The Magic Poker Equation - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Guess I should have warned you — whenever I'm about to lose, I always draw exactly what I need!"

- Seto Kaiba, Yu-Gi-Oh

A law of probability which only exists in television and movie poker, and can be expressed thusly:

l = si

Where l = luck, s = skill and i = importance.

It describes the phenomenon in TV poker games whereby the better the poker player, or the more crucial the hand of poker being played, the better the players’ hands are.

In TV, the most talented poker players get threes of a kind, full houses, straights and flushes with remarkable frequency; it would seem that while real life poker savants are masters of risk management and psychological warfare, TV poker savants are masters of getting dealt good cards.

But even novice players can get full houses and flushes if the hand in question is an amazing climactic hand on which the plot hinges. When both factors are in play, the values of the hands hit the stratosphere – the best poker player in the world, playing the most important hand of his life, will probably beat a straight flush with a royal flush. In real life, he’d probably just beat two pair with a better two pair.

Related TV poker phenomena:

Even in unimportant hands with regular players, nobody ever has less than two pair. If the players ever do have just a pair (or lower), it’s because a point is being made of how bad/unlucky the player is, how good they are at bluffing, or how lame the game is.
In a game of three or more players, almost every hand is quickly whittled down to two players – usually the same two, time and time again.
The more important the hand, the closer together the values. A climactic hand will not be won by a straight flush over two pair; more likely it will be four kings over four queens.
Three of a kind/four of a kind is the only time it will come down to the value of the individual cards, except for the ‘royal flush beats straight flush’ cliché. You never see a full house with queens showing beating a full house with nines showing, or a jack-high flush beating a nine-high flush.
The person who puts their cards down first loses. Especially if they’ve got such a good hand they don’t even wait to see the other person’s cards before they start cackling and raking in their winnings. (See also: And The Winner Is...) Exception: the person puts their cards down and the other player concedes defeat without showing their own cards – because they’re throwing the game.
- Corollary: This also applies when the player only shows his cards to the camera. As a general rule, you won't see the winning hand until it's played.
Basically, the amateur can often be seen beating "veterans" of the game. (Also see Bested At Bowling.)
- Terry Pratchett's notice of this effect is in itself another Corollary: "When an obvious innocent sits down with three experienced card sharpers and says "How do you play this game, then?", someone is about to be shaken down until their teeth fall out." (from Witches Abroad)
An amateur is playing against a veteran (often having been brought in so he can be squeezed for all he's worth). The veteran tosses his cards down, bragging about his great hand. The amateur remarks, "Gee, I've only got two pair. A pair of kings, and another pair of kings."
Expert poker players who must be defeated by the hero always have a 'tell' (i.e a subconscious move they make when they are bluffing, or have a good hand). This 'tell' will usually be something so obvious that viewers are left wondering how the person in question got to be such an expert). Seems to happen more in drama than in comedy.
- Subverted in the latest Casino Royale Bond film, where the bad guy's Tell is faked.

(Another poker cliche: Someone will break the single most important rule of betting: After the chips are counted out, under no circumstances will more money or valuables be added to the table. Said object will be irreplacable.)

Of course, this also appears in other games of chance, of which poker is just the most common. It also appears with Roulette and Craps (notably in the movie/play Guys And Dolls).

Examples:

