James Bond Casino Royale Poker Car

odiousgambit

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Just watched “Casino Royale” - 2006. I’m not too much into James Bond movies anymore, but in this case I decided it was time to check out the poker scenes; somebody [BBB?] here said recently Fleming himself wanted to portray gambling accurately, and I don’t think the movies have necessarily stuck to that.
So how did the 2006 movie do with Poker as the game where Bond bests the villain? [a change from baccarat in the book] An early short poker scene, which introduces us to the villain Le Chiffre’s poker predilection, does not show the hand. That leaves five hands to see, but of those two are incompletely shown.
couldn't stand it, so redid this with the community cards actually shown - thanks to Wizard for poker analyzer enabling me to do this easily
with other edits; if the community was mixed suits, I made no attempt to be accurate on suits

edited to show community cards. If it was mixed suits, I made no attempt to be accurate.
The winner take all poker game takes place at this ‘Casino Royale’ in Montenegro [apparently there has been one built with that name since the movie came out?]. I was able to record it, thus freeze and review the action and dialogue, and I think without slowing it down like that you might miss much of the poker dynamics. The 10 players, who put up multi-millions to play, will play Texas Hold-em.
First you see Bond lose the first hand to ‘guess who’. The dealer flops the 5,8,9 of hearts; on the turn, it’s the 9 of clubs, and for the river another heart, the 2.
Thus the hand has an immediate shot, at the flop, for a straight flush, or of course the lower versions [any poker player would know someone surely has a flush], and we can see the hand later develops with chances for trips and full house. Le Chiffre was dealt 2,2 offsuit, gets into a showdown with Bond, and wins with a full house, 22299. Bond does not show his cards, nor attempt to muck them, which prompted me to look this up, see link. The dealer should have made Bond turn those cards over. This was the only thing shown in poker that the movie had wrong that I saw, however.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Showdown_%28poker%29
Bond leaves the table and has a conversation with his team, which is impressed that their nemesis had such a good hand, but Bond scoffs. He notes that Le Chiffre was bluffing, he says, since he caught a 2 on the last card. But he says he has picked up a Tell; when Le C was on the come with his two pair, Bond saw a tic developing with the man’s blind eye; Le C he notes then presses against his temple, which seems to stop this involuntary twitch. Bond can just look for the finger pressing the temple and imagines beating him now.
Bond rejoins the game - we get the sense a lot of poker gets played. Soon we have a scene where there is a big showdown in which both of these players go all-in. We don’t see a check-raise scenario, but something close. The flop is JKA mixed suits, the turn a J, the river, a K, and there are three players.
Until this point the betting evidently has been small, but now Bond , with the first-to-speak player checking to him, opens with a large bet. Le C raises [driving out player X, now it’s just the two of them] and Bond reraises as the bets get larger and larger. Le C then goes all-in and Bond has to go all-in to call. It turns out Bond has been dealt AK, giving him a full house, while Le C was dealt 2 jacks, so he’s the winner with 4 OAK. See other spoiler. This time Bond caught his hand on the last card while Le C slowed-played his hand, having had it all along after the turn. Bond has lost it all.
While Bond is out, we see this player X get in a showdown with Le C, the community cards being, in mixed suits, 3577A, previous action unshown.
In the showdown, X goes all-in with AJ, while Le C shows AQ and wins with better kicker, disgusting X.
Bond buys back in [one further buy-in was allowed] with the help of player X, who turns out to be CIA. That organization wants Bond back in the game. Apparently this is in the book too.
When we see the next poker scene, it’s evident that Bond has been winning, with Le C also with a large chip pile. Not much of a next hand is shown either, but we briefly see 24862 in mixed suits as community cards.
Le C bets and Bond raises. Using slo-mo I could see Le C then toss 2J - he had trips, 222, but must have feared the possible higher trips or a straight. One feels Bond and the pressure psyched him out on that one, but we never see Bond’s hand. Not many movie-goers saw Le C’s hand either, I wouldnt think.
They of course are heading for another big showdown, this one to determine final winner of the multi-millions. It’s going to be check-raise strategy for the trap this time. The flop this is Ah 8s 6s, with 4 of spades on the turn, Ace of spades on the river [for Ah 8s 6s 4s As].
After all cards are dealt, Bond checks undramatically. The next 2 players go all-in, then Le C raises. Bond, who had checked, now goes all-in. This forces Le C to go all-in to call. The four player showdown has the first guy with an AKQ flush, the next with a Eights over Aces full house. Le C had an A6 dealt, and since 3 eights have shown, I suppose he could be thinking the chances of Bond having A8 to beat him as unlikely, and 4oak as impossible - although the die is cast. I’ve played against guys who would be all over it like that. There is only one hand that can beat him, so I will direct you to the other spoiler - everyone who’s read this far, at this site, though, will know what it is.
Bond tips the dealer with a $500,000 chip

