Age of The Nerd
Poker and Hollywood have always had this weird relationship and to be honest, the big production companies often give the viewing public the wrong impression about the game. Those who don’t play poker might assume that it’s a game of luck and that reckless no-limit gambling is how players find success.
But anyone who plays the game knows that there’s a lot more to poker than taking inordinate risks. It’s all about strategy and skill, but let’s not get bogged down in that too much right now.
So aside from an apparent aversion to cautious play, what else do many of the most popular poker scenes on the silver screen have in common? Well, believe it or not, despite there being at least a dozen variants of the game, most Hollywood movies make use of only two types of poker.
Five-card draw
Maverick and A Big Hand for a Little Lady are two perfect examples of movies that feature the game of Five-card Draw, but they are only the tip of the iceberg. Practically every single western movie that featured a poker scene had the main protagonists playing this variant of the game.
That’s because it was poker in its purest form and the game that the men and women of the Wild West were most accustomed to. It was also easy to use in movie scenes as viewers can quickly grasp the concept of the game even if they have never played before.
What can we say, it worked well for decades and will probably continue to be used for films set in that period.
Texas Hold’em
Ever since the wild success of Rounders, it seems like every single movie that features a poker scene has players playing Texas Hold’em. The thing is, while we would like to see some other variants of the game (more on that later) we totally get why this is the case.
Movies like Molly’s Game, which is one of our favorite movies based on a true story, go the hyper-realistic route when depicting poker scenes. And nothing is so realistic as playing the single most popular variant of poker in the world. Since the game was allegedly invented in Texas, pool rooms back in the 60s, and then brought to Vegas, it has become the go-to game for most poker rooms across the globe.
What Matt Damon and John Malkovich did in Rounders was to bring the game to a wider non-poker playing public. Unlike the old westerns we mentioned earlier, this was a game where the intricacies of poker play and the strategy involved were much more important than anything else. While those who watched westerns waited to see who would inevitably shoot who, this was a movie where it was all about the game.
The viewing public lapped it up, and every director with a poker scene in their script took note.
What variants would we like to see more of?
There’s so much more to poker than Texas Hold’em and that got us thinking about the variants of the game that we would love to see directors’ tackle. Like we said earlier, there are over a dozen different types of poker and some would be great in the movies.
Irish poker
One such game that we’d pay good money to see played on the silver screen is Irish poker. This would be perfect for a reboot of Gangs of New York or any Boston gangster flick. We’d even like to see the drinking version of the game too, in a Hangover installment shot in Dublin. Now, that would be fun and certainly better than the last rather forced installment of the series.
Seriously though, the Irish poker is a great game that is something of a Hold’em and Omaha hybrid. This would not only appeal to poker purists, but directors would enjoy the fact that they’re not straying too far from the Rounders model for success.
Pot-Limit Omaha
If you play poker, then you know where we’re coming from with this. While Texas Hold’em is the most popular variant of the game, Pot Limit Omaha or PLO as it’s commonly referred to is almost as popular among poker players. It’s not used as often on the screen as the bets are limited to the size of the pot at the time of the bet, which may not be exciting enough. However, it’s a game where strategy plays a huge role and the action is super-fast.
This variant of poker would be perfect for a movie with tournament play involved as we would see the field thinned out fast and we’d see a lot of the action involved. That said, this would probably need a pure poker movie to make it work on the screen just like our next variant.
Split-pot games
Now, this is where it can get a little complicated and we can see why directors might not want to include this version of poker. However, a split pot game could bring a whole new level of sub-plot to poker scenes.
You see, sometimes a pot needs to be split between two players if they have identical high hands. What we’re more interested in here though, is the potential for split-pot games where a low hand takes half the pot.
Admittedly, it would need a script like Rounders to take this game to the silver screen, as the complexities of the play might prove too much for a random poker scene in another flick. Come on Matt, let’s get Rounders 2 up and running so we can see some split-pot games!
As you may have guessed, we love a bit of poker in the movies, but so many screenwriters have tried and failed to bring the true essence of the game to the silver screen. We live in hope than good old Matt Damon can do us all a favor and convince John Dahl to make that sequel happen.
