Well, Someone Had to Explain the Liar's Dice Scene In Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

there is a fine line between intricate and convoluted writing and the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy wobbles precariously along that line like Jack Sparrow on the fore topmast of the Flying Dutchman but there's one scene in particular that's so perfectly written you're not quite sure if it makes any sense at all I'm talking about the liar's dice scene for those who don't remember because this movie came out oh my god was it 14 years ago the scene in question occurs when will Turner seen here being a dork challenges Davy Jones to a bluffing game called liars dice in this game players each roll a set of five dice keeping their roll hidden from the others they then take turns guessing or bidding on how many of a certain die face is on the table across all players dice another player can then call them a liar and reveal their dice if they were bluffing or their bid was too high they lose if not the accuser loses the challenge in this game is in the bluffing each player is out only for themselves they have to keep their dice hidden and deceive the other players about what they really have all while trying to figure out their opponents motives so that they can come out on top in other words it's a microcosm of the entire Pirates trilogy and it is flawlessly written each character's bids mannerisms and motivations are consistent both with how that character themselves would behave and how you would play that game strategically if you were in that situation and for each character their strategy in this game reveals something about their motivation you just might not be able to tell because it was chopped to hell in editing in the screenwriter commentary Ted Elliot and Terry Orazio expressed dissatisfaction that the rules of the game were cut down there's a much longer version of this game that makes the rules clear I don't even want to talk about it however the extended scene is available online and they even went back and largely finished the effects on them you can get a better sense of how the game works from this scene and as Elliot and Rossi I point out even though the rules aren't entirely clear first-time viewers can still follow along the final version that's in the movie I think in a scene like this too you don't necessarily need to understand the rules of the game because you can actually read the ebon flow based upon the looks and based upon the even the sort of Greek chorus crowd reaction you still get the emotional gist of what's happening but the whole game takes place in less than two minutes of film which makes following along with every move pretty difficult so I'm gonna tediously break it down with props and graphics instead first a couple notes about the rules there are several variations of liars dice in real life and they have different limitations on how bids work we're not told every rule in the movie but we're gonna go with a version of the rules that's consistent with how the game is played in the movie which means bids seem to work like this on a player's turn they have one of three options they can either a increase the value of the bid and leave the face the same for example three fives can be bid up to four fives B they can increase the bid and change the face value in any direction for example bidding from three fives to four twos finally option C they can keep the bid the same but they must increase the face value for example bidding from four twos to four threes there's no instance where the value of the beta goes down at all and the only time the face value goes down is when the bid increases so those are the rules were going with also some versions of the game used ones as a wild-card but the movie version doesn't as the screenwriter commentary confirms the actual dice strategies do work but well as long as you're not playing at aces while it's right it should be noun aces are not wild and this this version of the game we should also talk a bit about the character motivations in case you've watched this movie a healthy number of times as opposed to whatever the hell I'm doing Will Turner is aboard the Flying Dutchman to steal the key to a chest that contains the heart of Davy Jones a key that Jones keeps on his person at all times prior to the start of the game Jones reveals that it's hidden under his tentacley beard thing that oh my god still looks completely flawless all these years later who said digital effects don't age well bootstrap bill wills father throws in at the last second because if wil loses he'll be bound to serve on Jones's ship for eternity a fate that bill would like to spare him from finally there's Jones who obviously wants to hold on to his key but he's a cruel man with the arrogance that comes from being an immortal and wretched God he doesn't just want to win in fact he's certain from the very beginning that he already has instead Davy Jones wants to twist the knife I only baked-on what's dearest to a man's heart else there's no way to tell if he's bluffing what a man is willing to risk or not to risk got all that then let's get started first up bootstrap bill by the way I'm gonna refer to these rounds with letters instead of numbers because God there are so many numbers already cool cool now we don't see any of the players dice until later but I'm going to spoil it for you the first turn goes to bootstrap bill he rolled three twos and two threes so he opens the bidding with three two's a bid three two she'll be good this is the safest and dumbest bid the bootstrap bill could make in an opening turn bidding low at the start is smart because you want to give yourself room to move up the problem is that he's honest with this bid bill is claiming that there are at least three 2s on the table even without looking at any of the dice the odds that this is true are a little over three to one in fact the other bill personally rolled three twos is only thirty to one which for this game is still pretty low it's also true no matter what type ace he chooses he could pick three threes or three fours over three fives whatever no matter what he chooses the odds don't change it would be foolish to call his bluff on the first turn especially with a stakes so high so if you wanted to win you should lie instead bill makes a bid that accurately reflects what's under his cup this Telegraph's that he has three twos not just that there are three two somewhere on the