Brad Owen's latest YouTube video is an homage to Rounders – specifically, the final third of the film where Mike McDermott and 'Worm' have to spin up their meager joint bankroll over the course of just a few days to avoid the wrath of Teddy KGB. It's a challenge-based, narrative-driven poker vlog that goes well beyond the standard fare of hand breakdowns and worn-out poker puns.
And it is, without a doubt, one of the most compelling pieces of poker content produced in the last five years.
"Rounders is my favorite poker movie of all time. I've been wanting to attempt this for years and I've been planning out this challenge for months," Owen says at the top of the video.
From there, it's a wild ride from start to finish – do yourself a favor and click the play button above.
Start-to-finish entertainment
In Owen's Rounders Challenge, he takes on the Mike McDermott persona while his friend Kevin Calenzo plays the role of 'Worm' – though without any of the card mechanic tricks or blatant cheating. With a five-day time limit to work within, the two task themselves with turning a shared $3,000 bankroll into $15,000. Throughout the hour and a half runtime, Owen and Calenzo bounce from game to game, traversing Las Vegas like Mike McD and 'Worm' roaming across New York's five boroughs.
Along the way, they play all manner of wild hands, navigating player pools they aren't accustomed to competing against. It doesn't exactly go to plan – the bankroll ebbs and flows, but the god-like, ultra sun run they needed fails to come through for either Owen or Calenzo. As time ticks on, the duo are forced to move up in stakes to give themselves a chance to reach the $15,000 mark. With only a few hours left on the fourth day of the challenge, it's not looking good.
Sadly, there's no straight-razor, barbershop shaving scene as the challenge comes down to the wire, but we'll forgive the omission.
Then things take an insane turn. With a couple of adult beverages in his system and time against him, Owen sits down in MJ Gonzalez's $25/$50 game. It's a murderer's row of talent – including Tom Dwan, David 'ODB' Baker, and Shaun Deeb – but Owen takes a $20,000 loan from Baker and jumps into the action.
Immediately, he finds himself in the thick of the action as he plays a six-bet pot with 
. It doesn't go his way as Baker's 
connects with an ace-high board and Owen is up against it from the get-go.
Rather than cut his losses, Owen doubles down with another loan to battle on – and it's a hell of a fight.
In the end, it all comes down to a flip – we won't spoil the results here (though you might be able to guess based on the video's title) – and you're going to want to see how it plays out.