It is the central trope of the anime Yu-Gi-Oh!, where skilled players have an uncanny ability to always draw the "only" card that will help them. (In the manga on which the series is based, this is explicitly a superpower of the main character, but in the anime it appears to be a function of skill and faith, particularly in the English dub by 4Kids).
- They've even turned it into a game mechanic in Tag Force 2; called "Destiny Draw", it can be assigned to up to 5 cards, and it only kicks in when you're about to lose.
- Another example being our loveable "In America" fellow who's name escapes me at the moment, who uses a silly machine like thing to cheat badly and obviously.
  - Bandit Keith. Also once hid three copies of the "7 Completed" card in his metallic wristband-things in order to ensure that he could draw them when he needed. Pegasus's Millennium Eye caught him from the get-go, though.
Whos The Boss?, "When Worlds Collide" shows Angela winning loads at poker early on, and Johnathan (Angela's kid) getting four aces in the epilogue.
I Love Lucy, when Lucy forces herself into a poker game of Ricky's, since she has just learned to play that very morning. She has no trouble convincing the regulars that she has a very good hand, and she wins when she doesn't even have a single pair.
Lottery - The representatives of the Intersweep Lottery deliver the prize money of a winner, but not before he put the ticket into the pot of a poker game. Now, with the true value of the ticket revealed, the other players refuse to allow it to be removed from contention. On the advice of the reps, the players agree to let the next winning poker hand settle the issue. As pure luck would have it, the purchaser of the lottery ticket pulls a miraculous royal flush to win the game.
Literary example: In Terry Pratchett's Witches Abroad, Granny Weatherwax bests a card shark in Cripple Mr. Onion (a poker-like game played with the Discworld equivalent of a Tarot deck) through a combination of skill and deliberately, explicitly manipulating the above poker tropes. However, in "Maskerade", Granny Weatherwax's poker game against Death to save a child's life is a subversion. Granny has four queens, while Death has four aces. Death chooses to dismiss his hand as "just four ones". The cards came out like that because Granny cheated. She'd have had the four aces in her hand if Death hadn't had them switch.
A rare subversion comes in the 1980s Degrassi High. The cool kids invite nerdy, insecure Arthur to their poker party so they can take him for all he's worth. He's totally out of his depth — at one point, he asks, "does three of a kind beat a full house?" But he suddenly starts winning — including, of course, beating three of a kind with a full house. By the last hand, it's down to Arthur and the host — and Arthur wins almost all the money by bluffing when his hand is complete junk. The cool kids are amazed. Then comes the subversion: Arthur grins and says, "'Does three of a kind beat a full house?' You guys are so gullible."
Played strictly for laughs in the Bugs Bunny cartoon "Barbary Coast Bunny". The villain gets a full house, to which a dejected Bugs (disguised as a gullible country bumpkin) moans, "Gee, all I got is two pair. A pair of ones, and another pair of ones." He, of course, is referring to 4 aces. Later, in "Bonanza Bunny", he decides to play a round of blackjack with only one card, and wins because he's drawn... the 21 of Spades.
Humourously subverted in an episode of The Real Ghostbusters: The Ghostbusters are pursuing the ghosts of four Old West desperados, and Peter gets snagged into a poker game with the four spirits. When it comes time to call, each of the ghosts produces two aces, two eights and a ten (the "dead man's hand"). Peter then produces five aces, whereupon the ghosts accuse him of cheating and draw their guns.
Film Example: Casino Royale — at one point, James Bond is actually berated for not having magically held better cards. The climactic end of the poker tournament is on a hand where he holds the nuts: a 5-7 of spades which gives him a straight flush. (Bond, incidentally, has abused this trope a fair deal throughout the films; the number of times he's gotten exactly nine in baccarat defies statistical probability.)
- Le Chiffre, the villain, apparently has a tell. This is then partially subverted when it's revealed that he was deliberately displaying it to goad Bond into betting high, and uses the trick to wash him out of the game altogether.
- To be fair, Bond was berated for betting everything on the belief in Le Chiffre's tell.
Film Example: In the movie Rounders, Teddy KGB, the villain, has a tell involving the way he eats Oreo cookies.
The Film Of The Series of Maverick plays with the trope throughout the film, as Bret Maverick is convinced that he can draw any card out of the deck at will. However, most of his attempts are completely unsuccessful until the end of the film, when he manages to draw the Ace of Spades he needs to complete his Royal Flush and win the poker tournament.
- The final poker battle on the gambling ship at the end of the film is made of this trope. First, Maverick beats Annabelle by showing his cards, after she thought she won and already started collecting the winnings. Next, the final showdown between Maverick, Angel, and the Commodore. The Commodore shows his hand first: "Two small pair. Eights... and eights." Then Angel shows his hand, "See if you can beat my straight flush!" Maverick finally reveals his royal flush and wins it all, without saying a word. Also, a large part of the movie is of Annabelle trying to get Maverick to tell her her tells, and she ends up losing on the poker ship from the one tell he didn't let her know about.
