Those final two hands

Yet, it happened . . . everyone must accept this . . .

Someone in another thread suggested that the dealer cheated.


I cried because I had no shoes üntil I met a man with no sole. ~ Ancient Disco Proverb

There is less than a 45-million-to-one chance of it happening. How do I know that? It's one of the fun facts in the Trivia section for this film at IMDB.

But that is how Hollywood dramatizes poker. They couldn't make it come down to a pair of threes losing to a pair of eights!

Any movie or TV show featuring gambling (e.g. those awful Kenny Rogers movies) will show the last two players with improbable hands at the climax.


I disagree with what you are saying, but I will fight to your death for your right to say it;-)

I drew a royal flush once. Only had 10 bucks on the hand too. It was at an indian casino and we were playing hold em which does improve the odds. Ill never forget that day. I was so happy and mad. I was like you have got to be kidding me, 10 bucks won on a royal flush. Everyone at the table was clapping and dumbstruck. Dealer had his buddy take a pic. He said hes been working there for 10 years and never dealt that hand.

You know what? I'm a bit of a poker buff myself. Not a pro, but I made a few extra bucks during my college days playing poker. And I've got a few words to say about this. You see, this movie speaks to me, beacuse *I* have lost to a straight flush with a full house once. Now you propably go: "sure, but does it have to happen in the deciding hand?" Well you know what, those kind of hands always become deciding hands, because you just can't throw them away. Just like Steve McQueens' character couldn't. Poor guy could learn everything about the game, except how to get rid of his pride..

This movie is perhaps the greatest movie ever made of gambling, because it is not about gambling itself, it is about the pride and the illusions of the gamblers. Everyone who has ever gambled can relate to Steve McQueen's feelings: in a way he did nothing wrong, because none of us would really have folded that hand, now would we? But then again - he did do something wrong. In his lust for victory, he couldn't tell the difference between what he knew and what he only wanted to know. None of us really can.

Except.. that's right, the Edward G. Robinsons. The superhumans. The one-in-a-million -type of guys. In that same game I was talking about, I saw a guy check the best possible full house in the river even though he had the perfect opportunity to raise. Why did he do that? Because he felt 4-of-a-kind trying to trap him. Well, the cards were shown, and as it turns out, he had analyzed the situation correctly - the guy sitting next to him had 4-of-a-kind waiting for the chance for a check-raise to go all-in! That was and still is the greatest check I have ever seen. I would not have made that check. Even though I've always made more money than I've lost with poker, I really related to Steve McQueen more than to Edward G. Robinson as a player: to err is human, and you have to learn to accept that. You need humility. You need to know when you can trust your instincts and when you can't.

And hey, this lesson doesn't only apply in the gambling world. In the end it is a lesson for all of us, isn't it?

Oh, and about the odds of those hands occuring... well, the two I mentioned are just two out of tens of thousands of mostly crappy, useless, boring hands I've seen played over the years. Only two hands. But hey, think how many hands Robinson's character has played during his career. Hundreds of thousands? Maybe even millions? He'll end up coming across these hands eventually. Propably more often than once or twice during his playing career.

So yeah, these things happen. It's rare, but they happen, and "almost nil" chances are not the same as "nil" chances.

Just watched a similar outcome on YouTube. A female competitor, who just returned to competitive poker after surgery, held a full house, but a younger guy beat her with a straight flush, on the 'river', in Texas Hold 'EM.

:-) canuckteach (--:

Dood. It's a little thing called deus ex machina. In the movies they can do what they want. The only issue is whether it passes the laugh test.

Get the facts first - you can distort them later!