thanks.
don't seem like he'd bet out without something better than the sixes, does it? cost me every cent i've won since yesterday afternoon. but i tell you, i got this stubborn streak. call the ninety-four dollars.
oh, i'm not claiming anything that fine. just enough to beat the pair of sixes.
you better watch those loose lips of yours, you want to have any teeth left behind them -- buster.
i called you on account of i didn't think you had another pair or another six and i know a punk like you would get greedy and try and buy the last hand.
drop it.
hey!
hey, hoban.
business opportunity come along. something too good to pass up.
yeah, did okay. except i almost had it took back.
i got to build my stake, aren't enough chances in this town to let one go.
for nickels and dimes.  thing is i've about used up st. louis.
been thinking about miami. there's nothing to keep me here.
yeah? the man himself, here in st. louis -- i might just stick around shooter.
i ain't exactly been hiding it.
well i got to know.
sometime or other we got to find out how much juice we got.
you ever sit down with him?
well, what happened?
you lost.
i heard about him.
what happened?
yeah?
you think i'm ready?
oh.
no, i ain't. i can't.
i don't figure to take him right away. but if i can hang in there long enough, i can outlast him. if i can outlast him, i got a chance. you admit that, don't you, that i got a chance?
did you think you were ready when you sat down with whistling sam magee?
well, i don't think i'm just a cocky square with a fair hand with cards. i got something.
okay. and i ain't saying that you was either when you sat down with whistling sam magee.
well, would you say if i got any chance at all?
but then everybody'd see he wasn't right and it wouldn't prove nothing. listen, we got to have it understood. if he's not right, we call it off till he is.
i got to. you said yourself i got to. i'm overdue.
i gotta find out.
i wish you would, shooter man.
hey, what if he turns me down?
you think he knows i'm around?
i wouldn't want to wait around too long. i want to get in and get it over with.
oh, well, if he's tooling a dollar, i can understand that. sure.
close to three grand.
well, school's out. i damn sure don't want no lessons. i want everything he's got.
no, i won't be ready. not for a while.
might even turn out we don't go.
yeah, i'm feeling a little different.
it's all right. you don't have to act like a cat. you're not bothering me.
no. i'm overtired, that's why i can't sleep. why can't you sleep?
'kay. can't hurt to try it.
what did you do with yourself this time?
in french?
sure. majored in man-eating.
i didn't know you ran with the shooter's woman.
and been around more. a lot more. what was the movie like?
american pictures.
what was it about?
nothing weird about that.
that don't make much sense.
including the husbands and fathers? don't they suspect?
then they got their heads screwed on straight. honor's just an idea. you can't see or feel it and you can't eat it and you sure as hell can't get any mileage on it.
have a drink with us?
in my life?
i slept okay.
no i don't mind -- what she was talking about, shooter's woman -- i'm going up against a big game soon.
yes.
why? what's the matter?
thought what?
i wouldn't be able to spare you much change.
would a hundred fish do it? for the bus and something nice to bring your mama?
when would you want to go?
unless what?
do you want to? would you like it?
you want dessert?
coffee?
neither do i.
you still haven't said it.
if you're coming back.
what's to see?
oh.
promise?
oh, i see.
i don't think that's why you're going -- because you like it so much better in the country.
well, i've got that big game.
yes. if i won, there would be a lot of money.
i'm sorry.
i'll go down to the bus with you.
i'll go down with you.
yeah?
sure.
hell, it's the only thing i know how to do. what else is there for a guy never finished school? college graduates are walking the streets looking for jobs -- trained people, engineers, scientists!
when you're the man, you don't have to hustle -- when you're the man, the best, the big money comes around on their knees just beggin' to hustle you. i'm not goin' to quit. i'm goin' to win.
well you see how it is.
christian, you aren't doing this to be off my back, in case i lose?
and this just helped you decide.
then don't go.
i wish it could be more.
i don't guess i will either.
if i win, it won't be good enough. if i lose, i lose it all.
goodbye, christian.
christian's gone home to see her folks.
hi, hoban. sokal. pig.
not with who's coming up. i'll take the same odds.
guess i will.
