Casino Royale Poker Scene Breakdown

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There’s no better place to start than with Casino Royale, the first Bond film to star Daniel Craig. Bond is tasked with defeating terrorist Le Chiffre in a game of poker. The scene is not exactly known as being accurate in terms gameplay and etiquette, but still it’s a perfect marriage of film and poker. Casino Royale (2006). Casino Royale Poker Scene. Martin Campbell, director of the 2006 James Bond reboot Casino Royale, admitted there is a mistake in the film’s climactic poker scene.This was the third film adaptation of Ian Fleming’s book of the same name and was the first to see Daniel Craig in the role of James Bond, showing a more modernized, emotional side of the 007 agent early in his career.

The Best Poker Scenes Ever In Film

Poker is a tense and exciting game. It’s about the cards you are dealt, sure, but it’s also about the intensity of looking across the table and weighing an opponent up. Do they have you beaten? Are they bluffing?

Film, and the art of storytelling, rely on the same emotions of tension and relief, conflict and resolution. Poker scenes are often a fitting way to convey these emotions between characters. The game intensifies what’s already there, and provides a perfect framework for the action.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at some of the best poker scenes ever in film.

Casino Royale

There’s no better place to start than with Casino Royale, the first Bond film to star Daniel Craig. Bond is tasked with defeating terrorist Le Chiffre in a game of poker.

The scene is not exactly known as being accurate in terms gameplay and etiquette, but still it’s a perfect marriage of film and poker. The blinds in the tournament have reached obscene levels ($1 million dollars) and Bond is facing a pot worth over $120 million.

After a round of checking, a final Ace falls on the river, completing many possible hands. For the uninitiated, the river is the final card dealt in a hand of poker. The first player goes all in for $6 million, the second calls all in for $5 million and then Le Chiffre raises the stake to $12 million.

Bond shoves for $40 million and is called. It’s an easy all in for Bond in the end, who is holding the best possible hand with a straight flush, yet still the tension is palpable. The victory shows the power struggle going in favour of the good guy.

The original novel actually featured the casino game baccarat, but the film switched this to Texas Hold ‘em, perhaps proof of the strength of the relationship between the card game and movies.

Ocean’s Eleven

Ocean’s Eleven is an award winning film about robbing $150 million from a casino vault. At one point, character Rusty is teaching a table full of clueless newbies how to play poker. Out of the blue, his old partner Danny Ocean joins the table, and the teacher soon becomes the student.

Rusty decides to take the opportunity to teach his team the art of bluffing, but ironically picks the wrong moment. He gets caught out by Ocean, who happens to be holding quad 4s at the time.

In terms of poker, it’s a simple lesson in when not to bluff. But in the film is more about establishing the dynamic between the pair, to let the audience know that Rusty can still be outsmarted by his partner.

Rounders

Rounders’ unforgettable scene

The 1998 film Rounders tells the story of fictional character Mike McDermott, played by Matt Damon. Mike is a law student and prolific poker player, but loses his entire bankroll one night to Russian mobster Teddy KGB, played by John Malkovich. He quits poker forever.

Casino Royale Poker Scene

That is, until one day his friend ‘Worm’ gets out of jail and needs help paying off his debts. Mike takes up poker once again to save his friend from doom.

In the final scenes of the movie, Mike finds himself playing against Teddy once again. This time, he picks up on Teddy’s physical tells – how he munches Oreo biscuits when he has a hand, or splays chips everywhere when he doesn’t.

To be fair, Mike flops the top straight in the final hand, so there’s no real danger of him going bust. Still, he checks down the flop to allow a tilted Teddy KGB to spew away his chips, settling the battle and winning the money he needs.

The Cincinnati Kid

Going much a few decades, the Cincinnati Kid was one of the first, and is still considered to be one of the greatest poker moments in film. Eric Stoner, aka the Kid, is an aspiring poker beast who can beat nearly everyone around town.

