- Mike McDermott: [Narrating while entering Teddy KGB's underground gambling parlor] In "Confessions of a Winning Poker Player," Jack King said, "Few players recall big pots they have won, strange as it seems, but every player can remember with remarkable accuracy the outstanding tough beats of his career." It seems true to me, cause walking in here, I can hardly remember how I built my bankroll, but I can't stop thinking of how I lost it.
- Mike McDermott: [Narrating first lines, first getting dressed in their apartment, kissed his girlfriend as she sleeps, then going through belongings to find "three stacks of society", hidden inside a cigar box on top of his desk, inside the top left hand drawer of the same desk, hidden inside an empty VHS box entitled Caro's Pro poker Tells by Mike Caro, behind hidden inside the bottom and back left hand corner of a picture frame, and hidden inside a book entitled Super System by Doyle Brunson] Listen, here's the thing. If you can't spot the sucker in your first half hour at the table, then you ARE the sucker.
- Mike McDermott: [sitting across from each other in a bar] If you had it to do all over again, knowing what would happen, would you make the same choice?
- Professor Petrovsky: [Smiling] what choice?
- Mike McDermott: [Narrating a quote from a gambling maxim] You can shear a sheep many times, but skin him only once.
- Teddy KGB: [Referring to Mike after their final game] He beat me... Straight up... Pay him... Pay that man his money.
- Professor Petrovsky: [to mike sitting across from him in a bar] The last thing I took away from the Yeshiva was this: we cant run from who we are, our destiny chooses us.
- Mike McDermott: [talking in one of the corners of the Russian and Turkish bathhouse] I never told anybody this, about eight nine months ago, I'm at the Taj it's late and I see Johnny Chan walk in and he goes and sits in the three hundred six hundred section and the whole place stops and everybody puts an eye on him, after a while there wasn't a crap going on because all the high rollers are over there watching and some of them playing but they're giving their money to him and say "oh", I played with the world champion", you know what I did?
- Joey Knish: What?
- Mike McDermott: I sat down
- Joey Knish: You need fifty to sixty grand to play right in that game
- Mike McDermott: I had six but I had to know
- Joey Knish: what happened?
- Mike McDermott: Played tight for an hour, folded mostly then I made a score
- Joey Knish: With what? aces or kings?
- Mike McDermott: Rags, I had nothing, but he raised and I decided I don't care about the money, I'm just going to out play the guy, I'm going to out play this guy, this hand, I'll re-raise
- Joey Knish: Re-raise? You play right back at him?
- Mike McDermott: Yeah, he comes back over the top at me trying bully me like I'm some tourist, I hesitate for like two seconds then I'll re-raise and he makes a move to his checks and he looks at me, check his cards and looks at me again, and he mucked it, I took it down
- Mike McDermott: [Flash back narrates Johnny Chan] did you have it?
- Mike McDermott: [Flash back narrates] I'm sorry John, I don't remember
- Mike McDermott: I got up and walked to the cashier, I sat with the best in the world, and I won
- Joey Knish: You made a fucking move on Chan you son of a bitch, so that's why you made that run at KGB's place
- Mike McDermott: That's right I'll do it again if I can
- Mike McDermott: [trying to convince Jo that his skillful in poker] Why do you think the same five guys make it to the final table of the World Series of Poker EVERY YEAR? What, are they the luckiest guys in Las Vegas? It's a skill game Jo.
- Mike McDermott: [before their final game, putting his chips in a poker tray] Uh, you know what? I got my five grand here. That's just fine by me. I'm going home.
- Teddy KGB: Fine. It's a fucking joke anyway. After all, I am paying you with your money.
- Mike McDermott: [turns around] What did you say?
- Teddy KGB: Your money... I am still up 20 grand... from this last time I stick it in you.
- Mike McDermott: [Narrating] They're trying to goad me, trying to own me. But this isn't a gunfight. It's not about pride or ego. It's only about money. I can leave now, even with Grama and KGB... and halfway to paying Petrovsky back. That's the safe play. I told Worm you can't lose what you don't put in the middle. But you can't win much either.
- Worm: [standing up facing him] I guess the sayings' true. In the poker game of life, women are the rake man. They are the fuckin' rake.
