Bigger Deal

With the release of the new James Bond film, QUANTUM OF SOLACE, and the simultaneous publication of Anthony Holden’s new strategy manual, HOLDEN ON HOLD’EM, BiggerDeal.com proudly presents an exclusive, three-part extract from the book, in which Holden examines the poker played by Daniel’s Craig 007 in the last Bond film, CASINO ROYALE.

In Ian Fleming’s first James Bond book, Casino Royale, 007 visits the eponymous casino in Monte Carlo to play cards against his sadistic enemy, Le Chiffre. Like all seasoned card players, Bond has a well-worn personal routine as he sits down at the table:

Bond lit a cigarette and settled himself in his chair. The long game was launched and the sequence of these gestures and the reiteration of this subdued litany would continue until the end came and the players dispersed. Then the enigmatic cards would be burnt or defaced, a shroud would be draped over the table and the grass-green baize battlefield would soak up the blood of its victims and refresh itself.

When Daniel Craig donned Bond’s tuxedo for the first time in the 2006 film version of Casino Royale, however, the ‘long game launched’ was no longer baccarat – as was Bond’s wont, from Sean Connery via Roger Moore to Pierce Brosnan – but the poker game yet to reach Europe when the novel was first published in 1953, Texas Hold’em.

Fleming could rest assured, nonetheless, that the ‘grass-green baize battlefield’ would be just as bloodied. In the 1953 novel, Bond risks a whopping 32 million francs; in the movie, Craig’s Bond plays for a massive $10million buy-in, with $5 million rebuy. The stakes had never been higher – literally. I know of no real game of No Limit Hold’em in poker history that has ever even approached such a scale.

Fleming’s Bond displays a pragmatic approach to cards that well becomes a Hold’em player. His demeanour suggests that the choice of Hold’em – which is, after all, less a gambling game than one of skill – might in fact have received Fleming’s approval. In the novel, Bond refuses to join his friends Felix Leiter and Vesper Lynd at the roulette table. ‘I have no lucky numbers,’ he tells them unsmilingly. ‘I only bet on even chances, or as near them as I can get.’

But it is not the same tight-lipped hero who returns to the poker table in the recent film adaptation. Having just taken a serum in the parking lot, to prevent certain death from the poison a femme fatale has slipped into his martini, Bond quips suavely: ‘That last hand nearly killed me’. Many dapper poker players have indeed passed away at the baize, notably Jack ‘Treetops’ Straus and the British writer David Spanier; but Fleming would have cringed at such cheesy table talk.

He may also have winced at the hands that the screenwriters gave Bond. Cinema has always, for dramatic effect, exaggerated the hands that appear in celluloid depictions of high-stakes poker, from Big Hand For a Little Lady (a.k.a. Big Deal in Dodge City) to The Cincinnati Kid, even in the better recent Hold’em movies from Rounders to Lucky You. The remake of Casino Royale is no exception.

The first significant hand between Bond and Le Chiffre shows a flop of 5h-8h-9h. The blinds are at $5000-$10,000. Le Chiffre bets $50,000 after the flop. There is an icy stare between the two players before Bond calls.

The turn brings 9-c. The straight possibilities now look very remote. This being the movies, we’re surely looking at a flush (possibly even a straight flush) versus a full house. Le Chiffre bets a further $100,000. Bond’s girl, Vesper, gives him a very public kiss, and he decides to call. He does so rather nonchalantly, apparently distracted by his moll.

The river brings 2-h. So the flush is very much on. Le Chiffre ups his bet to $200,000. Again, Bond just calls. On their backs! Le Chiffre shows the full house – deuces full of nines. He was not flushing, after all; his top pair on the flop had become trips on the turn, and a flukey boat on the river. Bond mucks his cards. Had he been holding the flush all the way? We don’t get to know. It doesn’t appear to affect him – but of course not – as he signals for the barman and smiles.

Bond takes a moment to reassure Vesper that the last hand was worth it. ‘The odds against when he made his first raise were 23-1… winning was blind luck…’ He is wrong, of course. On the flop Le Chiffre is only about 10-1; on the turn he is 22-1 (1/23 translates as 22-1, not 23-1). But maybe this movie poker is not quite so silly, after all?

Losing all those chips was worth it, claims Bond, to have discovered Le Chiffre’s tell – a habit of nervously flipping his chips in his right hand. Many poker players would disagree; $350,000 is a pretty expensive way to figure that out. Then again, perhaps Bond knows he played the hand badly, but is maintaining his poker face to reassure the lovely Vesper, who is not just his moll but is also bankrolling him – with taxpayer’s dough!

We should all get so lucky…

TO BE CONTINUED

Extracted from Anthony Holden’s new poker strategy guide, HOLDEN ON HOLD’EM, to be published by Little, Brown on 6 November.