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Knish Appreciation Thread (2 Viewers)

Do you appreciate Joey Knish?

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NotRealNameNoSir

NotRealNameNoSir

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Frankly I am sick of main characters. TikTok, Instagram, they all make you feel like you're the center of the universe with catered algorithms. I am sick of people feeling that they're owed a win. This sense of entitlement is that of a gambler.

Not Knish. Knish is a grinder, a New York Legend. Knish doesn't subscribe to that mindset. He's got rent. Alimony. Child support. He sees your hustle and is willing to give you a playbook built on his own beats. Who told you specifically to play within your means, yet you get some momentum and risk your whole goddamn bankroll on Labubus. You little punk.

He plays for money, and I appreciate Knish's steadfastness. His willingness to teach a man to fish.

cnfpztcanwv81.webp




If there's ever another Rounders movie, I don't care about Worm's upbringing, I don't care about Mike adapting to GTO or the online era, I care about seeing the beats that brought Knish to where we are today. To an incredibly attractive man with responsibilities.

I appreciate Knish.
 
Moxie Mike said:
This is the worst thing I've ever clicked on.

What's next? A heart-felt love letter to Bill Lumberg and the underrated genius of TPS reports?
Click to expand...
I need to explain something that may sound ironic, but I mean it sincerely: I love Bill Lumbergh and the much-mocked genius of TPS reports.


Bill Lumbergh represents order in a workplace always flirting with chaos. He isn’t a villain—he’s a systems thinker, quietly holding things together with process, tone, and just enough pressure to keep everything from unraveling. The voice, the pauses, the memo about the memo—it’s all part of maintaining structure.


And TPS reports aren’t pointless bureaucracy. They’re ritual. They say the work exists, that someone followed a shared process, that details matter. They’re the thin line between coherence and a flood of files named final_FINAL_v7.xlsx.


That’s why Office Space works so well: it’s funny because it’s true. It’s not mocking structure—it’s showing how invisible and thankless it becomes when it works.


So yes, I love Bill Lumbergh.
I love TPS reports.
Because without them, everything breaks—quietly, and all at once.


Yeah. That’d be great.
 
The older I get, the more I realize the stupidity of Mike. The more I realize Knish feeds off those flash-in-the-pan punks who think they’re tough shit because they’re running hot.

Mike may have gotten himself outta this mess, but until he learns what it truly means to manage a bankroll or make wise choices, he’ll just go broke again and again.

Knish isn’t flashy or the most fun character. But he truly is what’s needed in a life of gambling. Discipline. Conscious decisions. Game selection.

Not risking your life at a game with high variance.

I know it woulda be a more boring ending to the movie, but God I wish Mike walked away when he was square with Teddy and half way to paying Petrovsky back. Woulda showed an immense amount of growth.
 
TheJestyr said:
The older I get, the more I realize the stupidity of Mike. The more I realize Knish feeds off those flash-in-the-pan punks who think they’re tough shit because they’re running hot.

Mike may have gotten himself outta this mess, but until he learns what it truly means to manage a bankroll or make wise choices, he’ll just go broke again and again.

Knish isn’t flashy or the most fun character. But he truly is what’s needed in a life of gambling. Discipline. Conscious decisions. Game selection.

Not risking your life at a game with high variance.

I know it woulda be a more boring ending to the movie, but God I wish Mike walked away when he was square with Teddy and half way to paying Petrovsky back. Woulda showed an immense amount of growth.
Click to expand...
Exactly.

"hey Knish, how you been?"
"....The same."

That's what is needed to survive! As Mike and Worm fly around on this hellish pendulum, he is feeding his kids. He is eating good, he is grabbing a schvitz. As older gentlemen we must respect the LONGEVITY. Mediocrity can be a wonderful thing.
 
Actually, I wish Mike just walked into Teddy’s place and didn’t play. Just paid what he could and owned up to his misjudgments.

But again, wouldn’t have been as cool.

Let’s start a petition: The Rise of Knish: a New York Legend

And the final scene can be a flash forward to Knish in a cemetery with his kids, paying their respects to worm and Mike who are buried with incredibly modest headstones
 
On the dvd commentary, Chris Ferguson said that he considers Knish the real hero of the movie.

In its face, I think one of the prominent themes of Rounders is the tension between safety and risk. Knish represents the comfort and mediocrity of playing things too safely, while Worm is what you get when you abandon all safety and love in a world of high risk / high reward / high danger.

Ultimately, Mike leans more into the risky side of the spectrum. The way he plays against KGB, his loss of law school and his girlfriend (who supported him when he lost everything), and his moving to Vegas to play in the Main Event.

It’s a young man’s ending, to be sure. I think that’s one of the things that resonated with me when I watched it in my early 20’s. It’s romantic and empowering in the way you want to feel when you’re young. It’s a lesson that teaches you that, even though you will sometimes get your ass kicked, at least you know you can take a punch.

I don’t fault Mike for embracing the high variance at the end, but older me definitely sees the hero in Knish. He’s already fought the battles. He’s won, lost, and won it all back. He sees the potential in Mike, but knows first hand what happens to potential that isn’t cultivated. Maybe it’s because I became a teacher, but I connect with this approach on a personal level. The same kid who rocks in one class is a knuckle-head in another.

