I actually don’t mind being bumped off a flight because I seldom have any pressing reason to arrive at my destination at the time I planned. If the airline wants to put me up at a nice hotel overnight and give me free meals, I’m happy to accept.
I’ve heard that people who are traveling for medical reasons, or bereavement, and have this documented take precedence over more casual travelers.
A clip from the movie Maverick popped up on my timeline and it reminded me how badly movies have shown playing poker in the past. It has mostly been better after poker tournaments have been on TV.
In these movies the players are portrayed as having great skill. They usually are played 5 card draw. There is no skill in 5 card draw. There is no figuring the odds by reading the cards that are out since you can’t see them. It’s just luck.
It usually comes down to one hand. Of course as they go around the table it’s full house, 4 of a kind and a royal flush. That’s not even a once in a lifetime hand. The climactic hand is never won with a pair of jacks which is much more likely.
In Maverick before the final draw in the final hand he asks for a new deck. How would that even work? Cards are already in players hands. The request is denied but why would a professional gambler even make such a bizarre request?
Don’t get me started on string bets. It’s so common in movies that inexperienced players think it’s the normal way to play.
And someone has four of a kind and bets everything. But, loses because someone else has a straight-flush.
Or someone wins with four of a kind, but only after saying
Awww, all I’ve got is two pair…OF KINGS!
I just got two pair, a pair of ones, and another pair of ones.
-B. Bunny
But at least that’s not illegal. It may be a dick move but the cards speak for themselves. You can even mistakenly call the wrong hand but all that matters is what the cards say.
But string bets are illegal. You can’t say “I check your $5,000…………and I raise you 3 billion!” That’s a string bet. If you say you are going to check that’s what will stand. You also can’t push out an amount and then push out more. It’s seen as a way of gauging someone’s reaction dishonestly. It’s so common in movies people think that’s what you are supposed to do.
I remember when Bravo used to have that celebrity poker show, with various celebrities playing Texas Hold 'Em, many of whom had little or no experience with poker. They were constantly trying to do string bets like that, and the official always had to tell them they couldn’t.
For movie scenes: it’s not really important to the plot, but there is a poker game played in the opening scene of the old 50s sci-fi movie The Thing From Another World. The hand we see is won with a pair of aces against a pair of queens. None of this “my straight flush beats your four of a kind” nonsense.
The poker scene that gets me is the one from Daniel Craig’s debut in Casino Royale. In the scene, Bond and Le Chiffre have the most chips so when they go all in, they have a side pot. When resolving a hand, you start from the most recent side pot, going back to the main pot. In other words, Bond and Le Chiffre results should have been done first. Of course, they were done last for the drama of it. It also would have allowed the other hands to fold without showing, if they wanted.
Yes to string bets of any kind.
I also didn’t understand Maverick’s call for a new deck specifically. It’s not like they would draw from the new deck for him. They would start over. (On another note, the actor playing the dealer does great with little indications that he did something.)
The way I’ve heard it is: two red ones, and two black ones.
At least Pratchett mixed it up a little in Maskerade:
"Very well. How about one hand of poker? Five cards each, no draws? Sudden death, as they say.”
Death thought about this, too.
YOU KNOW THIS FAMILY?
“No.”
THEN WHY?
“Are we talking or are we playing?”
OH, VERY WELL.
Granny picked up the pack of cards and shuffled it, not looking at her hands, and smiling at Death all the time. She dealt five cards each, and reached down . . . A bony hand grasped hers.
BUT FIRST, MISTRESS WEATHERWAX—WE WILL EXCHANGE CARDS.
He picked up the two piles and transposed them, and then nodded at Granny.
MADAM?
Granny looked at her cards, and threw them down.
FOUR QUEENS. HMM. THAT IS VERY HIGH.
Death looked down at his cards, and then up into Granny’s steady, blue-eyed gaze. Neither moved for some time. Then Death laid the hand on the table.
I LOSE, he said. ALL I HAVE IS FOUR ONES.
I did like the poker game in Gunsmoke S18E20. A gang takes over Dodge with the intent of killing Matt when he returns. But Kitty wins his life in a card game by out-cheating the ringleader.
“'Cause you got the queen
of hearts in the hold, lady.
Now, how would you know that, Mr. Whelan? That card was out in the last hand, I saw that crimped corner.
Mm, well now, where I come from that would be called cheatin’. But all’s fair in love and war. I just happened to notice another card with a crimped corner.
Now would you look at that.
If I’m not mistaken, that’s a straight flush. And it beats four aces.”
Kitty was obviously an exemplar of Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours of practice to mastery.
Funny Baader-Meinhoff here, I just saw the Simpsons yesterday where Krusty loses this way to Fat Tony.
But of course the best hand in the Simpsons is the “Royal Sampler.”
No, You have to know the odds of drawing, and if you see another player stand pat or draw four or something, it influences your betting.
The AG & courts of California ruled that Poker is NOT a “game of chance” based upon proofs given by professors. And that was draw poker, not Texas Hold 'em.
And in 1911, a court ruled that this law applied to stud poker as it was deemed to be a game of chance whereas draw poker was considered a game of skill. A strange decision but one that gambling houses couldn’t argue with.
In 1911 in an attempt to end the confusion over which cards games were allowed, California Attorney General U. S. Webb issued an opinion that recognized the unique status of draw poker. That game was not prohibited by law, Webb noted, and it was not a “game of chance” otherwise constitutionally prohibited. For Webb and at least some players, draw poker was (and is) a game of skill.
A dumb ruling from 1911 doesn’t change anything. 5 card draw takes little to no skill.
I like the movie The Cincinnati Kid but the final hand is very improbable. They are playing 5 card stud, one down 4 up. The Kid is showing 3 10s and an ace. The Man is showing an inside straight flush draw queen high. The ten he’s missing isn’t one of the ones the Kid has. The Kid has a full house and loses to a straight flush. I’ve seen it calculated that it would take over 400 years of playing 5 days a week to come up with that hand. My math isn’t that good so I’ll have to take their word for it. What does it prove, that The Man is luckier than The Kid? A bad beat on one hand does not prove skill either way.
Yes, those Joe (and I suppose Jane) College images in movies and on television lasted a long time.
As a classic TV fan I am always delighted when I hear the musical strains, if not words, of gaudeamus igitur, to inform the viewer that the magisterial setting he is seeing is that of college or a university, not a hospital, manor house or madhouse. This lasted well into the 60’s, and that was long after it was “normal” for young folks to even be familiar with that melody, much less the words that, more often it IRL, accompany it. Usually, it’s just a brief “quote” on screen, with no singing.
Indeed: your best chance of hearing it on a college campus these days is when the student orchestra plays Brahms’ “Academic Festival Overture.”
I will take the rulings of a judge and a DA over someone who think Texas Hold em is a game of skill- unless you mean skill at bluffing.
Somebody says something shocking in a busy room and everybody IMMEDIATELY stops what their doing and remains silent, as opposed to all the people in the back immediately continuing because they could barely hear it.