Becoming A Poker Genius In One Week - Derren Brown

Our applicant tonight is Anne, a 75-year-old lady from North London. She's travelling on the bus, as she does most days, but today we've secretly taken control of the vehicle. We've wired our recorders into the on-board security cameras and all of the passengers apart from Anne are actors. I don't like pizza, and again, I do like pizza. The driver has been told to leave his normal route and drive to a secluded spot where we have more hidden cameras waiting. I'll have a look at her and I'll see her. I won't say anything to her. What's going on? Stay where you are. Dear. Very pleased to meet you, dear. Very pleased to meet you. You've applied to come on the show, and we'd love to use you. Really? We'd love to use you on the show. You're picking me, are you? I'm picking you right now. I don't know where my tummy goes. I'm pleased to hear it. Let me explain how the show works, all right? So listen very carefully. What happens to you on the show depends on your choice of one of these two cards here, all right? And you'll see one of them says trick on it, and one of them says treat. Right. OK? Now, if you pick the card that says treat, and I'll put them there where you can see them, if you pick the card that says treat, then what happens to you will be something lovely and something you'll really enjoy. Really? Yeah. OK. But if you pick the one that says trick, then it won't be. It'll be something a bit horrible. Do you want to play it? Yes, please. You do? Excellent. Pleased to hear it. So first of all, I need to get you to sign this, which is your contract. That just allows us to do anything we like with you. You can... Oh. I'm a bit shaky, so you'll have to... That's all right. No, you shake away. That's right. Sign my contributor. That's you just there. Thank you very much indeed. That's lovely. Thank you, Anne. Thank you. Oh, God, what have I done? OK. Let's see what you pick. So you're going to choose one of these two, and you're going to choose it just by putting your finger on it just for a second. Excellent. OK. Well, I don't want you to see what you've picked. OK. So if you face the other way and close your eyes for a second, I'm going to show the camera, but I'm not going to let you see for now. OK. Thank you, Anne. You can look back now. So that's all for now, and you'll hear from us in the next couple of weeks. Really? Yes. Thank you. See you soon. It's been two weeks since I met Anne on the bus. I've now asked her to meet me at Victoria House in central London. Hello. How are you? I'm fine, thank you, Mr Brown. Nice to see you. Thank you. Don't call me Mr Brown. Oh, sir, that's fine. Anne still has no idea of what I have planned for the next week. You play a little bit of cards, is that right? Yes, not anything special. I play brag, rummy, pontoon. OK. Just with friends? With just my husband and his friend. Well, a week from now, we're going to enter you in a poker game with some world-class poker players. Oh, no. With the idea that you're going to win quite a lot of money from them. So over the course of the next week... I play poker. I know you don't play poker. But you see, if you did play poker, you'd have a way of playing which would get in the way. I'm going to teach you my way of playing. That's a royal flush. Oh, a royal flush. I teach her the rules of the poker game she'll have to play to world standard next week, namely Texas Hold'em. It's important she doesn't become too stuck on learning the rules at this stage as they'll get in the way of the psychological techniques I want her to pick up on. Essentially the structure of the game, sort of fairly simple. The fun starts in terms of how you bet. Players obviously try and keep their cards a secret, so I'm going to teach Anne some skills at telling what card a person is holding. Ace, king, queen, jack... First I demonstrate by trying to tell her what card she's thinking of. The ability to read physical cues accurately will be invaluable when she's faced with the professional players. So I'd say it's probably the jack of spades. Yes. Is that it? Excellent, OK. So... God! Ace. Using a friend who's a poker enthusiast to help us out, I ask Anne to try and guess the card he's thinking of just by watching and listening to him. I'm going to go for spades. Are you going to go for spades? I'm going to go for diamonds, I think it's king of diamonds. Was that it? Was that it? OK. I'm never going to do this. Oh, yes you are. By the end of this, you'll be able to do this like that. I show her how to create a certain state of mind, one in which she has the confidence to totally believe that she's capable of