The Measure of a Man is the best TNG episode, but there is a glaring flaw in it

[Mojochi]

In Time's Arrow he probably stacked the deck.

That would actually require just as much if not more deceptive ability to pull off, against card sharks, than bluffing. They already think he's weird. I doubt he could even shuffle/deal his normal way without drawing suspicion. He'd have to be incredibly skillful at hustling, to rig an old west poker game without guns coming out

 

[JirinPanthosa]

That would actually require just as much if not more deceptive ability to pull off, against card sharks, than bluffing. They already think he's weird. I doubt he could even shuffle/deal his normal way without drawing suspicion. He'd have to be incredibly skillful at hustling, to rig an old west poker game without guns coming out

Worked in Cause And Effect. As long as he's smart enough to be subtle. Like, give himself the best hand with two pair, not with a straight flush.

 

[Mojochi]

Worked in Cause And Effect. As long as he's smart enough to be subtle. Like, give himself the best hand with two pair, not with a straight flush.

No it didn't lol. In fact, that was the episode I was thinking of. His own shipmates question how fair his deal is, & he has to reassure them, which of course they accept (Worf somewhat begrudgingly) because they are his friends, but such wouldn't be the case in a card shark game. He'd have to be way better at stacking than we've ever seen him be at dealing, convincingly misdirecting his misdeed

 

[Nebusj]

That would actually require just as much if not more deceptive ability to pull off, against card sharks, than bluffing. They already think he's weird. I doubt he could even shuffle/deal his normal way without drawing suspicion. He'd have to be incredibly skillful at hustling, to rig an old west poker game without guns coming out

This causes me to consider a minor practical point regarding the 'Time's Arrow' poker games. The rules of poker, like all games, evolve. I had once but lost a review of how the various hands, and their relative values, developed over time. Granted that the ordering of poker hands seems pretty stable now (so far as I know), is it plausible they'll go another four hundred years without something changing? A new hand becoming a fashionable high-value hand? I suppose it's possible Data could have, among all the other things, an estimate of what the precise differences are between the poker he's always played and the poker of the Pacific Coast in the early 1890s, but then we're just lucky he didn't stumble into a faro game instead.