- Mike McDermott: [siting in a chair in his apartment] What the fuck are you talkin' about. What saying?
- Worm: I-I don't know. There ought to be one though.
- Worm: [in a gymnasium] Now, what did I ever do to that guy?
- Mike McDermott: You fucked his mother
- Worm: [amused] yeah but she was a good looking older woman you gotta give me that.
- Mike McDermott: [Narrating] I've often seen these people, these squares at the table, short stack and long odds against them. All their outs gone. One last card in the deck that can help them. I used to wonder how they could let themselves get into such bad shape, and how the hell they thought they could turn it around.
- Mike McDermott: [talking privately in one of the corners of the Russian and Turkish bathhouse] What can you do for me? I mean five hundred isn't even enough to get me started
- Joey Knish: Five hundred won't help, what's two grand going to do? What kind of trouble you in?
- Mike McDermott: With the worst kind, with the worst guy
- Joey Knish: KGB?
- Mike McDermott: Yeah
- Joey Knish: [referring to Worm] Didn't I tell you? Never let that guy ahold of you?
- Mike McDermott: You told me a lot of things
- Joey Knish: Yeah I did, and you don't listen, I tell you to play within your means, you risk your whole bank roll, I tell you not to over extend yourself, to rebuild, so you don't have to hock for more, I was giving you a living, showing you the playbook I put together off my beats and that wasn't enough for you
- Mike McDermott: This is the one time I don't need you to tell me how I fucked up, I know I fucked up, what I need from you is money, I need whatever money you can give me
- Joey Knish: That's the thing, this time there is no money, I give you two grand what's that buy you? A day? No I give it to you I'm wasting it
- Mike McDermott: That's fucking great
- Joey Knish: You did it to yourself, you had to put it all on the line for some Vegas pipe dream
- Mike McDermott: I took a risk, I took a risk, you see all the angles, and you never have the fucking stones to play one
- Joey Knish: Stones? you little punk, I'm not playing for the thrill of fucking victory here, I owe rent, alimony, child support, I play for money, my kids eat, I got stones enough not to chase card actions of fucking pipe dreams of winning the world series on ESPN, but about the money I've got to turn my back, I've got to say no
- Mike McDermott: That's fine I understand
- Mike McDermott: [Trying to impress Marinacci his observant skills is essential while playing poker] you were lookin' for that third three, but you forgot that Professor Green folded on Fourth Street and now you're representing that you have it. The DA made his two pair, but he knows they're no good. Judge Kaplan was trying to squeeze out a diamond flush but he came up short and Mr. Eisen is futilely hoping that his queens are going to stand up. So like I said, the Dean's bet is $20.
- Mike McDermott: [Narrating, after asking Jo to give his winnings to pay back Petrovsky, while on the street waiting for a taxi to bring him to the airport] First prize at the World Series of Poker is a million bucks. Does it have my name on it? I don't know. But, I'm gonna find out.
- [Mike's girlfriend has just left him over his broken promise not to play poker]
- Worm: You know what always cheers me up, when I'm feeling shitty?
- Mike McDermott: [siting in a chair in his apartment, with his head looking down] No, what's that?
- Worm: Rolled up aces over kings. Check-raising stupid tourists and taking huge pots off of them. Playing all-night high-limit Hold'em at the Taj, "where the sand turns to gold." Stacks and towers of checks I can't even see over.
- Mike McDermott: [his head looks up] Fuck it, let's go.
- Worm: [pointing at him] Don't tease me.
- Mike McDermott: [smiles] Let's play some cards.
- Teddy KGB: [referring to Mike wining every hand by slow rolling him] No More! No! Not tonight! This son of bitch, all night he, "Check. Check. Check." He trap me!
- Teddy KGB: That ace could not have helped you.
- [drops all of his chips onto the table]
- Teddy KGB: I bet it all.
- Mike McDermott: [laughs] You're right Teddy, the ace didn't help.
- [pushes chips towards the center and flops down his cards]
- Mike McDermott: I flopped the nut straight.
- Joey Knish: [talking outside the sauna room in the Russian and Turkish bathhouse] I'm listening. What do you need? 500? A grand?
- Mike McDermott: Huh? I need... I need 15,000.
- Joey Knish: Fifteen?
- Mike McDermott: Yep.
