INT. ROYALE CASINO BAR-NIGHT. The Royale Casino bar is dimly lit, seedy as hell, understaffed, overcrowded, and light on ambiance. Cocktail waitresses in embarrassing outfits scurry about, while impatient gamblers wait for their drinks. A tall young guy, wearing a sleek suit to match his well groomed, slicked hair walks in to the bar with a bit of attitude in his walk. He stops, eyes the place, looking for someone. In the corner of the bar, sitting alone, he spots him. He walks over, narrowly avoiding the patrons and the help moving about. Stopping behind the adjacent stool, he throws a $50 chip in front of the man sitting alone. He's old, disheveled, with a half-drunken beer in front of him. He looks at the chip with dead eyes, and then coldly looks at the younger man. SLICK You Baker? BAKER What the hell do you want? SLICK People round here say you got stuff to say. BAKER People say a lot of dumb shit in this place. SLICK They say a $50 shit and you'll teach a man how to win. BAKER Do I look like I know how to win anything? SLICK Not particularly, no, but all the same, the people say you're the man, and there's your chip. Baker eyes the chip and the man. BAKER All right, siddown. He does. BAKER I don't know what you're expecting to hear from me, Slick. I'm not a encyclopedia. SLICK Whatever you want to tell me, I want to hear it. BAKER Uh huh. Well, that's fabulous. I'm extremely excited. The two stare at each other for a moment, then it turns awkward. SLICK I want to learn poker. I want to play poker. BAKER Heh. You want to learn. That's good. Most people, they expect some magic secret. You're right Slick, you need to learn, you have a lot to learn. Poker is a hell of a lot for one guy to learn, and even more for one guy to teach. SLICK So where do I begin? BAKER The clothes. SLICK What's wrong with my clothes? BAKER You look like an ass. SLICK No I look cool, Old Time, you just don't know cool anymore. BAKER Bullshit. Cool don't change. I know cool. You ain't cool. SLICK I thought you were supposed to look good when you gamble. You know, dress good, act like you don't need anything from anyone, and the casino'll give you all sorts of free shit. BAKER And how's that gonna help you win at poker? Slick's got no answer. BAKER Yeah, that's right, cause it won't. Poker it don't matter if your wearing a three piece suit or a sweatshirt. Good is good, no matter what you look like. Besides, you come to a table dressed like that, people expect something. I go to a table dressed like this, I could scam the place dry for a grand. No one expects old time to be hot. So you need to know your expectations. Know them, and accept them. There's nothing you can do about them once they are formed. So make sure they are formed on your terms. You want to dress at a table like that fine, but be prepared for the consequences. SLICK Expectations, yeah I like that. What else you got about that? BAKER Expectations. All right, expectations. I got something. DISSOLVE TO: INT. THE ROYALE CASINO SLOT FLOOR- NIGHT, DECADES AGO. Baker continues to speak, in voiceover. We're in the past now, on the floor of the same casino decades earlier, looking just as seedy. As a young man he looks cool, better dressed, a sly grin on his face. He walks the slot floor eyes roving. BAKER (V/O) Actually, happened here in the Royale, long time ago, years and years. I'm walking the floor, scoping. See a table. Young Baker sees out of the corner of his eye a poker table with a small man, glasses, nebbishy, who gets up and cheers. The people around the table seem excited by the outcome too. BAKER (V/O) Little shrimp, making big noise over some play. From the looks of it, extremely small time. Now normally, I don't concern myself with small-time gloaters but something about this guy got to me. The nebbish is dancing, saluting, slapping five, and generally making an ass out of himself. Young Baker bows his head and sighs. He looks around the floor one more time and makes his move. BAKER (V/O) I mean the guy won maybe one, two hundred. This is not something he can live off of. But from the look of him, he just banged eight chicks at once. He was cocky. I hate cocky. So I head over there looking to fix him. Now, understand I'm a good player at this point. Not great, but I know what the hell I'm doing, and I sure as hell know more than this idiot. Young Baker arrives at the table and sits down. BAKER (V/O) So I sit at the table, me him and two other losers. But they do not exist to me. Neither the dealer, he's only there as an extension of the poker playing. The crowd, they're not there either, it's just him and me. The Nebbish sits down and slightly calms himself. He's sweating profusely, and his shirt collar is open and loose. Baker stares him down cold and hard and the Nebbish is pretty afraid of him. BAKER (V/O) Sitting there, it's obvious, this guy didn't just win a big hand, he's on a roll. Cleared upwards of a thousand right now. The crowd confirms that, and they're all rooting for him. Now instantly, I'm the bad guy. I stare him down cold, looking through him. And it works. Instantly he shuts up. The punk's all walk and talk. Flash. No substance. Like you right now Slick, so listen well to the next part. The dealer deals out. BAKER (V/O) Now the dealer starts the hand. Now every player who thinks they are at least slightly