Younger me didn’t appreciate Knish as much as older me does, but both understand the necessity for him.
 
Last edited:
NotRealNameNoSir said:
Frankly I am sick of main characters. TikTok, Instagram, they all make you feel like you're the center of the universe with catered algorithms. I am sick of people feeling that they're owed a win. This sense of entitlement is that of a gambler.

Not Knish. Knish is a grinder, a New York Legend. Knish doesn't subscribe to that mindset. He's got rent. Alimony. Child support. He sees your hustle and is willing to give you a playbook built on his own beats. Who told you specifically to play within your means, yet you get some momentum and risk your whole goddamn bankroll on Labubus. You little punk.

He plays for money, and I appreciate Knish's steadfastness. His willingness to teach a man to fish.

View attachment 1636586



If there's ever another Rounders movie, I don't care about Worm's upbringing, I don't care about Mike adapting to GTO or the online era, I care about seeing the beats that brought Knish to where we are today. To an incredibly attractive man with responsibilities.

I appreciate Knish.
Click to expand...
This picture is the scene where Knish delivers the best line in the movie.

Jo: Knish, how are you?
Knish: The same.
 
I see a sequel to Rounders in about 15 years when Matt Damon is 70. It plays out very much the same way as "The Color Of Money" did with "The Hustler". The same way Fast Eddie mentored Vincent, Mike will take on the Knish role for some young card shark but in a more active way as Master to apprentice. Perhaps a ghostly image of the now dead Knish can help Mike like Obi Wan did for Luke. "Trust your poker feelings".
 
Last edited:
HughDrackman said:
Younger me didn’t appreciate Knish as much as older me does
Click to expand...

See that's the thing. This time, there is no money. You want me to call some people, try to buy you some time, I will. A place to stay, or the truck? No problem. But about the money, I gotta do this. I gotta say no.
 
SteveEH said:
This picture is the scene where Knish delivers the best line in the movie.

Jo: Knish, how are you?
Knish: The same.
Click to expand...
100%. The most accurate statement from a true comfortable grinder ever. Wins or losses don't beat him up and he's built his playbook on beats while Mike was in Kindergarten.
 
It's another unbelievable casting job. Turturro is the perfect Knish.

More importantly, Mike's biggest error, as I've said before, was not hooking up with Petra when she came to collect for the Chesterfield. Go all in, buddy.
1771126817403.webp
 
BKisback said:
More importantly, Mike's biggest error, as I've said before, was not hooking up with Petra when she came to collect for the Chesterfield. Go all in, buddy.
1771126817403-webp.1637465
Click to expand...
He just found out that Worm's been around plenty and run him up just under seven grand. He had to put him on his own.

It's understandable that he wasn't in the mood.
 
Fuck that guy, he’s a selfish prick masquerading as a “wise father figure” when in reality he don’t care about anything except his bankroll. He would have lent Mike the money at higher rates than Teddy to “teach him a lesson”.
 
HughDrackman said:
On the dvd commentary, Chris Ferguson said that he considers Knish the real hero of the movie.

In its face, I think one of the prominent themes of Rounders is the tension between safety and risk. Knish represents the comfort and mediocrity of playing things too safely, while Worm is what you get when you abandon all safety and love in a world of high risk / high reward / high danger.

Ultimately, Mike leans more into the risky side of the spectrum. The way he plays against KGB, his loss of law school and his girlfriend (who supported him when he lost everything), and his moving to Vegas to play in the Main Event.

It’s a young man’s ending, to be sure. I think that’s one of the things that resonated with me when I watched it in my early 20’s. It’s romantic and empowering in the way you want to feel when you’re young. It’s a lesson that teaches you that, even though you will sometimes get your ass kicked, at least you know you can take a punch.

I don’t fault Mike for embracing the high variance at the end, but older me definitely sees the hero in KGB. He’s already fought the battles. He’s won, lost, and won it all back. He sees the potential in Mike, but knows first hand what happens to potential that isn’t cultivated. Maybe it’s because I became a teacher, but I connect with this approach on a personal level. The same kid who rocks in one class is a knuckle-head in another.

Younger me didn’t appreciate Knish as much as older me does, but both understand the necessity for him.
Click to expand...
I think that you made a typo and typed KGB instead of Knish, but even though he's a mobster and made out to be the antagonist of the movie, since we're talking about it, am I the only one that thought KGB sounded disappointed when he revealed his aces full to Mike, as if taking the tone of disappointed father/teacher? Always found that particular line delivery by Malkovich peculiar. Like he sees the potential in Mike as a poker player and was disappointed that he blew his roll on an underfull full house.
 
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This thread started as Knish appreciation and somehow turned into pointers on responsible adulthood behaviour and Excel file naming conventions.

I am offering a “Knish Method” masterclass to you all:
  • Step 1: Fold marginal hands.
  • Step 2: Pay your alimony on time.
  • Step 3: Quietly judge Worm without saying anything.
  • Step 4: Eat a sandwich at 2am while the donkeys punt their bankrolls.
Mike chased glory. Worm chased chaos. Knish chased… a stable checking account and lower blood pressure.

The Rounders sequel is just Knish reviewing monthly budgets while telling Mike, “Yeah…I’m still doing about the same.”
 
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