Movie Villains Who Use Poker to Intimidate Their Opponents

In Rounders, Teddy KGB eats Oreo cookies at the table, splashes his chips into the pot, and taunts the man across from him in a Russian accent thick enough that a Rolling Stone critic gave up trying to transcribe it. The man across from him is Mike McDermott, who lost his entire $30,000 bankroll to KGB in a single hand earlier in the film. KGB also runs the underground club where the game takes place, so he controls the dealer and the exit.

William Jefferson Slade in The Cincinnati Kid (1965)

Rip Torn plays Slade, a rich and corrupt New Orleans man in the 1930s who loses $6,000 to the veteran Lancey Howard in a 30-hour game of five-card stud. He takes the loss personally and decides to fix the next big game, between Howard and the young player known as the Kid, in the Kid’s favor.

Shooter, the dealer, played by Karl Malden, has spent 25 years building a reputation for honesty, and Slade first offers him the proceeds of a $25,000 bet to cheat. When Shooter refuses, Slade calls in $12,000 of Shooter’s markers and threatens to reveal damaging information about his wife, Melba. Shooter gives in.

The Kid notices the help, has Shooter replaced by the relief dealer, Lady Fingers, and then loses the last hand anyway, a full house of aces over tens against Howard’s queen-high straight flush. Slade does all of this away from the table, through the one person who handles every card.

Doyle Lonnegan in The Sting (1973)

Robert Shaw plays Lonnegan, a New York racketeer who hosts a private high-stakes game aboard the 20th Century Limited and cheats in it as a matter of routine. He has a deck prepared so that his opponent receives four of a kind in threes, a hand almost anyone would bet heavily on, while Lonnegan holds four of a kind in nines.

Paul Newman’s Henry Gondorff sits down posing as a loud Chicago bookie named Shaw. He has been warned that Lonnegan rigs a low four of a kind for the victim, so when the threes arrive he switches in cards of his own and shows four of a kind in jacks. Lonnegan loses $15,000 he cannot pay on the spot, because the con team had his wallet lifted before the game.

The film establishes Lonnegan’s threat before the game. His men have already killed Luther Coleman, the street grifter who robbed one of his couriers, and the audience already knows what Lonnegan does to people who cost him money.

Tommy Korman in Honeymoon in Vegas (1992)

James Caan plays Korman, a wealthy professional gambler who sees Betsy, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, in Las Vegas and notices that she looks like his late wife. He arranges a crooked game for her fiancé, Jack, played by Nicolas Cage, with the college basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian among the other players.

Jack is dealt a straight flush, 7 through jack of clubs, and borrows $65,000 to stay in the hand. Korman shows a higher straight flush, 8 through queen of hearts. He then offers to erase the debt if Betsy spends the weekend with him. Andrew Bergman’s Honeymoon in Vegas plays the setup for comedy, and Korman’s plan is a rigged hand that Jack feels certain about, followed by a debt he can turn into leverage.

Angel in Maverick (1994)

Alfred Molina plays Angel, an ill-tempered gambler who loses to Bret Maverick in the town of Crystal River early in the film. Angel’s temper is the first thing the audience learns about him, and the second is that he follows it up with violence.

The final act is a winner-take-all tournament of five-card draw poker aboard the paddle steamer Lauren Belle, with a $25,000 entry fee and $500,000 in prize money. Before it starts, Angel receives a telegram telling him to keep Maverick away from the game. His men leave Maverick hanging from a tree over a nest of rattlesnakes, and later someone locks Maverick in his cabin to force a forfeit.

Angel reaches the final table anyway and has the dealer working for him, bottom-dealing cards in his favor. Maverick notices and, instead of asking for a new dealer, has Angel deal him one card from the top of the deck. The request puts the cheat in a position where he has to deal honestly in front of everyone.

Teddy KGB in Rounders (1998)

John Malkovich plays KGB, a Russian mobster who runs an underground Texas hold ’em game in New York. KGB also pressures Mike outside the club. A pimp named Grama, who turns out to work for KGB, buys up a $25,000 debt owed by Mike’s friend Worm, and that debt becomes the reason Mike has to return to KGB’s table.

Mike challenges him to a heads-up no-limit game and wins $20,000 in the first session. As Mike gets up to leave, KGB taunts him that he is only taking home money he won from KGB before. Mike stays. He later spots KGB’s tell, a habit involving the cookies, and folds a big hand at the right moment. KGB goes on tilt, and in the final hand Mike traps him with a straight and lets him bet everything.

Le Chiffre in Casino Royale (2006)

Mads Mikkelsen plays Le Chiffre, a private banker who finances terrorism and likes to show off his mathematical ability at cards. He has hemolacria, a condition that makes him cry blood from a damaged vessel in his left eye, and he carries a platinum-plated inhaler to the table. Both details are visible to every opponent, and both make him look like a man who is unaffected by what would alarm anyone else.

He organizes a Texas hold ’em tournament at the Casino Royale in Montenegro, with 10 players, a $10 million entry and $5 million rebuys, winner-take-all. The final pot is $115 million.

Le Chiffre had used a client’s funds to short the stock of the aerospace company Skyfleet ahead of a planned bombing, and when Bond stopped the attack the position lost more than $100 million of money that belonged to other people. During the game, Le Chiffre’s girlfriend Valenka poisons Bond’s drink.

The intimidation fails on Bond, who turns the bleeding eye into a joke at Le Chiffre’s expense. Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel gave the character a benzedrine inhaler, an amphetamine decongestant sold without a prescription at the time, and the 2006 film kept the habit and changed the drug.

The Oreo Tell

KGB meant the cookies as part of the performance, one more way to show Mike who controlled the game. They are also the detail Mike reads to fold at the right moment and to set up the final trap, so the prop KGB used to intimidate is the one that cost him the match. Mike’s winning hand is a straight, and KGB puts everything in against it after a night in which Mike has been watching what KGB does with his hands.