competent, has a poker face. But the real player knows not to trust them, because anyone can fake a poker face. But there is a body part that doesn't lie. The eyes. Close in on The Nebbish's eyes as he looks at dealt hand. Young Baker stares at his eyes over the top of his cards. BAKER (V/O) The pupil of the eye, it's light sensitive, so it can expand and contract to let more light in and let you see. In the dark it expands, so that's why your eyes hurt when you turn on the light in the john in the middle of the night. This is a reflex, like breathing, it happens beyond your control. But few know that your pupils also dilate in the presence of something visually exciting. Even closer on Baker's eyes and the Nebbish's eyes. BAKER (V/O) See a hot chick, your eyes expand. Watch a great action movie, eyes expand. Get a full houses, eyes expand. It's a reflex beyond your control, it's a tell like no other. And even better, very few people know about it. Again closer now just one eye back and forth between Baker and the Nebbish. BAKER (V/O) So I'm watching this guy's eyes. Nothing. Not an inch. If anything, his pupils are getting smaller. Then the bets. They throw out their bets, and the Nebbish puts out a high one. BAKER (V/O) He starts betting the farm, so I know he's bluffing right? The eyes don't lie. So I match him. Baker throws in his money. BAKER (V/O) And I raise him. He raises him. BAKER (V/O) And just like that he matches me, raises me. He's trying to run me, he thinks I'm bluffing too. And I am. Shot of Baker's hand. BAKER (V/O) I got a pair, but it's not much, and certainly not anything that could beat him the way he's betting if he's really got it. But I'm locked in on the eyes. And they aren't moving. So I call. He calls, and the dealer starts passing out cards.. BAKER (V/O) At this point I'm good. He could have been betting high just cause he had cash to burn, or cause he was on a streak and feeling lucky, or cause he had a chance to cash in big on this hand. Regardless, I'll be able to tell whether it works our or not with the eyes here. Shots of the eyes close, cut with shots of the cards flying across the felt table, and of the two players and their hands. No shots of the crowds, the dealer, or the other players at the table. Just Baker and the Nebbish. BAKER (V/O) Nothing. His eyes don't move. Whatever his plan, his hasn't worked out. He's got nothing. Meanwhile, I got another pair. I've got him beat. It's his turn to place a bet. The Nebbish puts in a huge bet. BAKER (V/O) I wasn't expecting this. He doesn't have anything, and he hasn't picked up anything. But like I've had done to me before, he's outbetting. Trying to top me out in the hopes that I'm bluffing too. So I call and raise him plenty more. It goes on like this. Baker throws in, and then back and forth as hands throw chips in and the pot grows. BAKER (V/O) Soon he's put in almost his entire winnings from his lucky streak. Finally it's time to call. We put out our cards. A bead of sweat trickles down the Nebbish' forehead. INT. ROYALE CASINO BAR-NIGHT, PRESENT Back in the bar, with old Baker and Slick, who's listening at rapt attention. BAKER So you tell me what happened? SLICK You smoked him cause you watched his eyes. That's a good trick, I'll be sure to use it, the expectations, just like you said man I- BAKER No, I lost. SLICK You lost? But he was bluffing. BAKER I thought he was bluffing. INT. THE POKER TABLE- NIGHT, DECADES EARLIER. Young Baker reveals his two pair, very proud of himself. BAKER (V/O) I throw down my two pair, all cocky, cause I think I played him perfectly. The Nebbish throws down a full house. In slow motion he begins his dance again, and the crowd behind him silently goes wild. Young Baker sits silently staring, in complete shock. BAKER (V/O) He had bluffed me by having a good hand. I got outplayed. The screaming, the goofy dancing, that whole production was for my benefit. INT. ROYALE CASINO BAR-NIGHT, THE PRESENT. Back to the present and the story. BAKER I learned later this guy was an ace. Every time he came in a place he looked different, acted different, was a different person. That way no one could anticipate him. Not to mention that cocky fucks like me would come along looking to tag him and get their asses handed to him. SLICK But the eyes. You watched him like a hawk. BAKER I did. And I was right his eyes didn't move a bit. Not a bit of pupil dilation. I did everything right. Except for one thing. A beat. BAKER I didn't know that you could control pupil dilation. No it's not easy, and almost no one does it, but it's possible. With enough control, practice, and time you can get your pupils to dilate, and I blew it. That guy, he saw me watching his eyes like crazy, I was so confident, I didn't even try to hide it. And he saw right through that, and made sure I saw what I wanted to see. Meanwhile, he did the same thing back to me, and saw that I had nothing, my eyes were doing the same things his were, only I didn't want them to. I expected that eye trick to be infallible, he knew it, and he used it the one and only time in my life he could, and he got five grand out of it. SLICK Wow. BAKER Didn't expect that huh? SLICK Nope. BAKER Then you learned something about expectations. Now get the hell away from me. THE END
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