Casino Royale is recognised as one of the best movies of the noughties and a highlight for many was the tension-filled poker scenes in which James Bond goes up against villain, Le Chiffre.
In order to try and bring down a mysterious terror organisation, Bond must take part in a poker tournament at the Casino Royale in Montenegro. He is initially eliminated early but buys back in and wins the game in a showdown with Le Chiffre and two other players in a final four.
Bond, clearly, has poker skills within the film series, but the same can't be said for actor Daniel Craig, as Le Chiffre actor Mads Mikkelsen has revealed that 007 himself was the only participant at the table who didn't actually know how to play!
“Everybody knew how to play poker around that table except for one: Daniel," the Danish actor told GQ.
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"He had no clue. He sucked. It was the worst thing ever that he of all people had to beat me and win all my money. It was like, ‘this is wrong.’ But I got him back with the rope, so that’s good.
As an experienced poker player, Mikkelsen wasn't enamoured by the fact that Casino Royale displayed a string of highly unlikely hand exchanges in order to cater to an uninitiated audience.
"I’ve played a lot of poker since I was a kid, so the game was not new to me,” he explained.
"The hands we are playing are insane. So if you’re a poker player, you go ‘what?’. We just wanted to make the nature of the betting believable. But the hands obviously had to be easily recognizable for an audience that doesn’t play poker, so they were quite crazy hands.”
For the winning hand, Bond defeats Le Chiffre with a straight flush, four to eight of Spades.
Related Movie
Casino Royale
Crime
2006 • 144 minutes
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