- Joey Knish: I need a blow job from Christy Turlington. Get the fuck outta here. $15,000?
- Teddy KGB: [to Mike, after Mike slow rolled him during their final game] Lays down a monster. The fuck did you lay that down?
- Mike McDermott: [after Moot Court] we're not going to talk? You left me pretty quick there
- Jo: You make like it was my decision
- Mike McDermott: Well, it wasn't mine: I came home and you were gone, you're just going to drop me like that?
- Jo: [Before breaking up with him] I learned it from you Mike. You always told me this was the rule. Rule number one: Throw away your cards the moment you know they can't win. Fold the fucking hand.
- Mike McDermott: Look this is our thing we're talking about alright? It's not some losing hand in poker
- Jo: I know exactly what we're talking about
- Mike McDermott: So, that's the last of it then?
- Jo: Yeah I would say good luck but I know it's not about "luck" in your game
- Worm: [Pretending to be a sore loser at the college fraternity game] Like my uncle Les used to say "When the money is gone, it's time to move on". So enjoy it, you secret handshaking assholes.
- Mike McDermott: You comin' up?
- Lester 'Worm' Murphy: [sarcastically] No, I've been standin' out here all this time just to say hi.
- Mike McDermott: All right, listen, things haven't been that smooth on the homefront so, you know, tone it down a little, all right?
- Lester 'Worm' Murphy: [jokingly, intentionally, ignoring Mike's request] Tone done what, motherfucker?
- Worm: [to Mike after Worm was released from prison] You've got to understand there's two economies in there, there's cash and there's trade, so I've got to keep three games going at once, a game with the white guys, a game with the brothers and a game with the guards, the trick is I've got to skim enough cash off the white guys so I can lose it to the guards so they can keep doing me favors and then I've got to trim enough smokes off the brothers so I can trade and keep living in the "style" I've grown accustomed to and I've got to do all of this without getting my ass kicked.
- Joey Knish: [to Mike, referring the stacks of poker chips hidden underneath Mike's hat, before lifting up the hat] you holding those for somebody?
- Mike McDermott: [to Joey, smiling] yeah, I was holding it for you
- Joey Knish: [amused, to Mike] you should be, because I hope you're not thinking of putting all that "glimmer" in play
- Joey Knish: [to Mike, gently grabs his arm and tries to find an empty seat at another table] come here, you don't want to "butt onions" with these guys because they can chew you up, and take your whole bank roll
- Mike McDermott: so, you say
- Joey Knish: there's plenty easy games, we get outta here, get some coffee, ride over to that "soft seat" in Queens
- Mike McDermott: I know what I'm doing
- Joey Knish: making a run at, aren't you? Rolling up a stake and going to Vegas, am I right?
- Mike McDermott: I can beat the game
- Joey Knish: [to Mike eventually he looks up and gives Joey a serious look] maybe, maybe this game can be beat, but you know you can beat the ten twenty at the Chesterfield, and high low game at 79th street, ok I understand
- Joey Knish: [interrupting their study group] Hey Jo, Long time.
- Jo: Knish. How are you?
- Joey Knish: The same.
- Mike McDermott: [sees his mouth is bleeding] What happened?
- Lester 'Worm' Murphy: [while waiting outside his apartment building] Nothing, she closed her legs too fast!
- Mike McDermott: [Narrating while waiting in Jo's jeep for him to be released from prison] Worm's dad did the grounds, when he wasn't too fucking drunk, that's when we did them, of course the grounds weren't all we did, Worm put us into a scam a day on all the young aristocrats we went to school with, selling them dime bags of Oregano, nunchakus, or fire crackers from Chinatown, kept us in lunch money until the time we went from more than just pocket change and got caught we had the starting five take a dive against Friends Academy the point guard snapped and gave Worm up, they hauled him before the school board and offered him a deal " tell us who else was involved and we'll go easy on you" Worm didn't say a fucking word and got himself expelled, I stayed in school and graduated, not many friends can stand up for a friend like that.
- Mike McDermott: [Narrating, while playing against Teddy KGB] I want him to think that I am pondering a call, but all I'm really thinkin about it Vegas and the fuckin' Mirage.
- Mike McDermott: [after their final game] Are you satisfied now, Teddy? Because I can keep busting you up all night if you like.