In the hand that knocks Bond out so that he has to buy in shows Le C pressing a finger on his temple. Bond is sucked in to going all in because this is the sign Le C is bluffing. However, someone Bond trusted with this has betrayed him, and the faked Tell is a trap. The rest of the movie plays out the solution to who is betraying who and when.
In the final hand that knocks out Le C and has 007 winning it all, Bond has the 5 and 7 of spades - he wins with a straight flush. He gets it at the turn and slow plays it, then check-raises for the trap after the river. This time it is Le C who catches his hand on the last card - an unfortunate catch, the worst thing to have in Poker, a very good second place hand LOL. Whether this was all thought out, I don’t know, but Bond playing with a 5 and 7 of anything is very weak play IMO, but it is made plausible even at these stakes as everyone is ‘checking’ initially and it’s not clear if Bond was one of the blinds.

So I would say the film succeeds in showing the gambling correctly. Although, at least for me, to follow it well I needed to record it, I think since all underlying action is plausible, Fleming would approve.

the next time Dame Fortune toys with your heart, your soul and your wallet, raise your glass and praise her thus: “Thanks for nothing, you cold-hearted, evil, damnable, nefarious, low-life, malicious monster from Hell!” She is, after all, stone deaf. ... Arnold Snyder

terapined

Fleming himself wanted to portray gambling accurately, and I don’t think the movies have necessarily stuck to that.
.

I read just about all the James Bond Books. Really good Books.
Except for DR No, there is hardly any relationship between the books and movies.
Usually the movies just use the same name of the book and charachters but the story is completely different from the book.

'Everybody's bragging and drinking that wine, I can tell the Queen of Diamonds by the way she shines, Come to Daddy on an inside straight, I got no chance of losing this time' -Grateful Dead- 'Loser'

Ayecarumba

I thought the idea that every player had a monster hand was a huge stretch of the imagination.

It bothered me that the dealer was replacing the board cards with the player's cards to make each hand clear for the camera.
I didn't give it more thought that that, so I am intrigued by your analysis O.G. I'll have to go back and re-watch it now.
I thought the med kit in the car was pretty cool. I chuckled when it let him die. That's a bad run of luck...hehe.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - Leonardo da Vinci

odiousgambit

I thought the idea that every player had a monster hand was a huge stretch of the imagination.

well, you always have that.

Quote:

It bothered me that the dealer was replacing the board cards with the player's cards to make each hand clear for the camera.

I think they realized that they were being more accurate about the poker than the audience was going to be able to keep up with as it was, so I think the idea of at least doing this won out. Seemed a little corny.

James Bond Casino Royale Plot

I didn't give it more thought that that, so I am intrigued by your analysis O.G. I'll have to go back and re-watch it now.

Thanks, it took a lot more effort than I expected - I realized over and over again I wasn't sure I had it right, and had to watch again.

Quote:

I thought the med kit in the car was pretty cool. I chuckled when it let him die. That's a bad run of luck...hehe.

wow they really did make him look like hell in that scene!

dummy

Doubt Ian Fleming even saw a hold'em game. in GOLDFINGER the game was GIN.

GWAE

I thought the idea that every player had a monster hand was a huge stretch of the imagination.
It bothered me that the dealer was replacing the board cards with the player's cards to make each hand clear for the camera.
I didn't give it more thought that that, so I am intrigued by your analysis O.G. I'll have to go back and re-watch it now.
I thought the med kit in the car was pretty cool. I chuckled when it let him die. That's a bad run of luck...hehe.

Not a horrible stretch. Wasn't there a hand with some poker pros where there was AA, AA, KK, and maybe even a QQ?

