Casino Royale and the Art of Bluffing
If no other James Bond film is produced, Casino Royale will go down in history as the highest grossing Bond film ever.
Never mind that Daniel Craig, with his all too manly ruggedness, does not at all fit the bill of a suave, pretty boy Bond like Pierce Brosnan was. Craig succeeds as Bond because of his performance. The most memorable scene perhaps in the movie - other than the one where his balls gets smacked with a rope end - is the scene where Bond plays poker inside the casino (it would not make sense to have casino in the title if there wasn't at least one casino game in the movie).
This is the part where Bond truly faces off with the major villain, Le Chiffre. The battle at the casino is mostly psychological, with occasional helpings of violence and dirty tricks. The high-stakes poker game at the casino truly captures the feel of the game: the mind games and the bluff. It is here that one gets to see a humanized Bond. At the casino, we see a Bond who - although certainly not a beginner at poker - was not all too good at reading bluffs.
Bluffing is the art of pretending. In poker, it is the art of pretending that you have a better set of cards than what you actually have. Bluffing as an art is not very useful in an online casino, but it is very useful in a brick and mortar casino, where one can expect to socialize with other players and onlookers, and have a drink or two. (In Casino Royale, Bond made it clear he doesn't care if his martini is shaken, not stirred.)
It will be difficult to correctly read a bluff (unless if you have bionic eyes). However, you can at least be very good at the art of bluffing, so much so that other players at the casino would have a hard time reading your bluff.
The key to being a good bluffer in any setting (casino or not) is practice, practice and practice. An experienced bluffer in a casino would be very good at (a) hiding his thoughts and (b) maintaining the same facial expression when he has a good set of cards in his hands; otherwise known as a "poker face".
So one doesn't have to be Bond to be a good poker player, but it wouldn't hurt.
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