- Mike McDermott: [during their final game] That's 4,400. I'm gonna call you. Or else, I won't respect myself tomorrow morning.
- Teddy KGB: Respect is all you have left in the morning!
- Moogie: [behind the counter of his store convenient store] Hey, lemme ask you a question. In the legal sense, can fuckin' Steinbrenner move the Yankees? Does he have the fuckin' right to just move them?
- Mike McDermott: [while dropping off deliveries] How should I know that?
- Moogie: You didn't learn that yet?
- Mike McDermott: No, we get to Steinbrenner in third year law school.
- Moogie: Oh...
- Jo: [sitting on his lap] What kind of a job is that going to be, Mike um, writing an opinion on high stakes poker?
- Mike McDermott: [sitting on their bed] Hon, you're the one that told me I should use my poker skills in the court room.
- Professor Petrovsky: [in his office] You're in trouble?
- Mike McDermott: Yes sir, I am, not with the law, I owe
- Professor Petrovsky: Gambling debt?
- Mike McDermott: Yes, it's not mine, I vouched for the wrong guy, now it's on me
- Professor Petrovsky: I understand, what will it take to be free of this?
- Mike McDermott: I need fifteen thousand tonight
- Professor Petrovsky: you know I want to help you but I'm not a wealthy man
- Mike McDermott: I know, it kills me to ask you this, I don't have any other play, if you can help me at all...
- Professor Petrovsky: I hate to see you like this and I want to help you, if it must be tonight, ten is the best I can do
- Mike McDermott: Will you do that?
- Professor Petrovsky: when my mother let me leave the Yeshiva, it nearly broke her, but she knew the life I had to lead and to do that is another mitzvah and for that: I owe.
- Professor Petrovsky: [writes a check] so you take this money and get yourself out of this trouble, you hear me?
- Mike McDermott: I promise I'll pay you back
- Mike McDermott: [nods] I know, good luck
- Mike McDermott: [after have been caught base dealing, beaten up, and thrown out at the sheriffs game] What the fuck were you thinking?
- Worm: I was trying to give us an edge
- Mike McDermott: I had them
- Worm: Look I'm sorry we got banged up, I took a shot and missed, it happens
- Mike McDermott: Happens all the time around you
- Worm: And it doesn't happen to you? You're the one that flushed his whole bank roll on one hand
- Mike McDermott: Oh fuck you man, that was different
- Worm: How is that different? What makes you so fucking special? Why are all your moves so smart and noble and I'm always the idiot piece of shit? You act like you're only one with any ambition
- Mike McDermott: Then what's your ambition? I don't know, you tell me
- Worm: I don't know, I don't think like that
- Mike McDermott: No, you don't think
- Worm: No, I don't think like you, you always think you can beat the game straight up, that's not me, and I'm always going to look for that edge, always
- Mike McDermott: Alright, what's the edge now? We owe fifteen grand in a day and we're broke, what the fuck do we do?
- Worm: That's easy, we get the fuck outta dodge, we stay clear of the city for a while, we'll hit the road, we'll be up again in no time, this will all blow over, we'll have a ball.
- Mike McDermott: not a fucking chance I'm going to live like that, you talk to Grama, you get him to stake me
- Worm: it's not going to work, we're not dealing with Grama.
- Mike McDermott: [surprised] you said Grama was on his own
- Worm: [looks down, remains silent, having been caught in a lie]
- Mike McDermott: [insisting worm tell him the truth] you told me Grama was on his own
- Worm: KGB bankrolled him
- Mike McDermott: So you just fucked us right in the ass
- Worm: [showing the car keys] yeah, all the way, you see what I'm saying. no fooling around, it's highway time, you with me or not?
- Mike McDermott: no I'm not this time.
- Worm: [surprised] , you're really going back there?
- Mike McDermott: yeah
- Professor Petrovsky: [during Moot Court] Mr. McDermott, perhaps we can begin now.
- Mike McDermott: I'm so sorry I'm late
- Judge Marinacci: Come to order in the matter of Slater v. New York State Higher Education Services.The facts have been stipulated, the briefs have been read. Lead counsel for plaintiff, Mr. McDermott, please proceed with oral arguments now. If that is convenient for you
- Mike McDermott: [sensing the judges are irritated that he disrespected them by not arriving on time] Yes, it is, and again, I'm sorry that I'm late. The case which controls the issue at bar would be Texas v. Johnson...
