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Secrets of the movie:is life a game like poker?


Do our lives follow the principles of gaming like poker? All the reviewers of the movie or the book that I have found so far have missed the key theme of the "The Music of Chance". Yet there are many clues indicating that the book author, Paul Auster, wanted to show how mathematics, specifically game theory, is part of our life events. Numbers such as the wall of 10,000 stones (referring to the Wailing Wall) , bankrolls, prime numbers, costs, and number of supplies are purposely mentioned in the film. The character names, Stone and Flower, could well be a reference to the diamonds suit and the clover-shaped club suit of playing cards. The lead character is named Nash(e), the same as the real life mathematician famous for game theory work. His life was portrayed in " A Beautiful Mind". He was famous for the "Nash Bargaining Solution" for coalitional or cooperative game strategy where 2 or more people can only get the most out of a game by cooperation and trust. The manner in which Nash and Pozzi cooperate and the way Stone and Flower cooperate in the game is a key element of the movie. You don't have to know game theory to enjoy the movie, but its does help to be familiar with a few gaming and poker concepts.
In poker, good outcomes occur when you risk the least to gain the most and when you have the better hand. The characters in this movie are repeatedly dealt "hands" with which they must decide whether to bet or pass. Their choices determine their fate. Their life decisions and their consequences create the game of life which yields a a certain harmony and continuity like music. Try to notice each time in the movie that a character had two choices. How much did they risk to gain what? To get you started, early in the movie Nash could have played it safe and drove directly to his sister but he made a choice to pick up Pozzi and later he took a chance to cooperate with Pozzi in the poker game. Both he and Pozzi start out similarly with low bankrolls. Nash is running out of money, lost his wife, his job, and his father. it would be hard for him to lose much. On the other hand, Flower and Stone have a huge bankroll. Long ago they took a low risk chance to win a lot in a lottery and won. Pozzi had a choice of staying or leaving after the poker game. He also had a choice of staying or leaving the wall when it is nearly finished. In each case, he make a choice to risk a lot, and he loses. A very brief unlikely event, involving the passing of a pickup truck at the wrong time, causes him to suffer a "bad beat". Meanwhile Flower and Stone live in a castle-like house the Kings. They have diorama, city of the world , placed on a table like cards in a poker game. It depicts people in various active situations. One unlucky one has slipped on a banana peel, others are in prison, and one is facing a firing squad. Risking the most to get the least is a strategy for tragedy. Near the end of the movie Nash senses that he is losing his life and risks a lot in a plan to try to save it. Based on my own experience, It's unlikely that Flower and Stone could have beaten Pozzi at poker after a few lessons and after getting beat so easily. There sudden change in luck against Pozzi in their own house made it seem like a form of cheating called collusion , a "cooperative" way to play poker.

I give this movie 8/10 for excellent acting and writing. I also posted these comments on the movie's discussion board at this site for any responses. I am a mathematician and poker player. I have not read the book. There are many other aspects of the movie that I did not get elaborate. I hope these comments increase your enjoyment of the movie.

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Excellent comment. I also picked up these themes. What about the fact that the wall has 10,000 stones---and just prior to losing the card cut (with a four, like the four of them in the room--beat by a seven--the four of them, plus the old man, young man and grandson on the Flower/Stone team--our collusion beats your collusion)in an attempt to win back the car, Nashe states he'll owe Flower and Stone an additional $10,000 if he loses. A dollar a stone. ANd he sings about building Jerusalem in England at the party, once again the wailing wall reference.
I find this film disturbing--at first blush, James Spaders' character would seem the more immoral---the card player without a stright job who asks for a prostitute,etc., as opposed to the "upright citizen" firefighter with the good looks and straight teeth---but as time goes on, it is Nashe who steals the figurines---breaking an essential law of the universe, an appalled Potzi states---and later has no problem with murder. He refrains from sex with the prostitute, but has a four-year-old daughter he abandoned for a year to drive. Other people haven't found themselves led away from our first impressions of the characters. Why? But what I really want to know, is if you know anything about the "personality" of the number 10,000---as in, "I've worked with numbers all my life, and over time, you can't help but feel each one has a personality..."? It can't be just for the wailing wall reference, because this is implicitly, then explicitly stated in the dialogue. Comments?

veni, vidi, visa: I came, I saw, I shopped

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I don't know anything about higher math and not much about playing poker well, but the above two comments are the simplest, most cogent explanation of a complex movie I believe I have ever read, on this website or elsewhere. Your elaborations on the movie opened up an entirely new way of analyzing and attempting to understand it. You have taken what must be an extraordinarily complex field, game theory and numbers in general, and related it to this movie in a very understandable way. Well done!

"Every calling is great when greatly pursued."

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This is coming from someone that is completely left brained, so forgive me if this sounds ridiculous, but try doing a word search on Google with "numerology 10,000" and what you'll get is a long long string of sites stating numerology dates back 10,000 years ago. That is the number you'll find over and over again. Numbers don't merely translate to a mathematical realm, the same way words don't comply merely with creativity. Poker isn't merely a game of numbers, it's deeper than that, it has to do with a natural ability to read a person...an emotional ability to control "luck," the way some people seem to have the ability to do, the same way a man might be struck by lightning three times or roll sixes every time. What the comparison between Patsi and Nash with Stone and Flower means is more than a mystery being uncovered. There is definately something being said about what sort of people are able to weild power and those that are not. I feel like the "10,000" was a way to represent the aesthetic a number can have in society. The same way the wall was representitive of mans needs. Stone/Flower needed the wall to exert some sort of control in the same way Patsi/Nash needed it to have an immidiate reason to go on living. It's the Gods vs. clods scenario painted in a real light, which is why the mathematical side is so important. The author doesn't praise this scenario, but it is what he sees, so he abstracts this phenomenon he sees in life to a degree that I thought worked on so many levels of creativity. You are more attracted to the characters of Patsi and Nash than you are to Stone and Flowers, but its obvious why each person is in the state they are in. I just finished this movie for the first time, so I have a lot more thinking to do, and this may be completely out of left feild. I just dug it, and Spader is the man.

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The film is a brilliant illustration of chaos theory and the uncertainty principle. By touching the miniature, Nashe somehow changes the "real universe" for eternity, or perhaps vice versa---the real world is inside the miniature and the outer world is a projection.
BTW, this movie/novel also bears a great resemblance to Edward Albee's play, TINY ALICE,in which a defrocked priest, by touching a miniature doll-house, re-arranges and destroys Alice's real house, or perhaps vice versa.

"it's not a film; it's a gun."
Gillo Pontecorvo

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fantastic contributions all of you
it is a shame I am writing this 11 years after the original post!

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Thanks. Your comment got me back to this thread for the first time in over ten years. My post seemed like from a stranger to me, lol. I'm retired but still do some math work and still play a little poker and still enjoy watching enigmatic movies. "Frequencies" is a recent good one. Your post makes me want to watch the "Music of Chance" again.

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