jogo bacará-rapant-mcelroy.com

The script for Casino Royale worried director Martin Campbell. This was his second reboot of the James Bond franchise, and 🌟 on the cusp of production, he realized the movie’s centerpiece — a showdown between 007 and the blood-eyed villain Le 🌟 Chiffre — took place around a quiet poker table. Loosely adapting Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel of the same name, screenwriters 🌟 Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and Paul Haggis had replaced the author’s original game of baccarat with three big rounds of 🌟 Texas hold’em. The card game, they believed, made for better drama — it was known more widely, required more skill 🌟 and delivered higher stakes. But for Campbell, who had never picked up a deck, it looked like a snooze.

“There was 🌟 a lot of [card] playing in it,” he tells Polygon. “It was the thing I sweated on more than anything 🌟 else.”

In 1995, Campbell introduced Pierce Brosnan as Bond with Goldeneye, which moved on from Timothy Dalton’s gritty take into a 🌟 more fantastical realm. Over the next three movies, the stories became excessively kitschy. By the time Brosnan finished 2002’s Die 🌟 Another Day, driving invisible cars through ice palaces, Bond producers knew the franchise had shifted into self-parody. “They wanted to 🌟 bring it back to earth,” Campbell says. “When I came on board, I felt the same way. I felt the 🌟 whole thing needed to have its feet well and truly on the ground.”

That meant a contemporary action movie — tougher, 🌟 grimmer, less reliant on CGI, and more devoted to realism. When Daniel Craig signed on to embody the new direction, 🌟 he embraced the idea of portraying a vulnerable hero. His Bond was brazen, reckless, emotionally-charged. He made mistakes, but looked 🌟 good (if occasionally bruised) making them. It was the perfect kind of character to get involved in a high-tension poker 🌟 game. Still, Campbell thought, how would he animate this green-felted drama?

“It was difficult to think how you keep the audience 🌟 engaged in those card games,” the movie’s editor Stuart Baird says. “Everybody was terribly worried that people would be bored 🌟 with it.”

Campbell cracked it. The roughly 30-minute casino sequence plays as a masterful microcosm of the movie — it has 🌟 its own narrative arc, interspersed with punctuations of combat and death-defying shocks, and shows off Bond’s mental prowess and mortality. 🌟 More importantly, it proved Craig capable of daredevil thrills and martini-sipping refinement, and leveraged his skills into one of the 🌟 best depictions of poker in movie history. “I think the sequence was pretty convincing,” Campbell says. “What you realize is, 🌟 it’s not just the card games — it’s the stakes. It’s also two guys eye-fucking one another, basically. That was 🌟 the secret.”

Pulling it off, however, took weeks of research, tight editing and, crucially, a devotion to poker authenticity.

Before he began 🌟 shooting Casino Royale in Prague, Campbell devoured gambling classics like The Cincinnati Kid and 5 Card Stud. He had to 🌟 understand the game on a molecular level and leaned on veteran producer Michael G. Wilson, who also served as an 🌟 informal poker consultant, to teach him the ins and outs.

Then there was the tactical filming strategy. Baird, who had edited 🌟 Richard Donner’s 1994 western comedy Maverick, had a few tips. While on that movie’s set, Baird remembered the way Donner 🌟 had chosen to shoot Mel Gibson and how he built tension for the movie’s climactic scene. “He said shoot everything 🌟 you can possibly think of, especially eyes, looks, close-ups,” Baird recalls. “I told Martin to do the same: just shoot 🌟 the hell out of everything that you possibly can.”

Baird’s suggestion fit Campbell’s action-oriented background seamlessly. In one of the movie’s 🌟 propulsive opening scenes, Bond chases a bomb-maker throughout a construction site in Madagascar. It’s a mesmerizing parkour pursuit, and Campbell 🌟 captures the pair’s daredevilish, aerial gymnastics from every angle. “He’s a bull in the china shop,” Campbell says of Bond. 🌟 “He just hurls himself no matter what the dangers are, he’s not really thinking.” The kinetic filmmaking — the quick 🌟 cutting and numerous perspectives — along with 007’s impulsive style gave the director a blueprint for bringing the staid poker 🌟 scenes to similar life.

