Weekly Flop: Bilzerian Attorney Attack, Ivey Shows Skills, Molly's Game Movie?

High stakes poker player Dan Bilzerian has been threatened with a lawsuit over a botched pool stunt. But through plenty of wit and sarcasm, Bilzerian's lawyer warns porn star Janice Griffith (pictured above, left) that suing would be a waste of time...Think Phil Ivey is some dinosaur who can't keep up in the modern high stakes online poker world? He proved otherwise with a HUGE week...The poker world is excited about the June 24th release of Molly's Game, and it's almost a given that this book will hit the big screen. Check out more on these stories in the Weekly Flop.

Only Dan Bilzerian Would Have A Lawyer Like This...

Often touted for his self-proclaimed $50 million in poker profits and 2 million-plus Instagram followers, Dan Bilzerian has grown to be larger than life. So it's really no surprise when he was filmed throwing a porn star off a roof and into a pool during a Hustler magazine shoot. The only problem is that the adult film star, Janice Griffith, broke her foot after it clipped the pool's edge on the way down.

The 19-year-old recently had her lawyer contact Bilzerian in regard to getting $85,000 out of him to cover her medical bills and missed photo/video shoots. But 'Blitz' isn't budging on the lawsuit and his lawyer, Tom Goldstein, let Griffith know as much in a letter filled with more sarcasm than a Daniel Tosh show. TMZ released the letter, and you can see a sample of it below:

So like your client, the facts of the claim won’t, quite, fly. The tape shows the two carefully practicing the flight of fancy under Hustler’s direction, and your client expressly agreeing to go ahead. In legal lingo, she assumed the risk.

But maybe I’m not creative enough. Maybe your client’s theory is that Mr. Bilzerian negligently violated the established standard of responsible care for one who throws a porn actor off a roof into a pool during a photo shoot for an adult magazine. I’ll let that one sink for a moment.

Ivey Shows He's Still Got Game

Once clear and away the biggest online poker winner in history, Phil Ivey has had some massive struggles on the virtual felt over the past year and a half. At one point, he was down $5.3 million while playing in the Full Tilt nosebleeds. His major struggles had even fueled gossipy speculation that Ivey might have somehow cheated prior to Black Friday, when he boasted $19.3 million in career profits.

Ivey has nine WSOP gold bracelets and countless unofficial tales of his poker exploits to refute these claims. More recently, he had a dream online poker week to shut up the haters. Playing 6,130 hands of 8-Game, Draw, Hold’em and PLO8, Ivey managed to rack up a $1.2 million profit. Showing a profit this big is no small feat when you consider that Ivey competed against the likes of Viktor 'Isildur1' Blom, Alexander 'PostflopAction' Kostritsyn and Patrik 'FinddaGrind' Antonius.

It's been said many times that anybody can run good over a small sample size. But Ivey isn't just anybody and it seems more likely that he actually got some positive variance on his side for once.

Molly's Game Looks Good For Another Poker Blockbuster Movie

It's only a few weeks until Molly Bloom's much-anticipated book, Molly's Game, hits the shelves. Based on the infamous Hollywood poker ring that included stars like Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Tobey Maguire, the reach of Molly's Game is sure to extend far beyond chronic TwoPlusTwo posters and PokerStars Supernova Elite members.
That said, we can't see a scenario where this story doesn't end up becoming a blockbuster movie. This is especially the case when you consider Hollywood's recent fascination with intense, albeit overly dramatic, poker-related stories like Runner, Runner and the in-development tale about payment processor Daniel Tzvetkoff's wild ride.

Molly's Game has even more intriguing elements than either of the two aforementioned films. For one, it's a true story, unlike the ridiculously fictionalized Runner, Runner. And there are more stars involved in this true tale than one can count. Aside from the previously mentioned megastars, Bilzerian, Macaulay Culkin, Alex Rodriguez, director Nick Cassavetes, Gabe Kaplan, crooked hedge fund manager Bradley Ruderman, billionaires Alec Gores and Andy Beal, and Russian gangster Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov all play a part. So yeah, there are no shortage of storylines to pick from here for a potential movie.