For many in the poker world, their first introduction to the game, and perhaps even Texas Hold’em, was the movie Rounders. Released in 1998, the film was the spark that lit many fires in the poker community and, it appears, some people who you wouldn’t think of as Rounders fanatics. Just how fanatical are we talking? How about replicating one of the props from the classic cult film?
Mythbusters Adam Savage Is A MASSIVE Rounders Geek
After starring in the Discovery Channel series Mythbusters for more than a decade, Adam Savage has put much of his life on display for the audience. One thing that he didn’t show in the entire 17 year run of the series was talk about his obsession with arguably poker’s greatest cinematic effort. In a special YouTube clip that was released before Christmas, Savage finally opens up about his massive obsession with Rounders.
On Adam Savage’s Tested, the former Mythbuster speaks about his devotion to the world of Rounders. “It’s time to have a “Show and Tell” about a prop and a story,” Savage begins as he stands behind some trays of poker chips. The “roughly $100,000 in poker chips,” according to Savage, are replicas of “Teddy KGB’s” poker chips that were used in the movie. “It’s one of my favorite movies, responsible for the early 2000s poker boom…I’m OBSESSED with Rounders!” Savage firmly states.
“I wanted a set of “Teddy KGB’s” chips ever since I saw the movie,” Savage continues. Savage talked about how he would occasionally find singular chips from the film on eBay, but that they were extremely expensive if he were looking to have a complete set. With this in mind, Savage did what he did for a living through almost two decades on Mythbusters and went about recreating the chips as seen in the movie.
“I carefully looked at screen grabs of the movie…and logged that there were five different styles of chips,” Savage tells the viewer. He was a stickler for the details, too, noting that each chip had different pipping on the sides in addition to differentiating colors. He then took that information to several different chip makers, who knew what Savage was up to and flat out told him “no” when he asked them to recreate the chip set.
“A Long Journey” Ends in A Priceless Set
After several fruitless tries, Savage eventually found the company that originally created the chips for the original film. “Now, they don’t want me to tell everyone who they are,” Savage said (and probably disappointed many viewers), “so I am not going to share their name. But they did make a promise to the original production that they would NOT make a second run of the poker chip. So, we had to include a key difference between MY poker chips and the production poker chips.”
So, what was that difference? Instead of the bear on the chip pointing to the right (if there’s one thing that Savage is deadly serious about, it is authenticity!), on the Savage Rounders set the bear is facing to the left. “I don’t mind that difference AT ALL! I am totally fine with that!” Savage exclaimed.
Savage seems like he wants to go all the way with his replication of “Teddy KGB’s” poker chip set. He came up with a special carrying case, a lockbox, complete with cards and a lock (after all, it is $100,000 in poker chips). He even wants to take it to the level of figuring out what “Teddy KGB” would put on the case to signify that it was his property, with Savage asking the viewers for suggestions as to what to do regarding that measure.
If you watch the video above, you’ll see that Savage’s obsession with the movie Rounders is quite extensive! It is fitting of a movie that, in the beginning, was viewed as a flop but became a cult classic, primarily because of poker buffs and fans like Savage!