To achieve the subtleties of the game, the production enlisted Tom Sambrook as a formal poker consultant. 🌟 While at drama school in his 20s, he’d started playing poker religiously, eventually becoming a professional at the Victoria Casino 🌟 in London. In 2002, he won the European Poker Championship, and over the next three years, as the game migrated 🌟 online, Sambrook made a living beating novices on the internet. Then, in 2005, a brief came through his actors’ agency 🌟 asking for someone to help direct a poker tournament in Europe. “It wasn’t really clear what it was,” Sambrook says. 🌟 “I went up for it, and only then, when they shipped me out to Prague, where I met Michael Wilson, 🌟 did I realize it was a Bond gig.”

As Campbell and his crew built and prepared their makeshift casino, a set 🌟 that would give the director space to put the camera anywhere he’d like, Sambrook began training multiple actors (some for 🌟 the main tournament, others for the movie’s earlier games) to transform them into legit-looking players. He set up small tables 🌟 and played multiple hands, instructing throughout the process. “I would get them for 15-20 minutes in a room in a 🌟 basement at Barrandov [Studios], where they’d set up a poker table,” he says. “I’d just basically tell them what the 🌟 absolute bare minimum was that they needed to know to look like they had been playing this game.”

Fundamentally, Sambrook explains, 🌟 veteran poker players operate with an absolute economy — they handle their cards, stack their chips and move their eyes 🌟 in small, efficient manners. With such a big pot on the line, displaying those subtle virtues was critical. “There’s none 🌟 of these grand movements, nothing extravagant,” Sambrook says. “It looks weird if you arrive at the poker table with loads 🌟 of attitude but not much going on behind it.” He impressed upon actors to lose clichés and replace them with 🌟 a genuine decision-making process. He lectured them about the aerodynamics of tossing chips and the importance of keeping cards flat 🌟 on the table. Effectively, all the “stuff that sticks out like a sore thumb if you don’t [play a lot],” 🌟 he says.

To get the crew involved, Wilson also staked a friendly game during the production’s off-hours to teach the rules 🌟 and regulations. Some cast members even went to casinos in Prague to watch the natural flow of professionals. “I’m a 🌟 Scotch Presbyterian — I hate gambling,” Baird admits. “I think Daniel Craig won [our game]. I lost after about 15 🌟 minutes.” Adding another layer of authenticity to the movie, Campbell cast Andreas Daniel, an Austrian casino inspector who “could do 🌟 all the tricks,” to be the movie’s official dealer. “I really was lucky,” Daniel says. “My experience as a dealer 🌟 helped a lot.”

By the time shooting began in Karlovy Vary, the cast — including Mads Mikkelsen and Jeffrey Wright — 🌟 had become addicted to poker. “We’d be playing games constantly between takes,” Sambrook laughs. “It got confusing, because I’d been 🌟 trying to deal three or four different games with different people in it, and keep track of their stacks, and 🌟 I’m trying to remember whose stack is whose.” Though Sambrook had taught Mikkelsen to twirl chips around his finger and 🌟 look like a professional, the Danish actor and his peers couldn’t hide their amateurish skills. “They’re paid good per diems,” 🌟 Sambrook says. “I saw it as their privilege to learn by paying me this money.”

The aesthetic goal, of course, had 🌟 been achieved. For the next nine days, Campbell had a cast of professional-looking poker players — not to mention dealers, 🌟 bankers and observers — at his disposal. “I thought they were very convincing,” Campbell says, before acknowledging the challenge of 🌟 shooting it all. “It was [going to be] a mathematical exercise.”

