Molly's Game

Molly Bloom: Why did you leave the prosecutor’s office and become a defense attorney? Charlie Jaffey: My daughter. Molly Bloom: You needed to make money. Charlie Jaffey: That and I was usually one of the few people who knew where witnesses were being hidden. Molly Bloom: It was dangerous. Charlie Jaffey: Mm-hm. Molly Bloom: So you didn’t leave the prosecutor’s office because you wanted to stand up for the innocent and believe everyone’s entitled to the best defense? Charlie Jaffey: Not really. Molly Bloom: It would have been helpful if you were Spencer Tracy or... I didn’t know who the Russians were. [pause] I can get you the two-hundred and fifty-thousand, I left ten times that on the street, it’ll just take some time. Charlie Jaffey: We do pro bono work - we regularly lend out our best litigators like me to the ACLU, Southern Poverty Law Center, veterans groups - but I don’t think I can convince my partners to take a flyer on the Poker Princess. Molly Bloom: I didn’t name myself the

Molly's Game, CC BY-SA 4.0

Molly Bloom: [voice-over] I’d overheard stories about games that folded after one bad night and I needed this one to keep going and I needed to bring value to it. I knew if I wanted to cement my place there was one guy I needed to team up with and that was this man. The game had regulars and the game had guests and four of the regulars were famous actors and I’m going to call one of them Player X. Player X subscribed to the belief that money won was twice as good as money earned. He lived to beat people and take their money. Here’s Player X talking one of the guests into folding the winning hand. Player X: I swear on my--look at me--I swear on my mother’s life--I have you. Molly Bloom: Player X was the best player at the table and tonight this guy was the worst. He’s staring at his cards - even a reasonably good amateur would know it was mathematically the best hand, which in poker is called the nuts. There was forty seven thousand dollars in the pot and the guest was holding the nuts

Molly's Game, CC BY-SA 4.0

Player X: You know, I don't like playing poker. Molly Bloom: Why do you play? Player X: I like destroying lives.

Molly's Game, CC BY-SA 4.0

Molly Bloom: [voice-over] Harlan's got a boat, nines full. Brad's got nothing, but his pre-flop betting made it look, entirely accidentally, like there was a chance he had pocket kings. Harlan Eustice: [pushes a few stacks of chips towards the center of the table] Twenty thousand. Molly Bloom: [voice-over] Which, if true, would give him the better full house. Brad's counting off twenty thousand, which means he's gonna call, and Harlan knows that if Brad's gonna call and not raise, it means he didn't have the boat, and he's betting a high two-pair, probably kings and queens. But then, instead of calling the bet, Brad pushes seventy-two thousand dollars into the pot. Brad Marion: [pushes all of his chips towards the center of the table, Harlan frowns] I'm all in. Molly Bloom: [voice-over] Harlan looks at Brad. Every tell Harlan knows about—carotid artery pumping, stiff hands—Brad’s doing the opposite. Brad's bet had represented a huge hand by calling on the flop, check-raising the turn a

Molly's Game, CC BY-SA 4.0

Molly Bloom: You're on tilt—everybody knows it. You're playing without the weapons you need to win. Harlan Eustice: [nods] You're right. Molly Bloom: [nods] Alright. Thank you. Harlan Eustice: Give me five hundred thousand. I just got to get back to even. Molly Bloom: [voice-over] That should be the second line of every gambler’s obit. “Mr. Feldstein died while trying to get back to even.” [Harlan returns to the table with fresh chips] Harlan never did. And he never got to his wife’s birthday party. She filed for divorce two days later. But there was one last punch coming that would put Harlan on the floor for good. Harlan was heads-up against a guy named Frederick who was Austrian royalty. Harlan Eustice: [pushes a few stacks of chips towards the center of the table] Call. Molly Bloom: [voice-over] Harlan had pocket queens. His Excellency had Ace-King. They were both in 65K pre-flop. The flop's queen-seven-seven. Harlan has a full-house again, queens full of sevens, with three rounds

Molly's Game, CC BY-SA 4.0

[voice-over] The game had given me an identity, respect, and a defined place in a world that was inaccessible and in one irrational heartbeat it was taken away. I was irrelevant and forgotten overnight. It’d been two weeks since I lost the game and I made an appointment to see someone because now the humiliation and depression had given way to a blinding anger at my powerlessness over the unfair whims of men who had leverage over me and I wanted to talk it out with someone. That was it, that’s what was making me angry. It was that there weren’t any rules. These power moves weren’t framed by right and wrong, just ego and vanity. Selfish whims with no regard to consequence. No fairness, no justice. And that giggling, cackling call from Player X... [voice-over] I couldn’t lose to that greenscreened little shit and I didn’t want a therapist to make me feel okay about it. You know what makes you feel okay about losing? Winning.

Molly's Game, CC BY-SA 4.0