i don't think --
any special reason?
sure you are. you're the shooter's woman.
first place, old shooter'll come barging through that door any minute. he said they were winding it up.
also it don't mean anything to you, you're christian's friend?
you know damn well how good it was. where's a pack of cards?
gin or casino, you name it. all i know is we're switching to another indoor sport.
thanks for putting it together for me.
listen, melba --
i wish it was sooner. i wish it was tomorrow.
i don't like waiting that long.
listen, what i was going to say before, i don't want you to think i'm being some kind of jerk or i don't feel you'd be great to sack up with.
i've made dolls that were friends of mine's wives. i figured if they were willing, they were doing it to their husbands, i wasn't.
only thing is, it's different with the shooter than anybody else. he's so straight, i got the obligation to be straighter with him than other people. so do you. on account of we both owe him plenty.
can't be. shooter's the closest thing to family i got. it's almost like he was my old man. don't you see how that's got a bearing on us?
no, thanks.
no.
play what?
yes, i'm ready.
thank you very much. that was nice. where did you learn to do that?
who is herman?
is he a good friend?
well, i don't want a shine, but here's fifteen cents.
-- yeah.
monday night.
thanks, jansen. hey!
just tell the shooter i'll be there on the dot monday night.
he doesn't have to know.
can i help you with those?
fine.
monday.
i'm all right. bus stopped for doughnuts and coffee.
where is mr. craigie?
i think i will. i think i'd like that. okay?
how do you do, mr. craigie. i'm eric stoner.
that's right.
she's helping her mother can.
you got any objections if i do, or if i don't?
it was what i call a sharp question.
i'm what's known as a three-river man. which just means i go around playing stud poker wherever i can find the kind of action i'm looking for.
yeah. i was playing in this game in the hotel and she was a waitress in the coffee shop. we went out. i told her i thought she could get a better job in st. louis.
i said it because i wanted her in st. louis. anyway, she made it there and she called me and we been seeing each other ever since.
yeah, living together.
not that i know of.
no.
think so? well, you've known her longer than me. look, mr. craigie, let me and christian find out a few things then maybe i won't have to answer your questions.
that's all right. i don't understand farmers.
well i can't take into account what somebody's going to feel every time i say something.
in some things.
that's a tough one. i don't disbelieve in him, but i couldn't say i believed in him either. i guess i just never paid him much mind. didn't seem important.
i don't mean what he does isn't important -- if he exists. i mean it's not important to me whether he exists or not.
is that so? i didn't know --- i'm not aware of the difference. i'm not asking permission to marry christian, you know.
if i was, the only person i'd be asking it from is her.
he's the king of the stud poker players.
yes.
i'm this good. the man has got to play me.
then i'm the man.
i been trying to figure that out ever since i set it up.
not really.
no, it's necessary, but it isn't so important.
ambition -- maybe security, like that.
i ain't looking for security if that's what you mean.
that would figure into it. but that isn't all of it. -- it's important to me.
if you got the guts to ask that question, mr. craigie, i guess i got the guts to answer it. christian, if you came right down to it, is not as important as doing what i have to do.
know what?
thanks. i'll tell her.
we liable to draw an audience?
i told him on account of he already knew. never any sense feeding a man a lie he's not going to believe.
hey, you're all wet!
the technical term is "suckers." or "marks."
not right. that's cheating and it's not any part of what we're talking about.
i'll show you.
you see one of these cards is white on both sides, one is red on both sides, and the other is white on one side, red on the other.
this. i put the three cards in a hat and shake them up, and then i ask you to draw one card out blind. put it face down on the table so neither of us can see the bottom side.
okay, red on top. that eliminates the all-white card, right. so the card you've picked is one of two -- the all-red or the red-and-white. one out of two is an even chance, an even-money proposition. right -- you follow me?
so if i said i'll bet you a dollar to seventy-five cents the other side of that card is red, you'd take the bet wouldn't you?
and that answer makes you a sucker. because the odds are two to one, the other side of that card is red, and i ought to be offering you a dollar to fifty cents instead of seventy- five.
