A Famous Movie Poker Hand

In my early poker days, I played $2-limit five-card stud in bowling alleys. I'd guess that more than half of the people playing on the Internet today weren't even born then. And that makes me feel even older than I am. Once the most common poker game, five-card stud is what's played in the 1965 movie starring Steve McQueen and Edward G. Robinson - The Cincinnati Kid.



The movie is set and the game is played in New Orleans in the '30s. Robinson – Lancey "The Man" Howard – has been king of the poker hill for decades, traveling from city to city, setting up big games and taking on all comers. It's not unlike what Daniel Negreanu is doing at Wynn Las Vegas these days.



McQueen plays Eric Stoner – The Cincinnati Kid – the hometown hero who's beating the hell out of the local games and holding markers from everybody in town. When Lancey arrives, the showdown is inevitable: The Man vs. The Kid. Many people consider this to be the best poker movie ever. It has some wonderful poker lines and a stellar cast, including Rip Torn, Ann-Margret, Tuesday Weld, Cab Calloway, Joan Blondell, and Karl Malden.



Some say it is a great movie until the final hand, because the matchup of the two hands is so unlikely as to stretch credulity. When you play enough decades, everything that could happen eventually does happen. A more serious critique is that two top-notch players would never play a hand this way. Maybe they wouldn't – and maybe they would.



The no-ante game starts sixhanded and goes for more than 36 hours – when it's down to The Kid and The Man heads up. They take a short nap break.



It's apparent that The Man is feeling his age; he's over 70, born at the end of the Civil War, about the same time as the emergence of modern poker. The Kid is 26. Phil Gordon, in his DVD feature commentary (with Celebrity Poker Showdown co-host Dave Foley), notes that The Kid is doing what Phil Ivey sometimes does in big cash games: He plays marathons and wears his opponent down because he's in better physical condition.

If you haven't seen the movie and plan to, and don't want the ending spoiled, stop reading now!

The game resumes. Afternoon melts into night, and then into near dawn. The Kid is crushing The Man. Those watching smell blood, sensing that The Kid is moving in for the kill.



Before discussing the hand, it's important to consider that the game back then – and as presented in the film – was played a little differently than it is today. They played no-limit, but not table stakes. If you couldn't cover a bet, you had 30 minutes to raise the money or you forfeited your interest in the pot. Gordon observes that under those rules, Bill Gates would be the world's most successful poker player, because at opportune moments, he'd just make a bet that you couldn't cover. But those were the rules of that era and this contest.



Starting hands in five-card stud are of gigantic importance. As is the case in hold'em, when playing heads up, the range of starting hands can be very broad, with lots of room for creative play. The Kid is dealt the 10 up. The Man has the 8 up. The Kid opens for $500. The Man calls.



The dealer gives The Kid the 10, pairing his doorcard. A paired doorcard sets off alarm bells for today's seven-card stud players, as the possibility that their opponent has hit trips makes the price of proceeding risky. But the risk isn't the same in five-card stud, for obvious reasons. Sure, there's the potential for danger, but it's not the same as in seven-card stud.



The Man gets the Q. The Kid leads for $1,000. (What would a thousand bucks in that era be worth today?) The Man pops him another $1,000, making the bet $2,000. The Kid thinks for a minute. The railbirds speculate whether The Man has a queen in the hole. The Kid calls with authority, but not too quickly. If The Man holds another queen, he's just caught up. The Kid must hit his holecard, a 10, or a running pair to win the pot – if The Man doesn't improve.



The raise is an interesting play. It's great for drama in a movie, but does it make sense from the standpoint of strategy? Remember that if you catch right and your opponent makes a strong second-best hand, you cannot only bust him, but can send him out looking for the cash to cover.



The Kid's lead is a reasonable bet. When he's raised, he has to think he might be beat. Or, he might not. But if he is beat, he's drawing live, perhaps with an overcard kicker. His cautious but authoritative call is also reasonable. But what about The Man's raise? If he has a queen in the hole, he's putting on pressure with what figures to be the best hand. It's a reasonable value bet. But he is facing that paired doorcard, and there is danger in getting trapped by three tens.



And what if he doesn't have a queen in the hole?



I've heard some say that The Man's raise is a test bet, to define where he stands. I disagree with that thinking; either a call or a raise by The Kid could represent either a third 10 or a move (of which he is capable). Test bets lose significant value if your opponent is capable of misleading you, and therefore have a strong negative effect. This test has no value, unless it's inherent in some observation of The Kid's play that hasn't been shared with the viewers. These guys have played for two days, and have a feel for each other. The Man knows The Kid can play back at him, and is also capable of making a good fold.