- Judge McKinnon: [interrupts him] Texas v. Johnson?Mr. McDermott, that is a Supreme Court free speech case that has no bearing in the premises
- Judge Marinacci: Each group was apprised to ignore that aspect of this matter and focus instead on the idea of de facto segregation
- Mike McDermott: Right. Um, well...
- Kelly: [interrupts him by standing up to continue the oral arguments] Mr. McDermott has been unreachable so I'll take over, if it pleases the court
- Judge Marinacci: Someone saying something "meaningful" would please us a great deal.
- Kelly: What we have here is a clear case of gerrymandering, impacting schoolchildren and schools in the district that was created solely to separate students by race. Although not dispositive, the student body is more than ninety percent white.
- Mike McDermott: [after waiting for her outside the City Law University building] hey
- Jo: You look like hell
- Mike McDermott: Yeah well, you should've seen me yesterday
- Jo: You ok?
- Mike McDermott: Yeah I'm ok you?
- Jo: You know how I am
- Jo: [while seeing the last of his belongings packed up in a duffel bag] so, you're out of here huh?
- Mike McDermott: Yeah I figure there's nothing left for me here
- Mike McDermott: [while reaching inside his coat pocket for the money he owes him, then handing it to her] listen, could you give this to Petrovsky? I didn't want to wake him up: it's still a little early, can I count on you to do that?
- Jo: You can always count on me, Mike
- Mike McDermott: Thanks, take care Jo
- Jo: [Jokingly] Hey call me, if you need a lawyer
- Mike McDermott: [Jokingly] I will and I will
- Worm: [in a gymnasium] Hey, I'm not gonna let a garbage can fall on my head.
- Mike McDermott: No, you're gonna jump out of the way and let it land on me.
- Teddy KGB: [after Mike raises in the very first game against Teddy] That's a position raise, I call.
- Worm: [to Roman and Maurice, chastising them for deliberately speaking Russian to each other while playing poker] You wanna see the seventh card, stop speaking fucking sputnik! I'm sure you guys were talking about Pierogies and snow but let's cut that out.
- Mike McDermott: [narrating while playing against teddy KGB] Here's the beauty of this game: I just got top two pair on the flop and I want to keep him in the hand. Against your average guy, I'd set a "bear trap", hardly bet at all, let him walk into it. But KGB's too smart for that. So, what I've got to do is over bet the pot,make it look like I'm trying to buy it.
- Mike McDermott: I bet two thousand
- Mike McDermott: [narrating] Then he plays back at me, and I get paid off.
- Teddy KGB: [after reaching an Oreo cookie, splitting in two halves and putting the right half in his mouth] call
- Mike McDermott: [Narrating] My guess is Teddy's on a flush draw.
- Teddy KGB: [checking his turn] Burn and turn.
- Mike McDermott: [Narrating, while the turn card is dealt] There's my money card, nine of hearts. I got a full house.
- Teddy KGB: [checking his turn, slow playing his hand] To the bettor.
- Mike McDermott: Check's good.
- Mike McDermott: [Narrating] Now I hope a spade falls and Teddy makes his flush. That way he'll bet strong, and I'll beat him with my nines full over aces.
- Teddy KGB: I'm going to bet fifteen thousand
- Mike McDermott: [requesting a time out to think] time
- Mike McDermott: All right, I call your fifteen plus I have another thirty three to raise you. Yeah, I'm gonna go all in, 'cause I don't think you got the spades
- Teddy KGB: You are right. I don't have spades.
- Mike McDermott: [Narrating] I know before the cards are even turned over.
- Teddy KGB: [to Mike, referring to Grama watching them play nearby] It hurts doesn't it? Your hopes dashed, your dreams down the toilet. And your fate is sitting right besides you.
- Teddy KGB: [after losing almost every hand because he underestimated Mike's poker abilities] Mr. Son of a bitch, let's play some cards!
- Mike McDermott: [Narrating and entering KGB's underground gambling parlor] just walking in here makes me queasy, the brick walls, the fucking mopes at the table, the musty smell, I feel like Buckner walking back into Shea, but what choice do I have?