Why Casino Royale Director Sweated the Poker Scenes Over Any James Bond Action. The card playing scenes were the toughest part of filming Casino Royale according to director Martin Campbell.
Martin Campbell, director of the 2006 James Bond reboot Casino Royale, admitted there is a mistake in the film’s climactic poker scene.This was the third film adaptation of Ian Fleming’s book of the same name and was the first to see Daniel Craig in the role of James Bond, showing a more modernized, emotional side of the 007 agent early in his career.
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The James Bond movie ‘Casino Royale’ has one of the most highly regarded poker scenes in movie history. It expertly reflects the tension of high-stakes gambling, but its plausibility has often been called into question. Here we take a look at both the influence of the iconic scene and how far it pushes the boundaries of credibility with the audience.

Math and odds are important parts of Texas Hold’em poker. James Bond knows this (of course). In the final hand of Casino Royale, four players move all-in on the river and Bond scoops the $115 million pot, thanks to smart play. These were the cards on the board: Ah-8s-6s-4s-As And these were the players’ hands:.

Daniel Craig’s debut Bond film certainly had an impact in further popularising the casino industry with the character imbuing it with a sense of glamour and cool. Lirik lagu poker face. Whilst the various locations featured in the film offered audiences a glimpse into the style and prestige provided by the casino environment. The film’s wider influence in keeping the industry current has also been apparent in the growth of the best casinos online, with slots like Mission Cash at LeoVegas incorporating a Bond-inspired spy theme.

The poker showdown in the exotic locale of the ‘One and Only Ocean Club’ in the Bahamas, is perhaps the most iconic scene in the film, and also the most effective in delivering a sense of the thrill and mystique which modern casinos can offer to the audience.

For context, Bond was taking part in a ‘winner-takes-all’ contest with nine other players including the film’s main villain Le Chiffre. The character, played by Mads Mikkelsen, is in dire need of victory having lost $100 million through a failed investment. Meanwhile, Bond has been entered into the tournament by MI6 as they felt defeat for Le Chiffre would force him to seek asylum with the British government in exchange for inside information on his terrorist clients.

Its controversy for poker enthusiasts and statistics nerds comes with the final hand where just four players remained. After the river is fully revealed as Ace (Hearts) – 8 (Spades) – 6 (Spades) – 4 (Spades) – Ace (Diamonds), the first two nameless characters both go all-in with respective hands of King-Queen (both Spades) and 8-8. This meant two extremely strong hands already with a flush and full house both in play, however, it was still well within the realms of plausibility.

Le Chiffre, however, had an even better hand than both of these men with an Ace-6 combination giving him the superior full house. Confident in his hand, the Albanian banker raised the stakes to $12 million only to see 007 go all-in with an enormous $40.5 million. Having started with a 7 and 5 of spades (which only gave him a 12.3% chance of winning before the flop) Bond knew that he had an unbeatable straight flush at his disposal.

This certainly brings the scene into the realm of the fantastical as a straight flush can be expected to occur around once every 37,260 hands. In tandem with three other players piling money in because of their particularly strong hands, more than a few movie-goers may have been struggling to suspend their disbelief. Bond wins the entire pot as the last man standing, before high-octane action hijinks follow.
In the scene’s defence, it does stay within the rules of Texas Hold ‘Em poker at all times and gives a dramatic but accurate representation of the game’s dynamism, as a weak hand transforms into something special. Some may feel it undermines the credibility of the movie to too great of an extent, but after all, this is a James Bond film, and it wouldn’t be complete without superhuman exploits and incredible luck. Perhaps the writers felt entitled to borrow Bond’s (artistic) license to kill.

It’s been fourteen years and some small-change since Casino Royale hit screens. To celebrate, Polygon tracked director Martin Campbell, and some of the crew to their lairs and asked them shooting the poker scenes.

Since Campbell last directed Bond he’d done a number of hi-octane action flicks. The two Antonio Banderas Zorro movies and Vertical Limit.

By the time we get to the game in Montenegro, Bond has parkoured across Kampala. He’s stormed an embassy. And he’s gone toe-to-toe at knifepoint with one terrorist, before hunting another to an explosive climax on the tarmac of Miami airport. How do you go from that to ten guys sat quietly around a table?

Campbell had previously directed a short baccarat scene for Bond in Goldeneye. But the amount of poker in the Casino Royale script was worrisome. And not just to him.

“It was difficult to think, how you keep the audience engaged in those card games. Everybody was terribly worried that people would be bored with it.” the editor, Stuart Baird said.

One of the tricks was shooting enormous amounts of coverage. Baird had worked on Maverick, where the director Richard Donner had filmed everything over and over from every angle.

He passed this on to Campbell who did the same. Stealing everything he could from other movies too. Like The Cincinnati Kid and 5 Card Stud.

Bond begins

By 2006, Paul Greengrass had taken over the Bourne franchise. Christopher Nolan had taken over Batman. The noughties was about grit. It was time for a reboot.

And who better to reboot bond for the 00s than the man who’d brought Bond into the post-Soviet world of the 90s: Martin Campbell.

Niel Purvis and Robert Wade had descended metaphorically into self-parody with Die Another Day, and literally into self-parody with Johnny English. The studio brought in Paul Haggis, still hot off Crash and Million Dollar Baby, was brought in to add some emotional depth to Purvis & Wade’s first direct adaptation from the novels.

They decided the movie had to be “grounded in reality” Campbell said. And the three big poker hands had to reflect that.

“I think the sequence was pretty convincing,” Campbell said.

The poker world quietly chuckled into their sleeves. The Casino Royale poker sequences, despite the best efforts of the onset consultants, are very much movie poker.

Casino Royale might not be the most accurate poker movie. But it is one of the best-loved.

“What you realize is, it’s not just the card games — it’s the stakes,” Campell adds, explaining the appeal. “It’s also two guys eye-f***ing one another, basically. That was the secret.”

It is at this point that one remembers that the U.K. cut of the torture-scene had a line trimmed for being “too sexual”.

Craig, Daniel Craig

To sell the authenticity of the game as much as possible, the production hired Tom Sambrook, a reg at the Vic in London. He got the actors up to speed by having them play as much poker on set as possible (padding out his per diem in the process).

“We’d be playing games constantly between takes,” Sambrook said. “It got confusing, because I’d been trying to deal three or four different games with different people in it, and keep track of thei

Casino Royale Poker Scene Poison