partly modeled after a Stu Ungar hand that I'm pretty sure Hellmuth wrote about.

Also, I'll have to watch again but I think there was a "I'll GTO him to the ground" quote or something along those lines. Not entirely sure it was referencing game theory, which was referenced later in the show, but I think it may have been the first time I've ever seen "GTO" in pop culture.

Ah, I knew I recognized that hand.

https://www.pokernews.com/news/2008/...tuey-ungar.htm

This can only remind me of UB and AP.

It was also featured quite heavily in Eastenders (British soap) as a possible way for the pub landlord to pay his debts and avoid going to prison

He got felted running AJ into QQ on AAQJQ

Final hand, it seemed like the slimeball had Taylor well covered, but Taylor wins the hand, he shoves all his chips, and it's over. That didn't make any sense. But the dialogue about the psychology of poker, I was pleasantly surprised.

I read somewhere that the directors (or someone involved) were the guys behind Rounders.

Durrrrylor if he were to actually accept the fact that gto is our overlord.

Surely this never actually happened? Or Stu has ESP/ was so high on crack he thought this was a good idea?

10 high hero call? Amateur hour compared to Tony Hawk.

This has to be the 18th thread on this, but yeah was a little cheesy with the Phil Laak quote n such. Haha and T-hi hero... have to suspend disbelief just a tiny bit but not much. I can appreciate the Ungar hand reference. PH is a C- actor at best. Asia is now my favorite (plays Taylor).

Phil Laak quote got me the most, the rest of it was cheesey of course but compared to other poker on TV/movie stuff it wasn't half bad.

it was cool to see poker on a tv show (entertaining series overall imo).... however... it seemed like they tried too hard getting every poker term used in that 20 minutes lol.

Yeah, the use of set mining was a bit too much But overall was pretty good!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0kiEgII7tM

Hellmuth posted a pic of him and Brandon Cantu on set months ago. I'm guessing Cantu got cut out? Don't remember seeing him in any part.

So I guess we now know where Tom Dwan went.
A grade 1 haircut and a hunger strike.

thought this was pretty cringe-worthy.

-The GTO reference (literally no one outside of poker community knows what that means, it wasn't explained or anything).
-T high hero was ridiculous for obv reasons. The most ridiculous part of it was how the guy gets up in the middle of the important hand to consult with his coach. Solid couple of minutes goes by before he comes back to the table and jams the river.
-Basically the whole thing was just trying too hard. Could have tried to make it more realistic and not try to throw in so many cheesy poker terms that most people don't understand.

The use of the word villain made me cringe the most.

Also, there seemed to be a similar type dichotomy in the guy, girl I cant tell who won as there is in Dan coleman

Calling Doug Polk to do a video on the T high hand. She made a an INSANE hero call and we need Doug to lay it down.

The entire episode was a bit cringe worthy & tbh season 1 was alot better than season 2 of billions, hope the show gets interesting again. Was good to see that they had sound knowledge of poker though, looks like the writers actually play & maybe even lurk 2+2. As a fan of the show itself though, really could've done without the poker themed episode, seems like they are running out of material.

I for one appreciate that they didn't try to dumb it down. Also happily surprised that the final hand wasn't some sick 4-handed cooler ala Casino Royale (or any other movie hand for that matter) where the worst hand is the nut flush and people are left to believe that Bond outplayed the villain on that one.

Ummmmm....I guess most posting here don't realize that one of the creators of Billions, Brian Koppelman, wrote a little poker movie back in the day that did pretty well.

You may have heard of it. It was called Rounders...

this^^^

Season 1 still had random episodes that barely touched on the main plot lines as well and focused on random hedge fund shenanigans. That's what kinda makes the show fun.. it's serious but not too serious at times... oh and it going back and forth on who the good / bad guy is.

Super users make 10 high hero calls. Kind of like those UB super users on that poker site where Phil Hellmuth made his millions. Mind you it wasn't a cameo it was serial cheating for years and Hellmuth did nothing about it but pad his bank account. He should never be let off the hook for this.


The AP tournament hand that finally broke all the cheating open:

Stage #896976330 Tourney ID 1883389 Holdem Multi Normal Tournament No
Limit $4500 - 2007-09-13 01:43:48 (ET)
Table: 14 (Real Money) Seat #3 is the dealer
Seat 3 - POTRIPPER ($765740 in chips)
Seat 8 - CRAZYMARCO ($214260 in chips)
POTRIPPER - Ante $450
CRAZYMARCO - Ante $450
POTRIPPER - Posts small blind $2250
CRAZYMARCO - Posts big blind $4500
*** POCKET CARDS ***
Dealt to CRAZYMARCO [9h 2h]
POTRIPPER - Calls $2250
CRAZYMARCO - Checks
*** FLOP *** [4h Kd Kh]
CRAZYMARCO - Checks
POTRIPPER - Bets $9000
CRAZYMARCO - Calls $9000
*** TURN *** [4h Kd Kh] [7s]
CRAZYMARCO - Checks
POTRIPPER - Bets $13500
CRAZYMARCO - All-In(Raise) $200310 to $200310
POTRIPPER - Calls $186810
*** RIVER *** [4h Kd Kh 7s] [5s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
POTRIPPER - Shows [10c 9c] (One pair, kings)
CRAZYMARCO - Shows [9h 2h] (One pair, kings)

I continue to admire CRAZYMARCO and he is still playing many events at the WSOP and had some good successes last year at the WSOP.

He won the 3,000 H.O.R.S.E. (Event #18) 47th World Series of Poker (WSOP) 2016.

To me his story is legendary.