Although Casino Royale set up shop in Prague, the actual 🌟 poker sequence occurs at a Montenegro hotel. Inside, Bond has been staked by MI6 to play in an international hold’em-style 🌟 poker game hosted by Mikkelsen’s LeChiffre. The movie’s villain hopes the 10-person,R$130 million game will recoup his recent financial losses 🌟 and appease his angry clients, believed to be global terrorists. Though Bond’s participation means potentially funding criminals, he’s Britain’s best 🌟 shot to bankrupt LeChiffre and end his underground transactions.

Ultimately, only three hands matter in Casino Royale, and they all feature 🌟 showdowns between Bond and LeChiffre, providing a three-act structure to the heart of the movie. The first watches Bond muck 🌟 his cards and intentionally lose to discover LeChiffre’s tell; the second watches LeChiffre dupe Bond and eliminate him from the 🌟 table with quad jacks; and the third watches Bond return to the tournament to redeem himself with a straight flush. 🌟 In between, Bond spends a drink break by suffocating two assassins in a stairwell and, at a later intermission, survives 🌟 a poisoned drink after Vesper (Eva Green), his British accomplice, defibrillates him with his life hanging in the balance.

“This is 🌟 sort of Bond before he becomes Bond, thinking with his heart instead of his head,” Campbell says. “From a dramatic 🌟 point of view, each of the card games has a good climax [...] The point was you would never play 🌟 it as one long, single game ... I think it would have tested the audience’s patience.”

To capture the intensity of 🌟 each hand, Campbell followed Baird’s early advice. He and his assistant director mapped out camera placements hours before action was 🌟 called, eventually grabbing numerous angles and reactions in master shots and close-ups. “You’re changing the variety so you maintain the 🌟 interest from an audience point of view,” Baird says. Campbell also had to be aware of continuity, and used crew 🌟 members to fill in for players between takes so he could determine his next shot. “When I called cut, you 🌟 would have to go back to a certain point, and everybody’s chips had to be put back, all the cards 🌟 had to be relayed,” he says. With so many players and cross-cuts, he made it a priority to establish the 🌟 geography of the table. “It’s a film-school exercise to put 10 people around a table all looking at one another, 🌟 giving a lesson in eye-lines and the way they’re reacting to one another. You just slog through it.”

Baird watched the 🌟 dailies on set and cut together the scenes in real time, making sure the poker kept a swift rhythm. As 🌟 a way to narrate and explain the game, Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini), Bond’s contact, watches with Vesper from afar and explains 🌟 the hands, the odds and the motivations of each player. For those unfamiliar with the game and the implications of 🌟 a bet, check or call, his commentary became a useful guide. “You have to get shots of observers watching them, 🌟 particularly Vesper and Mathis,” says Campbell, applauding Baird’s economic choices. “You really have to have the material to be able 🌟 to control the pace of the edit.”

From the script alone, Sambrook knew that Purvis, Wade and Haggis had “clearly played 🌟 poker” and that the cards built the drama effectively. But the characters’ betting strategy, specifically when LeChiffre eliminates Bond from 🌟 the table, had flaws. In the original script, Bond moves all-in once he sees LeChiffre’s tell. In actuality, Sambrook recognized, 🌟 Bond would have teased his opponent until the last bet, trying to coax more chips, if he really thought he 🌟 was bluffing. “That had to change,” Sambrook says. “I put in [the script] that Bond does the teaser re-raise, inducing 🌟 the big all-in. It took maybe six weeks to get that up to Martin Campbell [...] I said, ‘You’ve got 🌟 to read this,’ because most people won’t know or care, but there will be hardcore poker players that will just 🌟 say, ‘They’ve done it again. Why can’t they get this stuff right?’”

In the game’s final hand, four competitors remain. After 🌟 numerous checks around the table, the dealer places down a river card, providing a variety of flush and full-house opportunities. 🌟 Two opponents go all-in, and after a long stare-down with LeChiffre, “the Mexican standoff,” Campbell suggests, Bond risks his entire 🌟 chip pile, too. The villain has the best full-house combination, and takes a chance on his odds, pushing his stack 🌟 into the middle of the table. After each player reveals his cards, Bond pauses dramatically and then flips over a 🌟 five and seven of spades, completing an unlikely straight flush and winning the tournament.

