A guy named Yardley wrote a book “The Education of a Poker Player” in which a scenario like this played out. A grizzled old farmer called a bet with the deed (or whatever) to his farm and then died of a heart attack, at the table, while the hand was still in progress.
If memory serves, the old geezer had, as it turned out, the winning hand, so Yardley and the other players, gave the pot to his family. Or some such noble act.
At least that’s my recollection of the incident. I read the book quite awhile ago.
I checked. You can find it at amazon.com. You might enjoy it.
In Australia bets are cancelled when one party to the bet dies. Their was a famous incident in 1870 where a racehorse owner told a bookmaker friend that he had dreamt that his horse had won the Melbourne Cup and that the jockey was wearing a black armband. The bookmaker felt that thehorse had no chance and bet the owner 1,000 pounds to a cigar that the horse would not win. The horse did win and the jockey was wearing a black armband because the owner had died days before. Although the bookmaker could have cancelled the bet he paid the owner’s widow. The law must be the same in England because the story of Walter Craig and Nimblefoot was appropriated for a short story about gypsies who carry the dead body of some gypsy around because she had backed some horse in the Derby and they had to convince the bookies she was still alive.
You think maybe this is outlandish? Years ago there was a fire at one of our local bars which had a card room with a game in progress. The firemen practically had to carry the players out because they didn’t want to leave until they had sorted out whose chips were whose.
yabob’s spoilered box tells most of the ending but didn’t really answer your questions. The “little lady” was Joanne Woodward, and as for the rest of it:
[spoiler]The game was five-card draw and you never do see what the winning hand was. By “borrowing” money from banker Paul Ford, she outraised everyone at the table, forcing them to fold. She marches triumphantly out with the winnings, leaving her hand face down on the table. After a moment one of the stunned losers starts to reach for the hand, but another stops him; it hadn’t been paid for. After a fade to black, the con is revealed.
None of the hands in that final game are shown. Henry Fonda had asked for a fresh deck before dealing it, and he was a card mechanic so by manipulating the shuffle and deal, he probably could have dealt anyone anything he liked. The camera sees one or two cards of the other players, and their hands were spectacular enough to keep all of them in with some pretty heavy heavy betting, but in the end, if the con was successful, Joanne’s cards could have been anything.[/spoiler]
It is unfortunately, not on disk yet. I’d buy it in a heartbeat if it was.