Somewhat justified in Robert Asprin's Little Myth Marker, where hero Skeeve finds himself in a flashy high stakes poker challenge; he puts the entire stakes on the first hand without even looking at his cards. The twist being, as he explains to his opponent, he does so because he knows he doesn't have any outstanding skill at the game — but essentially reducing the game to a coin flip makes the skill gap irrelevant. But of course, he wins with a big flashy hand anyhow.
- Then again, it's Dragon Poker, which Asprin probably got the idea for from watching Star Trek (anyone familiar with both series will think "Fizzbin" while reading the MYTH Adventures and "Dragon Poker" while watching the appropriate episode of Star Trek). Depending on the day, the hands that have already happened, where you're sitting compared to the other players, where you're sitting based on the compass, and any number of other factors, an otherwise unremarkable hand can wipe out a royal flush no problem. What got Skeeve into trouble was the fact that he had a fairly reasonable success rate playing as best he could and letting everyone else work out whether he'd won or lost the hand.
  - What he didn't realize until later was the dealer was cheating on Skeeve's behalf, as part of a larger scheme to infiltrate a literal Character Assassin into Skeeve's home.
In the first Austin Powers, Number Two hits on a 17 while playing blackjack in a Las Vegas casino, despite being advised to stand. Sure enough, his next card is a 4, making 21. Of course, he had X-Ray Vision from his Eyepatch Of Power, and could at least see the card. Austin then subverts the trope by trying to upstage Number Two's risky playstyle... he holds on 5. He loses.
In the comic strip Pogo, the three bats (Bewitched, Bothered, and Bemildred) are often seen playing poker.
Bewitched: I got four kings.
Bothered: I got five — all hearts.
Bemildred: One a' you is mus' be cheatin', 'cause I never had no kings of hearts in no deck of mine.
Subverted in an episode of Angel, where Angel bets his soul to a demon on a single high card draw. His opponent gets a nine, and Angel... draws a three. He then switches to Plan B and chops the demon's head off before the bet can be claimed.
In an episode of Only Fools And Horses, a poker game between most of the recurring characters eventually comes down to Del and Boycie. Del insists Boycie is bluffing, and when Boycie raises the stakes beyond the agreed limit persuades all the others to throw in everything they've got. It transpires Boycie isn't bluffing, and Del only has two pair. He then waits for Boycie to start raking in the winnings before inevitably adding "A pair of aces, and... another pair of aces". The subversion comes when Boycie demands to how Del got four aces, and Del replies "Same place you got them kings. I knew you was cheating, Boycie, because that wasn't the hand I dealt you."
Done twice in an episode of Family Matters where Urkel and Lt. Murtaugh are playing poker with each other, both using the "All I have is two pair..." line (Murtaugh first with kings, and Urkel later in the episode with tens).
Averted in the Sluggy Freelance arc "That Which Redeems" - Torg wins by bluffing when he only has one pair. Then again, that served another purpose - emphasizing the naiveté of the residents of the "Dimension of Lame."
Spoofed in Kingdom Of Loathing: a special adventure encountered during a Bad Moon ascension run has your character winning a sizeable amount of money in a poker game, but then the other players complain about the use of the "complete newcomer wins the high-stakes card game despite not knowing the rules" cliche and the "two pair of aces" joke, then beat the crap out of you.
In a Peanuts cartoon episode, Snoopy held five aces including the "ace of anchors"
The poker game in The Canary Murder Case has two rounds come down to high hands. Vance wanted to analyze the suspect's psychology, so he paid a card cheat to arrange for those big hands.
Subverted in Police Squad! During a poker game with the management of a boxer on the line, an undercover Drebin reveals his full house and starts to pick up the winnings. "Not so fast", one of the other players tells him. "I have a straight." Cue an argument about the rules of poker.
Spoofed in The Simpsons, where Fat Tony and an underling are playing cards, the underling reveals four queens, to which Tony counters with seven queens.
- Also played straight when Krusty's four aces is beaten by Fat Tony's straight flush.
Played with in the old Twilight Zone poker episode, where both players are dealt implausibly good hands...except it's lowball, making them implausibly bad.
Parodied in a scene in Sovisa, where the other players have stopped playing in favor of watching Alexi and Travis, in one of their one-upsmanship bouts, both trying to out-cheat the other. Alexi opens with a royal flush in hearts, only to be countered by Travis' royal flush in spades. The dealer at this point, exclaims "OH COME ON! That's barely even physically possible!". Even more silly, is that cheating in cards is usually done by the one dealing, and it's quite difficult to do otherwise.