The victory is emblematic of the new 🌟 Bond — he’s not flashy or obvious. “He wins with an inconspicuous straight flush, rather than the royal flush,” Sambrook 🌟 says. Over the nearly 15 years since the movie’s release, the improbability of each player’s decision to risk everything has 🌟 been debated over Reddit and by other poker players. But Sambrook, who advised Campbell on the sequencing of bets and 🌟 bluffs, stands by the improbable scenario as a highly enjoyable cinematic pay-off.

“It’s not representative of an average hand. But the 🌟 thing about hold’em is it does create these factories of madness,” the poker consultant says. “That’s why I love the 🌟 game. It creates this very close, explosive situation. Once you’ve got a board with cards that close together, everyone’s thinking 🌟 about the house, everyone’s thinking about the flush, everyone’s thinking about the straight. And in there is the sick feeling, 🌟 Christ, does one of these guys have a straight flush?”

Campbell does concede one error at the end of the sequence. 🌟 Before Bond leaves the table, he slides a plastic chip worthR$500,000 over to the dealer as a courtesy tip. It’s 🌟 a seemingly nice gesture, but the chip isn’t worth anything outside the game’s context. “I always laugh at the end 🌟 when Bond just flips him half a million,” Campbell says. “It was just amusing to me — it’s not Bond’s 🌟 money.”

Midway through shooting the poker sequence, Campbell knocked out the game room’s wall and wheeled in a crane. Unsure if 🌟 he needed to convey big sweeping transitions into the movie to indicate the passage of time, the director set up 🌟 a time-lapse camera above the table. But after looking at the footage, Baird knew it would eliminate the movie’s spark. 🌟 “It would have been really boring if we had done all those dissolves,” he says. “That’s not interesting.”

The director agreed, 🌟 instead relying on his most valuable asset to carry the audience to its high-rolling finale: The witty banter, volatile interruptions, 🌟 and contemplative pauses of Daniel Craig. Initially second-guessed and criticized by dubious Bond fans when he signed onto the production, 🌟 Craig redefined the role by exposing its humanity. On the brink of death multiple times, he wears his bruises and 🌟 blood stains like a badge of honor, and then dispenses his brutality at the table, sliding into a smooth-talking, card-playing 🌟 competitor to match Mikkelsen’s commanding presence.

It’s a complex transition required for such an impenetrable, legendary character, and Craig showcases his 🌟 deft ability, quite literally, in spades. “He looked like a guy who had been in the special forces rather than 🌟 the commander of a boat,” Baird says. “And that ruggedness, that sense of edginess, and lack of comfort — he 🌟 carried them off very well.”

As a consequence, the game itself — its authenticity and attention to detail — instantly elevated 🌟 Casino Royale into poker movie canon. Though primarily an action director, Campbell treated the material with a seriousness and sophistication 🌟 that set the tone for the rest of the Craig era. He made poker accessible and, in effect, riveting, helping 🌟 the movie earnR$606 million at the global box office. “I think it’s a combination of everything,” Campbell says. “We achieved 🌟 what we set out to do, which was reboot the franchise into a much more contemporary, more realistic way.”

As Sambrook 🌟 can attest, the movie’s 2006 release also capitalized on poker’s soaring, televised popularity at the time. It didn’t take long 🌟 for experts to saturate online games, a consequence that pushed him back into academics. Still, he’ll always be appreciative of 🌟 his experience playing with Craig and Mikkelsen and making extra scratch from his other temporary apprentices — one of whom, 🌟 the British actor Ade, shared his flight home, eager to keep his rare poker experience alive just a little longer.

“I 🌟 played my last game literally as the wheels of the plane hit the tarmac in Heathrow,” Sambrook says. “I won 🌟 with King-high, it was just fantastic.”

Casino Royale is currently streaming on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu

vocational rehabilitation success stories.