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The game often served as merely a backdrop for a larger scene, but it still has a long and storied role in film history.
While the game was generally portrayed realistically there have been scenes that left us wondering if the script writers ever picked up a deck of cards.
Below are four of the most ridiculous poker hands in cinema history.
Maverick - The Final Hand
The last hand in the 1994 film Maverick featured one of the most dramatic hands since the final showdown between 'The Kid' and 'The Man' in The Cincinnati Kid.
The finals of the $25,000 Five-Card Draw Championship came down to Maverick (Mel Gibson), Commodore Duvall (James Coburn) and Angel (Alfred Molina).
Maverick was the chip leader and the Commodore the short stack. Thanks to a stacked deck introduced into the game, each player is dealt the making of a monster hand.
During the deal Maverick notices the dealer is dealing from the bottom and stops the game. After being informed that the only change permitted is a new dealer, he has Angel deal a card off the top.
The Commodore proceeds to show four eights, followed by Angel showing a straight flush. Maverick then shows his first four cards, the 10s-Js-Qs-Ks.
Finally, Maverick slowly pulls the card towards him and exhales like he missed his draw. He then throws the card into the middle to reveal that he had indeed pulled the Ace of spades and won the tournament.
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This hand has been blasted for years for the fact that Maverick used 'magic' to win the hand. However, the truth is that he used keen observation.
If you look back to when Maverick asked for a new cut and shuffle, the dealer starts looking at the deck nervously.
This could have possibly implied that the deck had been fully setup for three monster hands and Maverick would have been astute enough to notice this. That may be one reason he didn't reveal the cheating situation in its entirety.
As he later told his Pappy, there's no more deeply moving religious experience than cheating on a cheater.
Rounders - The Judge's Game
For those of you that have not seen Rounders, an early scene in the film is worthy of being one of the most ridiculous hands in poker history.
Mike walks into the Judge's game during the middle of the hand and prompts the judge to bet aggressively. He then proceeds to read each hand at the table correctly and forces everyone to fold to the judge's hand, which happens to be crap.
The whole point of the scene was to prove that you don't need good cards to win at poker. However, the way this was done is totally impossible, even in Seven-Card Stud.
Even Daniel Negreanu can't sit there and accurately tell you the holdings of every player in a poker hand, regardless of variant.
There are times where we can guess the holdings of one, two, or maybe three based on information but a whole table full is stretching the envelope a bit too far.
Oceans 11 - Teaching Movie Stars to Play Poker
The scene where Brad Pitt is teaching various movie stars how to play Five-Card Draw is definitely one of the ridiculous hands ever, but that was also the point.
The whole scene is a comedy of errors starting with Joshua Jackson dealing in the wrong direction to a player showing the 'winning hand' of 'five reds.' He had a mix of hearts and diamonds.
You can see the frustration on Pitt's face as he is trying to teach these knuckleheads how to play poker. It's probably how many felt in the early days of the Poker Boom when newbies came out of the woodwork to learn Texas Hold'em.
The Sting - Four Jacks
One of the stranger hands in film history comes courtesy of The Sting. The hand in question pits Shaw Gondorff (Paul Newman) against Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw).
The game is Five-Card Stud and is being rigged in Lonnegan's favor. In the final hand of the game, Shaw is dealt four threes and Lonnegan four nines.
A series of betting occurs that puts Lonnegan on the hook for $15,000. It appears that he is going to fleece Shaw -- that is until the cards are shown.
Lonnegan shows his four nines and Shaw shows - four jacks.
At no point during the hand do we see the switch to find out how Shaw got the four jacks but it is clear that he somehow cheated to switch the hands.
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Also, how did he know that four jacks would be good? Did he have some advanced knowledge or perhaps he had marked the cards.
There are too many variables in this hand to make it plausible, even between two cheaters.
Two cheating players each turn over quads in a classic fictional hand of five-card draw in The Sting.
With the Academy Awards this weekend, it seems fitting to revisit a scene from one of the most decorated movies to feature poker -- The Sting.
Directed by George Roy Hill and featuring David S. Ward's fantastic script full of witty dialogue punctuating its twisty plot, The Sting is an all-timer, both critically-acclaimed and a top-notch 'popcorn movie' that entertains from start to finish. The film enjoyed the highest box office gross of any released in 1973. It also won seven Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Writing, Original Screenplay.
The Sting stars Paul Newman and Robert Redford as a pair of Depression-era grifters scheming to exact revenge on a villainous crime boss played by Robert Shaw. The poker sequence aboard the 20th Century Limited that takes place a little over a third of the way into the film is a sheer delight, concluding with the best cinematic example of the 'outcheating the cheater' story common to poker fiction.
