Poker on the Enterprise

I'm doing a complete run through TNG and am now one disk into season 2, where we see the first instance of the Enterprise crew playing poker. ("The Measure of a Man") Throughout the series, we see the poker game re-appear many times as a vehicle for allowing some casual conversation between the officers (never Picard) and to get some insight into their minds. The producers did not have a very good poker consultant, because the game play in this first game was HORRIBLE. Data, while an android and not well-versed in the art of bluffing, certainly would have programmed himself with enough essential knowledge of the game that he would not fold three queens in a 5-card stud game to a possible flush based on a 10 unit raise when there were about 85 units in the pot. (Not dollars, of course, since money doesn't exist on the Enterprise, so one wonders what exactly they were wagering?) Riker has four hearts on the felt. Data has the queen of hearts in the hole, leaving 8 hearts in the deck, less the number of hearts already exposed on the table (we never see the cards of the other players), leaving Riker with at best a 20% chance of having a flush, while Data beats any other hand Riker could have, while Data's call represents only about 14% of the pot. Mathematically, it's an absolute call, and by any poker player's standards, it's a never-fold situation. It would have been much better if Riker had bet 100 units into the 85-unit pot, making Data's decision much harder (assuming that the units had any meaning).

Regardless of this example of bad poker, I always enjoyed the scenes around the poker table, where Worf would growl at a player taking too long to think, and where Data would make his slightly off-point observations. It was a good device for the writers to use. Any other comments, memories, or objections to the recurring poker game theme in TNG?

 

We can see a poker game scenes ad nauseam in Cause and Effect. I'd like to have seen a final scene with Captain Bateson being invited to the game.....

 

He did participate once.

 

Really? I don't recall Picard ever participating in the poker game. I'll be on the lookout for that!

 

You'll be looking for quite awhile if you're only at the start of S2.

 

It will take until

Spoiler: Picard Poker

the very last episode

 

Spoiler: “Picard Poker”

Might as well say the very last minute of TV TNG.

 

Picard was always more of a dom-jot player. He put his whole heart into the game.

 

"Put on your best poker face, Number One" - Picard, The Enemy

All the rest of those people are chumps compared to the high stakes poker Picard plays, baby. It's Guinan I kind of wished had showed up to a game at least once. It's also pretty sad O'Brien only played one game

But while I enjoy the poker scenes, it always kind of made me scoff, since not only are they almost never playing for any real stakes but 3 of the most regular players constantly had to play on an honor system as well. There's no way Data can't determine what every player is holding, & both Troi & Geordi admittedly have the ability to tell when people are lying or bluffing

 

He took part once and there's also a scene where Picard arrives to talk with the players while they're playing poker.

 

We never actually see him play. We would finally see him sit down to play in the very last scene of AGT...

 

So what's everyone's take on Data outmatching the card sharks in 19th Century San Francisco, during Time's Arrow?

As far as I can tell, the experience he's gained in poker playing among the crew is hardly enough to have made him some master card player. Most of the time he barely seems like a competent player at all, & while he is shown to improve quite a lot over the stretch of the show, the idea that he could take down professional card sharks is never really even suggested

So by my thinking there's only 2 possibilities. #1, either the poker they play on the ship is really advanced compared to the poker Joe Falling Hawk & Frederick LaRouque play (Which doesn't seem likely), or the more plausible explanation is that once Data realized that his opponents were coordinating a scam on him, he felt justified in cheating on them back, which is something he doesn't do with his comrades. So he probably used his tremendous android skills to gain advantage &/or fix the game, without them knowing

 

That's why I said he arrives to talk with the players while they're playing.

 

My post was in response to that part of the first quote.... it implies he was seen playing poker prior to AGT

 

I didn't mean we saw Picard playing poker before 'All Good Things...'.

He took part once in AGT and came to watch one game earlier in the series.

 

Actually, if you are referring to the episode "Allegiance", that was rePlicard who talked to Geordi. So he never actually stopped in before.

 

In TNG, poker skill is always represented by making a lot of stone cold bluffs and being just that insightful to tell when everyone else is doing it.

 

No. He didn't

 

Do you mean what happened in 'Allegiance'?
Picard or something that looked a lot like him came to watch a game once.

 

It wasn't Picard. It was one of those aliens studying them.

 

Wesley, who has 3 of a kind showing, bets, Shelby calls, then Riker raises. Wesley folds and Shelby says, "I only have two pair, but I have to see what you have." She calls.
Shelby must be one of the worst poker players of all time to call Wesley's original bet when he had 3 of a kind showing and she only had 2 pair.

 

In a real (friendly) poker game, someone would tell her that three of a kind beats two pair -- on the other hand, it's a fantastic bluff if she really has a full house and is trying to get Riker to call or raise with a straight or a flush.

 

Early in season three, an ambassador comes on the ship and comments that Riker has a good poker face. Riker responds, "Poker? Is that some kind of game?" Picard intercedes and says that Riker teaches master classes on poker (lest the ambassador end up getting fleeced).

 

Only if the person in question was a beginner.

I never caught that little detail that Shelby should have known she's beat, but maybe like Riker she felt she could fold Wesley.

Anyway the TNG writers are not poker experts. They show you the popular image of poker where it's all about bold bluffing rather than math.