In other poker related odd news, Ted Moustakis attempted to sue Christies for selling him knock-offs after being told by the actor playing Data that they weren’t the real deal. The items under scrutiny were a $6,600 poker visor, an $11,000 poker table and a $6,000 uniform, all said to have been worn and used by Mr. Moustakis’s favourite Star Trek character, Commander Data. The uniform is said to just be one of many that could have been worn by any number of cast members. The charges against Christies have now been dropped after judges said Moustakis should have just asked for his money back instead of attempting to sue.
Here’s a bit of history behind the game of poker as played on the Starship Enterprise:
Data was first introduced to the game in 2365 and initially believed that all that was required to play the game was a simple mathematical strategy. He was soon to realize that this was not the case and started viewing poker as an interesting forum to use to study human behaviour. Data designed a ‘holodeck’ programme in which he played against Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton and Stephan Hawking. Data found that he had the advantage of having the ultimate ‘poker face’ because he was incapable of displaying human emotion. He used this advantage when he was sent back in time to San Francisco in the 1890’s and joined a poker game to clean up his opponents and as well as leaving some of them without clothing.
Other Trekkie references to poker:
· Doctor Mendoza immediately recognized that Commander Riker was a poker player.
· After playing in a ‘Federation Day’ variant of poker, where two’s, six’s and aces were wild cards, Worf commented that the large number of wild cards made it a “Woman’s Game” because it “supports a weak hand”.
· While most of the games on the Enterprise-D were played using common clay chips, one game between William T. Riker, Worf, Geordi La Forge and Beverly Crusher was wagered on an unconventional stake: if Beverly won, all of the men would shave their beards, and if any of the men won, Beverly would dye her hair brown. Unfortunately the game was never finished.
· Geordi was a regular poker player and used his ‘visor’ to read through the cards of his opponents but was adamant that he never used this ability until the hand was over. Yeah right
