Hollywood loves a great story and there is no better natural story than poker. It has all the drama, suspense and excitement that any good film needs. Thus it should be no surprise that many movies utilize poker as a plot device. Let’s take a look at some of the great ones.
Probably the best most-recent movie made about poker would be Rounders. The 1998 film starring Matt Damon and Ed Norton really got to the essence of what it’s like to be a poker player. Damon quickly got in over his head and then came to despise the game he loved so much and what it stood for. What made the movie realistic was that it had some great lines and also some cameos that weren’t out of place.
Before Rounders was Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. This Guy Ritchie classic took viewers to the shady London underbelly. Hatchet Harry didn’t play fair and his cheating at the poker table set the movie off in motion. There is so much going on in the film that your head starts to spin, but eventually all the loose threads get neatly tied up. This is a film that never gets old and is definitely re watchable.
A fantastic poker movie with a stellar cast is The Cincinnati Kid. Steve McQueen’s
The Kid tries to take on Edward G Robinson’s Lancey Howard. It’s a matchup of old vs new as two great forces take on each other head-on. The stakes couldn’t be higher as the two lock horns in a battle for poker immortality. Karl Malden, Rip Torn and Ann Margaret round up the high quality cast.
The Sting is one of the greatest movies ever made and one of its key scenes involves poker. Paul Newman’s Henry Gondorff tries to outcheat Robert Shaw’s Doyle Lonnegan. The expression on Lonnegan’s face when he realizes he has been had is priceless as are the timeless sounds of Scott Joplin. It won the Oscar for Best Movie and all in all, picked up seven Academy Awards.
The 1970s was a popular time for poker on the big screen. California Split featured George Segal and Elliott Gould as two gamblers. The two travel to Reno and the movie covers the adventures they get up to while there. The film sometimes gets confused for California Suite which was a similar named movie which came out around the same time. Poker must have been a love of Neil Simon as he also features it in The Odd Couple.
The early 90s Maverick was all about poker. It starred James Garner, Mel Gibson and Jodie Foster and culminated in a poker tournament aboard a riverboat. The movie is littered with a series of crosses and double crosses. When watching it you also need to keep your eyes out for all the cameos. Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Danny Glover and Margot Kidder all briefly appear in it.
Sometimes poker appears in a movie which isn’t very good. An example of this would be Honeymoon in Vegas. Nicolas Cage loses his fiancee to James Caan in a poker game and then spends the rest of the movie trying to get her back. He doesn’t think that his straight flush getting beaten by Caan’s higher straight flush is odd in any way, shape or form. Sex and the City fans may like the casting of Sarah Jessica Parker as the girl at the center of this tug of war.
To capitalize on the popularly of poker in the 2000s, Lucky You was made. This movie stars Eric Bana, Drew Barrymore and Robert Duvall and received pretty poor reviews. Not even the appearance of poker players such as Daniel Negreanu, Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth and Johnny Chan could redeem it. While poker can be an ingredient for a good film, you still require a quality script, otherwise it won’rt be very good at all.
Stuart Grayson is a freelance writer who covers news and events in the poker community. He is well known around the online .
There wouldn’t be as many casinos in the world as there are if it wasn’t for the casino games. Something has to be responsible for pulling the billions of people through the doors. The games are a form of entertainment but as opposed to paying for it like you do for a Broadway show or when you go to the theatre; here you can make money.
Ultimately that is the lure of casino games. The ability for a person to make money is a massive attraction. Obviously with that there is the flipside of being able to lose money and that is a risk everyone takes. If you are playing, you are fully aware of the risk but you have to think positive. What choice do you have?
Over the years, the various casino games have experienced somewhat of an ebb and flow as far as what is popular and what isn’t. In the 1960s, with the advent of James Bond everyone wanted to copy his suave and sophisticated ways and play baccarat. Bond played baccarat and the game was central to the plot of Casino Royale.
In the 1970s roulette became the in game. The thrill of the ball circulating the wheel captivated people as did the capacity to win big. Roulette is one of the casino games where the player can really amass winnings quickly. A number of people tried to devise a system to crack roulette but no one was successful. If they were, they were quickly caught and banned from the casino.
The 1980s was a heady time and thus craps was the fans’ favorite of all the casino games. The thing about craps is that while people may not fully understand all the rules and intricacies of the game, they still love it. One of the thrills of being in any casino is to hear the roar from the pit as someone has made their point. Go closer and you will see a scrum of people assembled around the table. They are all into it and enthusiastically waiting the next roll of the dice.
People became a bit more refined and sophisticated in the 1990s and so blackjack came back in vogue. The most classical of all the casino games, it had never really gone out of favor, but now it was clearly in. Everyone gathered around the blackjack table waiting to see what the dealer would deliver. Also recent advances in technology meant that people were now looking at blackjack in a different way. Again people tried to come up with a foolproof system of winning at Blackjack but as of yet, nothing has been discovered.
The dawn of a new millennium and century brought with it a new approach and what was old quickly became new. Texas Hold Em exploded and became huge like nobody had ever witnessed before. People who had previously registered no interest in playing casino games of any sort were now sitting down at the green felt to play Hold Em. Everywhere you looked you saw Hold Em. It was on TV and there were movies being made about it. It was in the newspaper and in magazines.
While it is still very strong, the level of interest for Hold Em has dissipated somewhat. People haven’t yet moved on, but aren’t into it as they once were. Maybe Hold Em is going to fight to keep its crown and stay number one for a while yet. At this stage though, it is too early to tell which of the casino games will replace Texas Hold Em as being the game of the era. The successor may even be a game that hasn’t yet been invented yet.
Stuart Grayson is a freelance writer who enjoys all sorts of casino and gambling activities. He is well known for his slots techniques, and loves to try them out online.