By: The Grinder
Last week, I watched Deal –a 2008 poker movie in which Alex Stillman (played by Bret Harrison) ends up playing heads up with his mentor and friend Tommy Vinson (played by Burt Reynolds) at the WPT championship main event. 
Stillman, 21, lays down the winning hand to let Vinson, the aging veteran and former poker pro, fulfill his longstanding dream of winning a main event. This reminded me of a movie I watched long ago with a similar finish.
The movie was Lucky You, where Eric Bana’s character Huck Cheever lays down the winning hand against his dad L.C.Cheever, played by the great Robert Duvall. This is more like slowing down to let the guy behind you win the 100 metres at the quadrennial Olympics, after having waited to compete all your life. It’s never going to occur in real life, and by that I mean, you’re never going to see a young gun sacrifice his first win to let an old timer win.
Would you see a vice versa situation, though? Do you think that in the year 2040, a 76-year-old Phil Hellmuth, with 25 WSOP bracelets would let a young kid who is playing for a stem cell research charity in an attempt to save his paralyzed dad win? Nope. Not a chance. As extreme as that situation sounded to you, it was just to hint at a simple hard fact in poker—nobody lets anybody win. Unless of course, it’s one of those guys who tilted and lost everything to his nemesis at the table, and then later told his buddy he let him win. He is lying. So don’t let the director of Lucky You or Deal fool you into believing in this soft spot in humankind, rather pokerkind. There is none. Nobody’s going to let you win, and you damn sure better not let anyone else win in this game.
Good Luck!
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