The game is five-card draw. Most poker games were during the 1930s, although stud -- the game featured in The Cincinnati Kid (also set during the Depression) -- was prominent as well.
What happens in the poker game is actually an early stage of an elaborate scheme being constructed by Henry Gondorff (Newman) and Johnny Hooker (Redford) to take down the crime boss, Doyle Lonnegan (Shaw).
Looking back on the game's final hand, it's clear enough to see how it provides a kind of smaller-scale version of the film's larger plot, foreshadowing the surprising conclusion. (Here come the spoilers.) Just as Lonnegan gets fooled into thinking a fake off-track betting parlor is the real thing in the film's climax, here, too, is he tricked into believing the person sitting across the table from him is what he appears to be.
On the train, Gondorff gets himself invited to Lonnegan's poker game. It's a high-stakes affair Lonnegan regularly hosts. As is explained earlier, in order to play in the game, 'all you gotta do is show up and look like a sucker.' That's exactly what Gondorff does, posing as a drunk, loutish bookie named Shaw who is loaded with cash and ready to gamble.
'Shaw' beats Lonnegan out of an early pot, then rubs it in afterwards -- just like an obnoxious drunk might do:
Gondorff keeps up the act, enraging Lonnegan to the point that he asks to take a break. We follow Lonnegan who tells one of his henchmen to 'stack me a cooler' -- i.e., arrange a 'cold deck' with which he will cheat and clean out 'Shaw.'
'I'm gonna bust that bastard bookie in one play,' he bellows.
We knew that was going to happen. That's because before the game, we saw one of Gondorff's colleagues outlining Lonnegan's cheating method to him.
'He likes to cold deck low, eights or nines,' went the explanation, meaning Lonnegan arranges a deck in such a way that he will be dealt four of a kind (eights or nines) while his opponent will get a strong but not-as-strong hand.
Gondorff's colleague also knows what brand of cards Lonnegan typically uses -- either Tally-Ho Fan or Tally-Ho Circle, brands first introduced in the 1880s -- and so Gondorff has come to the game armed with both decks from which he can draw his own hand when needed.
The Sting Poker Chips
After the three remaining players ante, we see 'Shaw' has been dealt 3♥8♥Q♣3♠3♣, while Lonnegan looks down at 2♣4♥7♣9♥9♠. Gondorff leads for $500, Lonnegan raises to $1,000, the third player folds, and Gondorff calls. Gondorff then draws two cards, and Lonnegan three.
After the draw, Gondorff sees he's picked up the case trey and now has 6♥3♠3♣3♥3♦. Lonnegan meanwhile has drawn the other two nines -- as expected -- and has 9♠9♥9♦9♣T♠.
Gondorff bets $500, and Lonnegan raises to $1,500. Gondorff makes it $3,500 to go, then Lonnegan gets more chips in order to boost it to $13,500. Gondorff takes his time, rechecks his hand, then calls.
Here's how it looks, picking up the action after the draw:
Even though the viewer knows Gondorff has something up his sleeve (literally), the moment he tables 6♥J♠J♦J♣J♥ still provides a thrill, in part because while we get to see Lonnegan introducing the cold deck we aren't shown exactly how Gondorff slipped the four jacks into his hand to replace the four treys.
Gondorff's ruse works because of the set-up. Mistaking 'Shaw' for a careless, unsubtle yahoo, Lonnegan has zero suspicion his opponent might try to cheat in the game as well. Adding to Lonnegan's frustration, he can't even call out his opponent, since the only way he can reveal he knows 'Shaw' cheated would be to admit he cheated himself.
'What was I supposed to do? Call him for cheating better than me in front of the others?' says Lonnegan afterwards.
The Sting teaches something about how the 'metagame' works in poker -- that is, how earlier hands or sessions between players can affect how they play one another later.
Gondorff cheating Lonnegan in the poker game is part of a strategy called 'the hook' because it works to make Lonnegan mad enough to try to get back at 'Shaw' later on in the film. The appropriately-named Hooker then follows up by presenting himself to Lonnegan afterwards with a plan to double-cross 'Shaw,' thereby luring Lonnegan into the fake betting parlor plan.
But the foremost lesson for poker players this scene presents is not to underestimate your opponent. Lonnegan does so here and pays for it. And he'll do it again later when he falls into the larger trap set by Gondorff and Hooker.
'5-Card Fiction' is an ongoing series examining fictional poker hands from film, television, and elsewhere. Have a favorite fictional poker hand you'd like to see discussed? Tweet your suggestions @PokerStarsBlog.
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