Bluff, Re-Bluff, Re-Re-Bluff, Re-Re-Re-Bluff… All In!īriefly, Ivey and Jackson are heads-up for the title.
What does this have to do with poker? Well, let me remind you of a great televised hand of poker played between Phil Ivey and Paul Jackson at the 2005 Monte Carlo Millions. Chicken had something of a movie revival some 30 years ago, with a playful scene in Footloose oddly involving slow-moving tractors, and a deadly serious one in The Hunt for Red October using submarines. Thereafter, the game became a cliché in 1950s and 1960s films about teenagers gone bad.
The American movie-watching public was first introduced to Chicken in the classic film Rebel Without a Cause (1955), though it was a variation that involved driving toward the edge of a cliff. The first one to lose his nerve and turn away to avoid a collision is declared the chicken, and loses whatever was at stake. One game that has perhaps has not been considered enough for what it reveals about poker is the game of “Chicken.” Two contestants drive directly at each other at high speed on a narrow, isolated road. Many writers have expounded on poker enlightenment from comparisons with chess, rock-paper-scissors, roulette, martial-arts matches, and so on. There is much to be learned about poker from studying other games.