Expect the worst and you will never be disappointed. I AM NOT PART OF GWAE RADIO SHOW

Deucekies

Not a horrible stretch. Wasn't there a hand with some poker pros where there was AA, AA, KK, and maybe even a QQ?

AA, AA, KK for sure. If QQ was in there, he folded it.
Yes, those hands happen, but it's become cliche for those to be the climactic hand of a movie. That's one thing that Rounders really got right. The winning hand of the climactic match...

Casinos are not your friends, they want your money. But so does Disneyland. And there is no chance in hell that you will go to Disneyland and come back with more money than you went with. - AxelWolf and Mickeycrimm

Wizard
Administrator

Yup, Bond was a victim of the old fake tell trick. I think he pretty much lucked out winning the thing afterward with the re-buy, as Bond is wont to do.
In the outstanding movie House of Games there was a game with a double fake tell. At least that was my interpretation.

It's not whether you win or lose; it's whether or not you had a good bet.

EvenBob

I read the Bond books in HS, at a very
impressionable age. I loved them and
read them over and over. I started
reading them the same year Ian Fleming
died, so the original 13 books were all
in print. I sometimes wonder what effect they
had on me, I really loved them.

'It's not enough to succeed, your friends must fail.' Gore Vidal

Gandler

I love the books. But I disagree, a lot of the early movies are fairly spot on (as much as movies can be). As is Casino Royale (the official EON version, 2006)
Casino Royale was pretty accurate minus the changes from baccarat to poker (which makes sense for the movie), and the elimination of the KGB and replacing it with a modern terror organization. But the plot and characters were almost identical other than thematically changes.
Dr. No is almost spot on minus some changes regarding recurring characters prior developments since they decided to make it the opening film.
Goldfinger is almost spot on. As is Thunderball.
Octopussy and Living Daylights are just compilations of short stories, some of them are pulled for the plot, but not much relation.
Living Daylights, is fairly accurate, but the movie went a little offcourse.
Moonraker annoyed me greatly. Absurd movie and the book was amazing. They should have modeled the plot after the book. But maybe by the late 70s (when they made it into a movie) they thought the Nazi plot to attack England would be outdated.
Spy Who Loved me was the only book I hated. I despise it, load of trash, clearly a pushed attempt at broadening the audience. It was written from the female perspective. And, had nothing to do with anything spy or espionage related. (***Spoilers*** even though you should never read it and probably never will) Basically some female was trapped into working in some cabin in rural New York where she was raped and abused by 2 thugs (I think they happened to be Russian and ex-KGB for good measure) and Bond happened to be in that random New York rural area and stopped by that cabin in time to save her... I suspect it was a publisher pushed novel to appeal to female readers, completely unlike anything else. Needless to say the movie has nothing to do with the book (even less so than Moonraker, they didn't even use the villians names). This is probably the only instance where the movie is better than the book (but that is not saying much).
Man With the Golden Gun, was a decent book. It was a bit bland, but to be fair it was published after he died in 1965 I think, and they only had a rough copy to publish. But the plot is interesting. Some people hate it, but I actually enjoyed it. To make up for his betrayal to England and attempt to kill M, Bond is given an impossible task (kill man with the Golden Gun). This is the final official Bond Novel (written by Ian Fleming). The book is fairly unrelated to the movie, except for the general backstory of the villain, and his history. I don't care for the movie, and its a shame, because Christopher Lee (who is actually Ian Flemings cousin) played the villian, and he is probably my favorite actor of all time, but it as a typical goofy Roger Moore movie, so even with his excellent villianous style, the movie was hard to take too seriously.
I think Timothy Dalton is the best Bond as far as being loyal to the books. He was the perfect balance of serious, professional, darkly sarcastic, and on the brink of losing it (well he did lose it in his last movie).

James Bond Casino Royale Theme

A theme with the books is the villain is almost always a cheater at cards (or some betting game). And, often Bonds first interaction involve meeting or encountering him a gambling scenario noticing his cheating.
Though Fleming was somebody who was a believer in betting systems. He even gives a couple in some of the books for roulette, that Bond routinely used to cover his dinner in the books.

'Whatever is my right as a man is also the right of another; and it becomes my duty to guarantee as well as to possess.” -Thomas Paine