winning. Your responsiveness and your receptivity opening up... Even though she may not understand this process, it is important that she trusts her instincts, in this case, regarding the first card that comes to mind. I haul in our make-up artist and we start again. Did anything at all occur to you during that haul? Well, she counted nine. OK, and the suit? Hearts. Hearts. Anywhere close? Eight of diamonds. OK, close your eyes for me. In your mind, you're going to feel that confidence and that openness. I have Anne refocus and get her to try the exercise again using her heightened receptivity. Jack. You got one? Mm. What was the card? Five of diamonds. That's really good. What have you done to my brain? Great, OK, well, it'd be lovely if you don't mind a bit of homework just to have a look at that and just get your husband to test you. I will do, OK. I must admit, I'm a little bit scared because I'm not very good with my memory sometimes. I suppose it's my age, I don't know. But Darren is absolutely marvellous, isn't he? I don't know how he gets to put things in your mind, but he does. Throughout the week, Anne has been improving her skills by playing a few social games of poker. Unfolding. Two pairs. Ooh, well done. I'm all right, but I'm still a little bit wary of the big one when it comes to when I'm playing professional poker. They must recognise her straight away. She can't play, sure. It's all very well playing at home, but it will be a much tougher challenge against a group of world-class professionals. Two days later, Anne joins me for our last session together before her big day. When people talk about keeping a poker face, the idea is... I've heard of that. Reading a bluff is one of the hardest but most fundamental parts of poker. There are numerous signs that give away information about a player's hand and intentions. If they've got a weak hand, they're going to try and appear strong. I have her revisit her state of heightened receptivity. And your ability to read the unconscious signals that people are giving off amplifies. It's time now to build on her increased intuitive skills with some more exercises. You're trying to get all the high cards. A card will be identified as high, that's an eight up to an ace, or low. And I get Anne to use her newly amplified intuition to sense a bluff as to whether the card is high or low. This is a high card. Low. The cards are then placed face down into two separate piles according to her predictions. This is a high card. To get her used to reading a range of male faces rather than just mine, I have another card enthusiast try to bluff her as well. I'll have that one, I'll believe you. OK, let's stop there. So eight and above, spread them out on the table. She turns over the pile she believes to be high cards and she scores pretty much 100%. And these are all low. That's really good, that's very, very good. Despite being confident that Anne has absorbed enough of my skills to compete well in the tournament, I cannot influence the random dealing of cards. So if she gets dealt bad cards on the day, she may still lose. The game we've entered Anne into has been sponsored by the international poker magazine Bluff Europe, who are promoters of televised tournaments. The other players know that Anne has been given a crash course in poker but not by me. They think we're making a documentary about a pensioner who up until a week ago couldn't play poker and that she was part of an experiment to see if a poker guru or genius specialising in reading body language can teach her to win. The organisers have allowed us to film backstage so I meet Anne outside the studios and show her to a private room away from all the players. Her husband George has also joined us. First of all, as I said, they may play quite aggressively and it's often a way that poker players tend to try and intimidate each other is by throwing in huge bets right at the start. So there'll be a little bit of that going on. Keep that feeling of relaxation and calmness. Just before the tournament, I have Anne re-engage with her receptive state. This will increase her ability to read her opponent's body language and get a sense of their cards. Open your eyes. Feel a bit... feel nice? Good. I think that's all. I think that's all. As Anne is taken into the studio, we have a quick word with the match commentators about what they think of Anne's chances. We've got five of the best UK professionals around. They've all proven themselves around the globe and there's a big cash prize for first and second. So I cannot see her even getting close to the top two prizes and I really don't fancy her chances here today. She'll get