James Bond Gambling
I am still capable of posting things other than chronicling my agony over what happened with Christmas. Really.
I’m reading “Casino Royale”, the first James Bond book. I’ve read it before, but that was ages ago–back in high school, probably–and I don’t remember much of it. Here’s my issue with it so far. James Bond is being set up for a big gambling tournament against this bad guy, with the idea that he’ll bankrupt the bad guy and discredit his organization. Now, since James Bond is the hero, I’m guessing that he’s going to win the big tournament. But the problem is, the game they’re playing for the big tournament is baccarat. Baccarat, as I understand it, is really a game of luck–boiled down to its essence, it’s not much different from War, with both players getting one card and the higher card winning. There’s no bluffing, and the only decisions to be made are how much money to bet. So how heroic is it for James Bond to beat the bad guy by sheer luck? That’s kind of lame, really.
In the movie, they wisely changed the game to poker, which has a much stronger component of skill.
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