| Well, since you asked.
Rounders was fantastic as it really did try to bring the viewer into the "world of poker". There are probably millions of people who watched that movie who had never even thought about playing poker and are now flooding online sites, local B&Ms, etc. The movie was about people, yes, but it was more about trying to give a glimpse to people about what playing poker at a high level (or any level for that matter) can be like.
Contrast this with Tilt. Tilt was a glorified action soap opera with barely even a passing reference to poker. Tilt was all about the characters - and pretty shady ones at that. I had a difficult time rooting for any of them, frankly. The only "moral" participant was Fast Eddie and he wasn't someone you wanted to root for as much as he was someone you watched stumble from situation to situation, never really in control of himself or the things going on around him.
There were plenty of clichés in Rounders, certainly. In Tilt, that's all it was. It was insulting. The bad guy's daughter falls in love with the hero. The cop will do anything to see that "justice is served". The hero must always be morally upright (ok, he did have a slight edge to him) but ultimately he is going to play it straight in the face of rampant cheating and angle shooting. etc. etc. etc.
The poker in Tilt was fairly uneventful and uninteresting (with the small exception of the World Championship parts - those were fair if you discount all the bad beats and suckouts that got thrown in there). Without poker, there would be no Rounders. What did poker have to do with the plot of Tilt, really? It was just a mechanism for the passage of time and to provide a common thread to hang a bunch of really unappealing people from.
I could go on but I think I'll just let it go.
Hope that helps.
__________________  | 