good in maybe two, two or three years but certainly years, not months, no doubt about that. Absolutely. I'd be surprised if she even lasts ten minutes. Hi and welcome to the Bluff Europe Poker Challenge. As the game lasted almost 90 minutes, we can only show you some of the highlights. I'm a professional poker player and I tend to be a steady player that tends to win more often than I lose. Biggest tournament win was in Las Vegas in 2005 where I won £50,000 in the World Series main event. I finished third in one of the World Series tournaments and got £77,000. Been playing poker off and on since I was 11 years old. Born 30 years, so probably since before some of my competitors tonight were born. Been playing poker, maybe a week, two weeks. Not every day, just now and again. So, it's a one table sit and go. Every player's sitting down with 2,000 chips. Blinds start at £25.50, so 40 big blinds each. Ten hands into the game, Anne is still at the table and holding her nerve against the seasoned professionals. Then, as predicted, some of the players started to try and intimidate her by placing large bets. Nick Persaud's gone all in. Let's see if this pushes her out. In an attempt to score a big win, Nick bet all his chips on this hand. His aggressive play scared off four out of his five opponents, so it was left to Anne to work out whether he was bluffing or not. She needed to use both her intuition and her observation of his body language. She'd picked up on a tell that made her decide to continue playing and match his large bet. Call it. Call? Yeah. She's called. She's called. This was her first big risk. If Anne read him correctly and won this hand, Nick was out of the competition. If she misjudged it, it would have cost her almost all of her chips. So, I've got to turn them over? Yeah. Oh, that's not what he wanted to see. It was all down to the turn of the next two cards. Anne would lose if either of these was a queen or a nine. Yeah, queen or a nine. Not good. Anne takes a scalp. But she judged it right, and the first professional exited the game. Knocks out Nick Pickford's possession. 30 minutes later, and Anne was amazingly still in the game, continuing to win more chips, and having seen another two poker professionals leave the table. Anne's getting a bit tired now, but she's down to two opponents. If she can maintain this level of concentration, she's only a step away from winning one of the two cash prizes. Anne has been playing for almost an hour now, and the battle between her and Paul is continuing. I'm going to go all in. Paul's gone all in. Paul had made a major bluff and bet all his remaining chips. To stay in the game and challenge Paul, Anne would have to bet all of her chips too. Paul was unconsciously giving away subtle signs that Anne found easy to read. Wow, look at Anne's face. Ah, call him, Paul. Yeah, go on. Look at Paul's face. He's not happy. Please don't call me. Please. She read his bluff correctly, but she's not safe yet. Anne would still lose if any of the dealer's cards were tens or sevens. Six, four, two, four, two. And Anne, flushing chance in the money, taps off to Anne. Oh, things are looking up. Anne Chance has made the money. Looking Paul Parker out in third position. Anne was now certain to get one of the two cash prizes. She'd been using her new skills perfectly, and with only Geoff remaining, she now focused all her attention on him. It's the last hand, and the game has been playing for 91 minutes. With a pair of aces, Anne felt she had a stronger hand than Geoff, and she was right. The odds were massively in her favour. She decided to risk all her chips on this hand in the hope that Geoff would also do the same. Call him. I'll call. What? Geoff's called. You maniac. OK, card's over. Anne's gambles seem to have paid off. She was in a great position to win first prize. Only a nine would stop her. I don't need a nine. Such bad shape. There's only two cards in the deck now that can help him. He's a monster dog. Classic mistake. Oh, poor Anne. Anne had played the hand perfectly. It was just a lucky turn of the card that made Geoff the winner and Anne come in second. And that's it. Oh, well. Winging its way over to Geoff's bank account, and £1,000 for Anne. She's in the money. For lovely Anne. Congratulations. As you saw in the end, it still came down to a lot of luck. She outplayed me on the last hand and I got lucky. An average to good chess player normally would think about two or three moves ahead in a game. A chess grandmaster can think anything up to 20 moves ahead. But I'm just... I'm stunned. That's definitely my right and that's my J. I've got no need for a leather jacket.