In The Sting, Gondorff plays poker against Lonnegan. Lonnegan uses a pre-stacked deck to deal himself four nines. Lonnegan is dealt a Full House, which he knows will lose, and then bim bam boom, he has four Jacks and takes the Irish gangster for 15 grand. Lonnegan, of course, can’t call Gondorff out on his scam, else he’d be admitting that Gondorff cheated better than he did. And he can’t refuse to pay, else Gondorff will put the word out that Lonnegan is a [insert slur for people who don’t pay their debts] and he won’t be able to get a game of Go Fish in Chicago.
I know the movie is fiction, but how could this have worked in real life? Best I can tell, Gondorff’s tie has something to do with it, as he repeatedly uses it to wipe his nose. And also, wouldn’t Gondorff have been taking a pretty big risk in using his own hidden cards? Unless he knew that Lonnegan was going to scam him with four nines and a useless kicker, playing the four Jacks was a risky play. There might have been a Jack in Lonnegan’s hand! And even if Gondorff knew the scam, there was a risk that Lonnegan’s kicker could have been a Jack.
How does a scam like this work, specifically? Or is the movie scam entirely fiction and not based on any real card-playing cheating method?
Gondorff gets intel that Lonnegan cheats by winning with a hand of 4 lower cards, so he knows that 4 Jacks should win the hand. Beyond that, there are dozens of ways Gondorff could have switched cards - there’s no way of knowing exactly how, nor does it particularly matter.
There are a few risky aspects of the scam, but that’s what makes it interesting.
I don’t think the tie has anything to do with it - its a tie he got from Lonnegan so I think it was just part of his “drunken boor” character.
The big issue with the counter-scam is that you can’t just swap in extra Jacks like that. Even if it doesn’t duplicate a shown card, there will still be extra Jacks in the deck now. They could have even been in the third players hand (who folded). All Lonnegan has to do is say “show me the deck” and show that there are now 8 Jacks in it (and no 3s) to demonstrate conclusively that somebody cheated and void the hand.
Swapping cards in and out is not how poker cheating is done - it’s done by marking cards, having confederates signal cards, or manipulating the deck through false cuts and shuffles and then bottom or second dealing.
Ditto. I just happened to rewatch this a few days ago and wiping his face with his tie was one of the first things he did when he walked into the room (car?). At least IMO, it was meant to show how ‘drunk’ he was. Same reason for the gin on his breath and the watered down bottle he brought in with him.
What would be his reasoning for asking to check the deck? He should have no reason to suspect cheating because of the 4 jacks; he had 4 9’s in his hand. The only reason he can give that he suspects cheating is because he cheated himself, and admitting that is worse than losing the money.
Sure, Gondorff is taking risks doing the con and it’s probably unlikely to have been done that way but it makes for a good movie bit. If foreshadows the ending where the audience thinks bad things are about to happen but reality is hidden from us. The cons are one step ahead of Lonnegan and the audience.
The problem Lonnegan faced was how to confront Gondorff without admitting to his own cheating. Once either party asserts (rightfully) that the odds of one deal producing two four-of-a-kinds are effectively zero, the next question to be answered is which foursome is the cheat and more importantly who did it.
You lose face when cheated against. You lose face when caught cheating. It’s a Kobayashi Maru scenario for you no matter what you do except pretend it’s a legit fall of the cards.
Note that Lonnegan was going to have Gondorff killed immediately on the train, but part of the con was to delay the game so that the train would be arriving soon after the cards were laid down.
WRT all this talk about Lonnegan confronting Gondorff, IIRC, Gondorff wanted to put Lonnegan in that position. He wanted Lonnegan to know he cheated, he wanted Lonnegan to know that he couldn’t do anything about it, he wanted Lonnegan to be angry at him, he wanted Lonnegan to know he stole his money (Hooker even told him). Now Hooker can walk in to collect the money, pretend like he hates Gondorff just as much and get him to agree to team up with him to fuck over Gondorff.
When I was young I read the book, later watched the movie. About a decade later watched the movie again. I vividly remember being so caught up in the story telling that the plot twist ending still caught me by surprise. Yet I knew how it ended.
I remember when I first watched it (on a DVD rented from Netflix) and being blindsided by the ending. When I watched it again a week or two ago, I knew there was some sort of twist, but I couldn’t remember what it was. In my head, I thought the twist was going to be that Gondorff was the mark and Lonnegan and Hooker were planning to steal the money from him.
I’m so used to more modern movies were the twist ending has few, if any, clues leading up to it or, at the very least, if the clues are there, they require a second watching to pick up on. I was thrown by having everything laid out for me. It’s a twist ending for Lonnegan, but the audience sees (most of) it coming.
I’d be interested in what people that grew up in a post Sixth Sense/Fight Club/Shutter Island/Usual Suspects etc world think is going to happen if you asked them before that final scene starts.
I guess I don’t see why that’s an issue. He would know which cards he dealt the guy. So he knows he cheated. Checking the cards would not reveal his cheating, but might reveal his opponent’s. Nothing about the challenge would necessitate showing his own cheating
“What makes you think I cheated?” “Come on, two four of a kind on the same deal?” “How do I know you didn’t cheat?” “Well why don’t we check the deck?”
Note, I’m not challenging the movie. Just the logic here that he couldn’t call the guy out for cheating without admitting his own. The easy answer in a movie is “the character didn’t think of it.”
Here’s another famous W.C. Fields bit I’ve always loved. Paraphrased:
WC speaking to rooming house marm: I think I’ll go down to the saloon and play same poker. RHM: Gasp! But … that’s gambling! WC sotto voce: Not the way I play it …