The PokerListings Daily 3-Bet is a hint of Tobey, a dash of Leonardo and all of Ben’s white magic needed to encapsulate afternoon poker news’ Player X. Today in the 3-Bet we find the Mercier family headed North on I95, partypoker zeroes in on Ladies and Aaron Sorkin reveals some Molly’s Game secrets.
1) Merciers Reverse Course
“Poker Twitter,” as it’s become known, more often than not has brought out the (very) dark side of those most intricately connected to the game.
It may have just saved the Mercier family from the worst of Hurricane Irma, though.
Last night one of South Florida’s most famous poker denizens, Jason Mercier, tweeted his intention to ride out the powerful storm at home with his wife, Natasha Mercier, and their soon-to-be-born son.
After a collective and authoritative push from friends and poker players (read the mass replies to his tweet below) Mercier reversed course a few hours ago and is now on I95 as part of the evacuating masses:
It obviously wasn’t an easy decision but it seems the outpouring of concern and support from Twitter helped push them to make the safer choice.
Even being in Orlando the storm is still definitely nothing to trifle with and we wish the best and safest outcome for the Merciers and all of South Florida.
2) By Female Poker Players for Female Poker Players
On a lighter note … partypoker today announced it has launched partypoker Ladies.
It’s a collective social media/live tourney project to give female poker players “the opportunity to socialize and play poker with like-minded women from around the globe.”
It starts with a ladies-only tournament at Grand Prix Killarney this week and a new $109 buy-in Powerfest Ladies event on Sept. 24.
It also includes a dedicated partypoker Ladies Instagram account, a Brazilian partypoker Ladies Instagram account and a partypoker Ladies Forum on Facebook.
Also expect “many more tournaments designed with female poker players in mind,” party says, so join in on the social media channels to stay up to date.
Kudos to party for the still much-needed push to make the game more inviting to all. Jump in and join the movement with a $500 bonus by opening an account here.
3) Michael Cera is Player X
The more we read about Aaron Sorkin’s upcoming Molly’s Game, the more intrigued we get.
It’s always hit-and-miss whether mainstream Hollywood movies ‘get poker right,’ so to speak, but Sorkin’s vision for the dramatization of Molly Bloom’s memoir is clearly more character piece than poker movie anyway.
Still it seems like he has at least some grasp on the poker elements, too, as he revealed in a new interview with the Hollywood Reporter.
Interestingly, while he says he was never going to use the real names of the A-List Hollywood stars who played in the poker games (Tobey Maguire, Leo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck) in the movie, he did compile a composite character named Player X:
“… One of the first things I said to Molly at our first meeting was that I’m not going to dish on any of these guys. I wouldn’t have wanted to under any circumstances, but in a movie where the hero is the hero because she doesn’t dish on anybody, you can’t either as the filmmaker.
“I kept bopping around as to how I was going to handle that visually. When these guys came in, was I going to pixelate their faces? There was a time where I thought, ‘OK, we’ll never really see their faces. We’ll just see hands and chips and cards, or they’ll always be in shadow.‘
“But I didn’t like that, either. It was around then that I thought maybe there should be an experienced director doing this. Then I landed on Player X, this one player who wouldn’t have a name and who would do everything plotwise that I needed that character to do.“
And who will play this Player X? None other than Arrested Development/Superbad star Michael Cera.