The raise is right only if The Man thinks – as he assuredly must – that there's a reasonable chance he can get The Kid to fold two tens, especially two tens with an overcard to the queen. The raise has additional value in that he might get a fold on the next street if he catches an 8 and The Kid blanks off. The raise also has value in that he can catch a queen, or The Kid can improve and The Man could get to the end cheaper. The Kid calls and they take off another card.



Fourth street (the third upcard) is dealt – A to The Kid, the 10 to The Man. The Kid makes the biggest bet of the session – $3,000. The Kid has a 10 or an ace in the hole or he's making a move – and he doesn't seem the kind to overbet on his moves.



If The Man has a queen, placing the 10 outside the Kid's hand leaves four cards in the deck that could have him beat – three aces and a 10. If The Kid has any of those cards, The Man is drawing mighty thin. With The Kid's bet, there's $8,000 in the pot, laying $8,000 to $3,000, plus the fifth-street implied odds. If The Man has a queen in the hole, his hand has some shot at being good.



But what if The Man doesn't have a queen in the hole, but a diamond? He would indeed be beat, but most assuredly drawing live, and if he makes his hand, the implied odds of a big bet on fifth street would make a call correct. An alternate play for The Man would be to make a huge raise with the flush draw and again represent the two queens if he thought he could get The Kid to lay down his hand.



I don't know enough about the style of The Kid's play to determine if that play would be correct, but that option always should be a thought when you have a big draw against a made hand. Put enough pressure on your opponent to make him fold a better hand, but still have outs if you happen to get called. Probably because a raise had just failed to move The Kid, The Man doesn't choose that play. He calls The Kid's bet.



The last cards are dealt: The A goes to The Kid; he has aces up on board and may have filled. The 9 goes to The Man. Lady Fingers (Joan Blondell) calls the possible flush – and the possible straight flush. The railbirds buzz. The Kid thinks. (At this point, both The Kid and The Man change the order of their upcards, making the board easier to read – another convention for movie viewers, but absolutely against the rules!)



The Kid checks. The Man thinks a minute, reaches into his stack of bills, and drops $1,000 into the pot. This is a small wager into an $11,000 pot, one to invite a call. The Kid check-raises his whole stack – $3,500 more. The Man mulls a moment, pulls out his wallet, calls the $3,500, and drops five $1,000 bills into the pot. "Call – and raise you five more."



The Kid thinks, "I got him."



"I'll take your marker, Kid," The Man says.



"I can get the money," The Kid replies.



"I know you can," The Man says.



What a play! I raise you and I'll lend you the money to call. Any jack or diamond in the hole beats The Kid's board. The Man's most reasonable starting hands would have been an 8 or a good diamond, or perhaps as represented on third street, a queen. If The Kid's full – and it so happens that he holds aces full – only the J can beat his hand. Is The Man's offer to induce a call? Or, is it to induce a fold?



Given how the hand played, the jack would be an unusual holding. In reading the hand from the end to the starting perspective, he would have had to have made an unusual raise on third street with a three-flush. Part of the value of deception plays is that your opponents may make errors later in the hand or session that they would not have made had they not seen the play. In no-limit, those extra bets can be of enormous value. But this game was never about the money. If The Kid wins, he becomes The Man; The Man becomes just Lancey, the old guy who used to be The Man.



That changes the values.



The Kid watches Lancey's face for a second and calls.



Lancey turns over the J. He's The Man.



The Kid – well, he's just a kid.



I've heard this hand argued for decades. Yes, it was played strangely and made for big screen drama. Was it played correctly? That depends. Did The Man think he could knock The Kid off his two tens on third street? If he did think that, obviously he was wrong. Would The Kid have laid it down without an overcard to the queen? I don't know! Did The Man make a deception play to throw The Kid off? In hindsight, it paid off, as many incorrect plays do. The Man still had to make a hand, and The Kid still had to make a hand that was good enough to give him action. The combination of those two events is a long shot, indeed, and risking the extra $1,000, a huge bet in the game they were playing, seems to be a very high price to pay!



If you put any of the world's top players in either The Kid's chair or The Man's, they might play this hand under these rules and these circumstances just this way. I'm not saying they would, but they might. I wouldn't – but that might be why I'm not The Man! When what's on the line is who gets to be The Man, to many of the game's top guns, that's worth more than the money.

Roy Cooke played winning professional poker for more than 16 years. He is a successful real estate broker/salesperson in Las Vegas. His books are available at www.conjelco.com. His longtime collaborator, John Bond, is a free-lance writer in South Florida.