At once subverted and played straight in An Echolls Family Christmas, a first-season episode of Veronica Mars. In The Teaser, a Texas Hold'Em game is down to a climactic final hand. Logan's hand could go well any number of ways with the cards on the table, though he still technically has nothing, with only the river remaining. When it comes time to reveal hands, Weevil's hand...isn't so impressive. As Logan notes, given the number of cards left in the deck, he can win with over thirty of them. And as the river is played, Weevil beats him with a pair of twos.
Used and subverted in Alexander Pushkin's story The Queen of Spades. The story concerns a young gambler who wishes to gain the secret of getting three good cards in a row from an elderly countess. After she refuses to tell him, he ends up threatening and frightening her to death, and is then visited by her in a dream with the secret. Wishing to marry his much wealthier sweetheart, he places all of his money on a bet and then loses everything when the final card turns out to be the wrong one. As this story was written in the 1830s, this trope is Older Than Radio.
Sooni from Tales Of MU tries to invoke this law by telling Mack (the protagonist) to draw first. It kind of works; Mack draws a king and Sooni draws an ace, but with a shout of "Nobody did ever say aces were high" from the audience, all hell breaks loose.
Subverted in this Penny Arcade strip: Gabe, a complete tyro with a good hand, loses his shirt due to his complete ignorance of the rules and the twisted machination of Tycho.
In the 1998 version of The Parent Trap, there is exactly one poker game. It is resolved with a royal flush over a straight flush.
Subverted in part three of Jojos Bizarre Adventure. Jotaro, having never played a game of poker in his life, wins a game of poker against D'arby, an expert gambler, with not only his soul, but also the souls of his friend Polnareff and his grandfather Joseph as the stakes. Despite D'arby cheating to rig the hands, Jotaro manages to bluff him out of the game by not looking at his hand, making it look like he might have used his powers to change his cards, adopting his usual poker face, and then continually raising until the stakes were just too high for D'arby to risk calling on. After the game was over, Jotaro's hand was flipped over, and it was revealed that he had absolute crap.
- ... And humerously admitted that if he had looked at his cards, he would've had a heart attack. Cue everyone yelling at him.
In Darth Bane Path of Destruction The titular character is playing Sabacc against a Republic ensign. They both get an Idiots Array (a two, three and an idiot) which would allow them both to win if the other hadn't gotten it. They both get a nine which was supposed to end the stalemate so Bane gets nine and the Ensign gets eight allowing Bane to win the hand and the pot.
Played with on In The House; when inexperienced player Tonia joins Marion's game and promptly squeals "lookie here; a whole family"! The other players fold, only to learn that she's bluffing.
The proximity corollary of this Law is averted in the Hellboy story "The Vampire of Prague". The story itself is mostly a brawl between the titular vampire and Hellboy, but HB can't win the fight unless he can beat the vampire at poker. During the battle, Hellboy inadvertently comes across a handful of cards, while the vampire drops a hand of cards during the scuffle. Upon The Reveal, the vampire has a middle-of-the-road straight (which nearly was a straight flush), while Hellboy has a moderate full house. The two hands are pretty distinct, and either could have been beaten by rarer, more valuable hands.
Subverted in manga series Et Cetra, where all but one of the poker games involve cheating through their teeth. To be fair, Baskerville only cheated to beat a cheater. Useing the same device as Bandit above, though with far more speed and succsessfulness.
And, quite obviously, not truth in television. Well, the part about luck may or may not be—there have been some times where the final hand of the World Series of Poker has seen a player win with worse pocket cards (e.g. 1979, when 7-6 off-suit defeated pocket aces). Most notably, 2005, when Joe Hachem won with 7-3 off-suit. (In fairness, he flopped a straight—another subversion of this, as if this were television/movie poker, he wouldn't have hit that straight until the river, although his opponent would've still paired his ace on the turn. Come to think of it, that turn was most of what made it the final hand...
A term in the card game Magic The Gathering, mise, sometimes refers to the critical gamewinning card drawn at exactly the right moment, usually without the aid of tutoring or library manipulating effects (unless you mise the tutor spell and use that to extract your winning card). Mising is referred to a lot in tournaments by article-writing professionals. Some pros have the superstition that mising happens more often during dramatic moments.
Sports Night: In "Shoe Money Tonight" Jeremy is supposed to be portrayed as an excellent poker player. The only skill he exhibits is his ability to get a straight on every single hand. Rule Of Funny is very much in play.

Locards Theory

« Laws And Formulas »

Mandys Law Of Anime Gender Bending

Its A Small World After All

« Probability Tropes »

Million To One Chance

Main Tropes Index

Troperville

Editing

Tools

Toys