He hears about the arrival of Lancey Howard, known as the Man, and wants to challenge him to a game. The Kid eventually goes against the advice of his friends and gets himself into a game with the Man.

This isn’t a hero story. The pair are left heads-up. In the final hand, the Kid a full house with Aces full of Tens. It’s a monster, but the Man has the Queen high straight flush, an even bigger hand.

In poker this is what is known as a “cooler” – a hand that you can’t really expect anyone to get away from. Yet in the film it clearly demonstrates what was always going to happen – the Man got the better of the Kid.

Molly’s Game

Jumping forward now to a much more recent addition to the poker film landscape, Molly’s Game tells the true story of Molly Bloom, who ran exclusive underground poker games with major celebrities and business people, taking a cut for hosting the games.

Molly’s Game has a lot of poker scenes to choose from, as the whole film is based around these games, yet once again the accuracy of the poker action is not essential to the narrative. What is more important is the tension and dynamics that are created between the players at the game, as well as Molly’s interactions with this world.

If we were to pick a hand, it would have to be the one between Harlan and Bad Brad. Harlan is the best poker player at the tables. He plays the odds and wins consistently. Bad Brad is new to the table and, as Molly puts it, Harlan doesn’t yet know that Brad is bad.

Brad makes huge bets and eventually Harlan makes the fold with a full house, probably not something that would happen in real life. Brad has nothing.

Bad Brad joins the tables in Molly’s Game

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How difficult can it be to make a good poker scene in a movie? According to James Bond director Martin Campbell the ‘Casino Royale’ remake poker showdown was as elaborate as any stunt 007 was involved in!

The 2006 movie grossed a monster $606million at the box office, with Daniel Craig’s ‘Bond’ and Mads Mikkelsen’s blood-eyed villain ‘Le Chiffre’ involved in the highest stake poker game of all time.

For poker fans, of course, seeing their beloved game depicted on the big screen is almost always more ‘miss’ than ‘hit’, so how did director Campbell manage to produce such an intense facsimile of a real highstakes game?

“What you realize is, it’s not just the card games — it’s the stakes. It’s also two guys eye-fucking one another, basically. That was the secret,” explained to Polygon.com.

With No Limit Hold’em replacing the Baccarat Chemin de Fer of the Ian Fleming book version, and the 1967 movie version…

Casino Royale Movie

…the cast and crew had to be taught the game basically from scratch to ensure everything from continuity to poker tells would come across as realistically as possible.

Not an easy task for poker consultant Tom Sambrook, the 2002 winner of the European Championships explaining:

“I’d just basically tell them what the absolute bare minimum was that they needed to know to look like they had been playing this game.”

Sambrook also admits to making a bit of money on the side, taking the actors for their ‘per diem’ in hastily-arranged games in the studios.

The Englishman, who finished ahead of Hendon Mobster Barny Boatman and EPT legend John Duthie to win his title, explained:

“We’d be playing games constantly between takes,” adding cheekily, “I saw it as their privilege to learn by paying me this money.”

Director Campbell somehow pulled together all the elements of the game in an almost believable series of poker scenes, mixed in with the usual action-packed adventures of a typical Bond movie.

He believes the 30 minutes of gameplay that made the final cut, showing three massive hands, was critical to the success of the film, admitting:

“It was the thing I sweated on more than anything else.”

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After discovering Le Chiffre’s ‘tell’, Bond has to survive two assassination attempts in his bid to end the villain’s hopes of winning the $130million poker game.

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“From a dramatic point of view, each of the card games has a good climax,” says Campbell, and if the final scene still grates with some poker fans, there is a reason.

The four-way all-in sees Le Chiffre’s full house lose to Bond’s straight flush, with most fans expecting a Royal Flush to win the day for the movie hero.

Casino Royale Poker Scene Analysis

“He wins with an inconspicuous straight flush, rather than the royal flush,” Sambrook says, adding to Director Campbell’s vision of a “new Bond” , a less flashy, more believable hero.

Check out the finale yourself!

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