Kevin Maher blunders badly in today’s Times two-star verdict on the movie 21. Under the headline Not just a poker face he writes,

Unfortunately, for large chunks of the Spacey poker drama 21 the scenes are all about what the scenes are about - ie playing poker.

Unfortunately for Maher the film is not about poker, but blackjack. This is rather like reviewing a movie about rugby; thinking it being about football.

The editor must have told him though, the online version of Maher’s review on 21 has the right game.

I just did a search to see how many runners there were down at Cannon Street for last week’s UK Open. I haven’t found information for the first event, but there were only 29 players for the second event, 12 for the third event and 15 for the fourth.

I guess there will be a few more players for the WSOPE events in September, but the buy-ins are too big: £2500 HORSE (what where they thinking?), £5000 Pot-Limit Omaha and a £10 000 for the No-Limit Hold’em main event.