Poker has featured in a great many movies to varied effect. Doing it properly is a challenge to any director. If you play poker or online blackjack then you will be fully aware that casino games without the money would be one of the most boring games around, even the game of Snap is more interesting. The problem is that in poker you spend most of the time doing nothing.
Of course there is the money, and that is what gives the game life, so that is what directors have to focus on as well as the people who play the game. In a great poker scene it isn’t only the cards that are revealed, it is they players who are revealed too.
These are some of the best poker scenes that have proven popular with people who play the game. What do you think?
The Sting
In the movies a great deal of cheating at poker goes on, quite unrealistic of course. In The Sting there is a great poker scene that takes place with Paul Newman and Robert Shaw playing heads up on a train.
California Split
The opening of California Split, a Robert Altman movie, is hilarious and realistic at the same time. Why it works so well is that the characters are just the kind of people you are likely to meet in poker rooms. Watch it and you will understand why.
The Cincinnati Kid
Admittedly the final poker hand in The Cincinnati Kid in which the old man, played by Edward G. Robinson, takes on the Kid, played by Steve McQueen, has received a great deal of criticism from poker players regarding its inaccuracies, it remains a classic poker scene and is highly recommended.
Rounders
Rounders is one of the best poker based movies of all time in terms of the way in which it portrays the game, and it is an opinion that is shared with those who know the underground poker scene in the US, a little over-dramatic maybe, but very sinister and chilling too.