The PokerListings Daily 3-Bet is a pair of Crocs, a Guatemalan poncho and a tiny fez that completely undermine your afternoon poker news table image.
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Today in the 3-Bet we find Phil Ivey doing his best Bob Denver impression down on Ivey island, noted poker muckraker Tony G. packs up and heads for EU Parliament and poker thriller Runner Runner flops pretty hard coming out of the box-office gate.
1) Phil Ivey: Poker Badass, Fashion Fish
Despite being the most badass poker player on the planet, Phil Ivey has never been much of a sartorialist. But he hasn't ever really embarrassed himself either.
Consider that changed with the bucket hat pic he just instagramed from Cabo though. You don't need three laptops to tell you that hat will kill a tiny piece of your table image forever.
2)Tony G. Heads to Brussels to Fight for Liberal Seat
As you might expect we have no idea how European Parliament works but it's likely about to get more interesting with the arrival of noted poker shit disturber Tony G.
According to a post on Facebook today the G. is "going to EU parliament in Brussels to change Lithuania. I made second in the list as a candidate for the Liberal Party and am really happy.
"This result leaves me well positioned for next year. The Liberal Party has set a goal during the European parliamentary election to fight hard for two seats. Currently, the Liberal Movement in the European Parliament has one representative so there is a lot of hard work ahead of me."
Did he come second in a Lithuanian election is a now fighting to get a seat in EU parliament? is he just showing up and making noise during caucus sessions? Who knows. Either way it will mean the G. poker schedule will be pretty light this year:
"All of this does mean I will be playing virtually no poker in the coming months but I am still committed to playing the partypoker Premier League in Montreal in November. I would even stake Hellmuth and Michael Phelps. One thing is for sure though in my new political world though. There’ll be no online poker being played during debates on phone or laptop on my watch!" Read G.'s full statement here.
3) Runner Runner Gets Panned, at 8% on Rotten Tomatoes
So the numbers are in from the first weekend of poker thriller Runner Runner and ... they're not good.
It was third at the US box office at $7.6m (and did the same overseas), but given expectations must feel like a disappointment. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 did $21m for example.
On top of the poor box-office, reviews from critics and the public at large have not been kind. Some highlights:
"The eye rolls are plentiful during this far-fetched thriller that provides little insight into corruption in the high-stakes world of online gambling. " - Todd Jorgenson, Cinemalogue.com
"Paying for this movie won't make you angry, but it will give you a chance to catch a solid nap in a nice cool theater." - Matthew Razak, Flixist.com
"Title refers to 4.2% chance you have in poker of hitting flush...Any poker player will know that initial set of cards is known as the "flop," a fair description for this film with even longer odds at finding an appreciative audience." - Jason Gorber, Twitch
Those are some of the nicer ones. There's also this encouraging post from 2+2 user 46&2:
"Luckily, there were only 9 people (incl. me) in my theatre (8pm). Couple mins before my show, I popped into an earlier showing of the film to assess turnout... 12 people in that one. Mind you, this is a huge theatre, packed lot, Friday night. So we got that going for us."
So let's say additional damage to public perception of online poker minimized, for now.
