Casino Royale: The Best and Worst Poker Movie Ever

The James Bond film "Casino Royale" with Daniel Craig, is one of the things which initially sparked my interest in poker, and my experience is not altogether uncommon in that regard. Casino Royale has helped fuel the poker boom and drawn many people to learn the game, and for that, it is a great poker movie.

However, as my understanding of the fundamentals of poker strategy has grown, I've noticed that the film's portrayal of how poker is played is quite inaccurate: a poor use of terminology and highly improbable gameplay. Here follow some examples from the key poker scenes in the film:

1) The scene in which Bond discovers "Le Chiffre's" "tell":
There are 4 players who see the flop, which comes 5, 8, 9, all hearts. Two checks, Le Chiffre bets $50,000, Bond calls, the other two fold. The turn is the 9 of clubs. Le Chiffre bets $100,000, Bond again calls. The river comes the deuce of hearts. Le Chiffre bets $200,000, and Bond calls one more time. Le Chiffre shows pocket deuces, for a full house, deuces over nines, and Bond folds his hand.

Bond later describes Le Chiffre's tell as a "twitch he has to hide when he bluffs." The full house, argued Bond, "he got on the last card....When he made his first raise [on the flop] he had nothing. Winning was blind luck."

Bond's analysis of the hand however, is not very accurate. Le Chiffre did not "have nothing" on the flop - he had a pair of deuces. Not a very good hand, but it wasn't a bluff. His bet was, as some call it, an "information raise". He put out a bet so that he could learn, through his opponents' actions of either calling, raising, or folding, whether his deuces were the best hand. On the turn he made two pair, and made a full house on the river card. Bond is right in the sense that Le Chiffre could not have known that he had the best hand until he made a full house on the last card, because his deuces were in great danger to a 5, 8, 9 or two hearts. But this is not even worth mentioning, since betting without the best hand and then making the best hand on the next card is a common occurrence in poker.

Now, Bond's statement that Le Chiffre was bluffing could mean that he himself actually had the best hand until the river. Given that he called and didn't raise each time, this would most likely mean either a) he had a 9, giving him three of a kind on the turn, but he didn't raise because Le Chiffre would likely only have called with a flush or better, or b) he had the King, Queen, or possibly Jack of hearts in his hand, giving him a flush on the last card, which would've been worth calling with but not necessarily raising, since he would've likely been called only by a higher flush. An alternative solution is that Bond called three times with nothing, wanting only to discover the meaning of the "twitch", but in that case, why call it a "bluff" when Le Chiffre had been betting the best hand all along?

2) The scene in which Bond goes broke:
The board reads J, K, A, J (all of different suits) on the turn. Bond, Le Chiffre, and Felix Leiter are involved in the hand. Felix bets $300,000; the other two call. The river is another King. Felix checks, Bond double-checks his hole cards (it is revealed at this point he has the Ace-King of hearts, for a full house) and bets $500,000 (a pretty small bet, considering that $900,000 went into the pot on the turn alone!). Le Chiffre begins to "twitch" again, leading Mathis to remark to Vesper that "he is bluffing." He raises to $1 Million (he would raise if he were bluffing, since that is the only way he could win the hand, but in real life he would have likely raised to at least $1.5 million to discourage anyone from calling, rather than simply raising the minimum amount). Felix grudgingly folds, saying "it seems someone knows something I don't" (He probably had a single ace, making two pair, Aces and Kings. It was a good hand, but vulnerable to a single King or Jack. A good fold by Felix). Bond then re-raises to $2 Million (another fairly small raise, especially considering he had a full house and Le Chiffre had just represented a strong hand by re-raising). Le Chiffre then moves all-in for $40.5 Million (now that's hard to believe, after the two players each doubled the last player's raise, he suddenly decides to put in a raise for 20 times the last bet? In the words of poker pro Daniel Negreanu when someone did the same thing to him, "That might be how y'all play, but that's not poker.") Bond calls and turns over his full house. Le Chiffre (who should have been the first to show his hand, but obviously couldn't because there would be no drama in the film if he did!), stacks his cards face-up to show only one Jack (which would've made an inferior full house), but then spreading out his cards to reveal 4 of a kind, saying "You must have thought I was bluffing, Mr. Bond."

A few problems here. I've already given running commentary on the unrealistic way the bets were sized. This could very well be just to simplify the numbers and allow those without a working knowledge of poker to follow along. Another issue is the way Le Chiffre revealed his cards, allowing Bond to think he had won, and then showing the 4th Jack. That is called "slow-rolling", taking a long time to reveal the best hand, and it's a breach of poker etiquette and just a nasty thing to do. Of course, Le Chiffre is a nasty character, so perhaps it's fitting.

Most importantly, here is another misunderstanding of the concept of bluffing. Bond wouldn't really have decided to call based on whether or not Le Chiffre was bluffing, despite Mathis' insistence about the "tell". When one player holds a full house while the other hold 4 of a kind, it is virtually guaranteed that both players will be going all-in. Those are two monster hands, both of which merit putting all your chips in the middle because they are both likely to be better than whatever your opponent holds. In Bond's case, of course, it wasn't good enough, but that's called a "bad beat" in poker. (In fact, Le Chiffre's hand wasn't unbeatable either, he could have lost to 4 Kings. But I digress). Bond's decision to call all-in was based entirely on the strength of his hand and the mathematical probability that it was the best hand. It had nothing to do with Bond picking up on a bizarre "tell".

To elaborate, in such a situation there were only two hands that could have beaten Bond's full house: two Aces (a better full house) or in this case, two Jacks (quads). There are also 22 hand combinations which Le Chiffre likely would have moved all-in with, which Bond's full house would have beaten: a single King, a single Jack (two jacks remaining), a single Ace, Ace-Jack (2 possible combinations), or Queen-10 to make a straight (16 possible combinations). Assuming Le Chiffre would never have bluffed in this hand and would only have moved all-in holding 1 of those 24 hands (ignoring the possibility of him holding another Ace-King, which would have meant a tied pot, or a hand like pocket Queens), Bond's odds of having a better hand were 92%, (he beats 22 out of 24 hands), while the $40.5 Million it would cost to call represents only about 47% percent of the total pot, making Bond's call a mathematically sound play by a very large margin, regardless of whether Le Chiffre actually was bluffing. If there was a possibility Le Chiffre actually was bluffing, as his "twitch" suggested, the odds of Bond winning were even greater. All this is to say that Bond did not make a mistake in calling, he actually made the right play but, unfortunately, came up on the losing end this time.

I know this is all very technical and a bit nit-picky. Honestly, I do like the film and its poker scenes. I mention all of this not to trash the film, but simply to help people understand the game of poker a bit better, and to show the amount of calculation, math and psychology that can factor into a single poker hand. And I'm glad "Casino Royale" has introduced so many people to poker, including myself.