there are three possibilities. that can be the red side of the red- and-white card, or it can be either side of the all-red card. in two cases out of three the other side is red. and i'd win the bet from you two out of every three times we made it.
sure. it's obvious when i explain it, isn't it?
take my word for it -- the odds are two to one. and knowing that is the difference between your gambling man and your sucker. not who gets the better cards but who knows what the proper odds are. in a poker game there can be a million different situations, each with a different set of odds to figure. the man who ends up winners is the man who knows when to bet and how much.
sure -- like if you grow better corn or raise a cow that gives more milk than the other guy's. or two business men are in competition, or two lawyers are up against each other in a courtroom. whatever your line is, the one who wins out is the one who knows his job better.
there is -- making the man you're playing against think he's got the best hand -- and making him pay to find out.
i'm the one can't stay. i got to head for that bus.
well, hell, i don't know. i had kind of a rough time after you left.
tuesday there was a ball game, but then the cardinals went on the road. i never known time to drag so; i was all torn apart --
that's how i read it, but i was reading it wrong. it wasn't lancey or the game that was chewing at my insides --
i finally figured it. i located where the trouble was. it was you.
when you talk about doing something besides poker if i get to be the man, you don't mean pass up the chance to make some dough from it for a while?
you were going to do some thinking down here.
i'll be back after the game christian -- you wait here for me and i'll let you know.
i got that made now. you said it right. my time's come.
once more around the square.
i intend to take shooter right along with lancey.
you think i'll be sorry i come?
lancey. i been looking forward a long time.
what do you say, yeller? still feeling salty with me?
i hustled a couple of boys, right in his territory.
and i tried to tell him how i got no prejudice. when i'm on the edge of my stake, i hustle anybody at all, regardless of race, creed or color. anybody at all.
hell, i figured i was doin' you a favor.
great. you?
whatever you say, lancey. you're the -- you're our guest in this town.
i think we ought to be able to get a game together in this crowd.
thanks. i'll do that.
it's solid, that's what counts. and you got the top fixed perfect.
fine, excellent. okay with you?
sure has.
good a time as any.
i don't know him.
'kay, fine. don't worry about it, lancey. who's sitting down with us, shooter?
'kay, fine.
i don't mind stud poker if that's okay with you.
'kay with us.
i'm in.
nines bet twenty bucks.
his woman's been giving him a rough time. wants him to quit and go square.
thanks, lancey.
yeah. nice-looking broads.
that was a pretty thing to watch what you done to pig with those jacks.
when he bet out first, he was ready to think you had them back to back. even when he bet the size of the pot, he figured there was still a chance you were laying for him. but when you called him, i could see it in his eyes he thought you had jacks and tens, and i knew you had him hooked.
oh, sure, i seen what you were pulling all along.
not yet.
you mean it?
i heard.
i'd like to make it out there.
i generally stick to stud.
oh, i do that. i'll take a night off and shoot a little casino. or even blackjack.
that's interesting. i could go for bridge if there was a way to do it without partners.
no. we're -- she's gone away for a while. we're not sure we're looking for the same thing.
i was hoping christian would run with me and wouldn't try to make a big deal out of it.
yeah, and now i don't know. i don't figure a man can change his way because the way i see it a man's lucky he's got something going for him that he can hold on to. a man can't change his way for a woman.
i been wondering if it isn't maybe a better idea not to look for a fixed thing. just tie in to something nice when you're away from the action, and enjoy it, and let it wear itself out.
well she didn't understand how it was with me and ---
there ain't but a few people, i guess who would understand --
well -- thank you.
it's very educational, hearing what it's like for a man your age.
that sounds good to me. i didn't think you was coming in at me like a grudge match.
it's yours.
yeah, just the two of us. deal them, shooter man.
cost you a grand.
kings up.
call two thousand.
take it. i can't beat three sevens. i'd like a break to get some food and sleep -- i'm winners so it isn't up to me to say it but i'm saying it anyway.
there's nothing to talk about.
i'm taking my half hour to raise my stake.
i can raise it.
long as you know. -- call.
no -- i'm through.
thanks.
where's christian?
yeah. i should have known he had it, shooter man. i walked into it.