table you could maybe interpret this as a double bluff to throw his opponents off but he's playing against Davy Jones here honesty isn't the best policy unless you want to lose but that's exactly what Bill wants he wants to lose he's playing the fool from his very first bid bootstrap bill is trying to get Jones to call him a liar so that he can take the heat off of his son but Jones isn't so easily distracted the next turn goes to Davy Jones who bids which is an outright lie right off the bat under his cup we learn a couple turns later he has four fives and one for the odds that there are four fours or four of any face on the entire table is around six to one but the odds that Davy Jones personally rolled four fours is three hundred and ten to one it's not impossible but it's really unlikely which is funny because he did roll four of a single number just not the one he bid Jones doesn't know it yet but he has the only four on the table yet he says there were four fours with such utter confidence he's up the bid and switched to face implying that he doesn't want to gamble on the twos the bootstrap did but he is comfortable on the fours at this point other players can start to guess what Jones really has if you trust Jones then you might think that he has four fours if you're a more reasonable person that's skeptical of the devil you might think he is two fours or maybe three fours fewer than he's claiming but still enough that he can feel confident that someone else on the table has enough force to cover his bid the idea that he doesn't have anywhere near enough dice to cover his bid doesn't enter wills mind at all Davy Jones isn't that arrogant that's certain that he's going to win that he can lie directly to wills face on his first turn and he's right now it's wills turn and he's starting to get nervous we're about to reach the point in the game where players are going to have to base their bids on the dice that other players have under their cub the odds that any player has five of a particular face under just their own Cup is seven thousand seven hundred and seventy five to one never tell me the odds okay but I'm gonna now will has three fives one two and one one under his cup not enough to comfortably raise the bid on anything but he came and raised the face full fives he bids four fives keeping the bid the same but switching to a face he's more comfortable with he has three fives under his own cup if there's even one more 5 under someone else's cup then he's still safe unfortunately like most of his childhood Will's not gonna get much help from his father here it's bootstraps turn again and this time he takes a leap in the bidding jumping up to six threes six threes the odds that there are six 3s on the table is 47 to one which as a frame of reference is higher odds than guessing the right spot on a roulette wheel which only has thirty six to one odds now it's obviously impossible for bootstrap to have six threes under his own cup and no one else has been a single three this entire time with Jones and will focusing on fours and fives it's not smart to bet that either of them has a three but he does it anyway because bootstrap is out of options this is a desperation bid see if bootstrap had any fives then he could up the bid and signal to will that he's got some other fives on the table it would be a transparent collaboration but there's not much Davy Jones could do about it but he doesn't bootstrap has nothing his only option is to throw himself on the sword bid something way higher than he can carry on his own and hope that Davy Jones calls him out on it but tentacle senpai still won't notice Bill now it's at this point that the movie starts showing the dice rolls of all the players which means all that context all that nuance that we've talked about so far it's not there for first-time viewers and yet it's consistent the entire way through you can get the emotional beats of the story even without the detailed information about how each player is bidding so much so now bootstrap is expecting to be called up by Davy Jones raising the bed higher than his six threes no matter what face Jones chooses is a risky bet so what does Jones do seven five okay I'm gonna need a second to explain why that was a baller move because that was a baller move first the odds of there are seven of any face on the whole table is a hundred and eighty six to one that's an insanely risky bet just based on the math alone unless Jones knows that it's safer than it sounds see Jones has four or five under his cup but hasn't left that on yet to the other players by putting his bets on fours earlier he drew out wills Bluff he knows well probably has some fives but is equally sure that he doesn't have the four fives he claimed most likely he will has three fives anything less and he probably would choose a different face that he had more of if he could Jones is equally sure that bill doesn't have any fives because he changed the face earlier he's no threat at all with Jones's own 5s and the three fives he can reasonably guess that will has he makes the unholy bid seven five at this point will is basically trapped he's got three options and none of them good option a he can bid up to an even higher number which would raise the odds to 934 to one an absolutely nutty bid like at that point he's claiming that more than half the dice on the table came up with the same face come on option two he can change the face now the rules they followed so far seem to indicate that he'd have to change the face to a six which no one has bit yet so the likelihood that seven of the dice are six is is incredibly unlikely or option D he can call Jones a liar now there are some very good reasons that will can't call Jones a liar here but the main one is he's not lying Jones is implying with his bet that he has four or five under his cups he knows that will has three 5s and that bootstrap bill has jack squat where is the lie so will seemingly defeated does the only thing he can do eight-five welcome to that that yeah will screwed he's over bid and everybody knows it now if you understand it absolutely nothing else about this seen the movie wants to make sure you get this bit it just revealed all the dice rolls right before this it makes absolutely certain you know how many fives are on the table and all the emotional tension leads to Davy Jones's line right here this seemed confused a lot of people when it first came out and for good reason but for a stripped down as it is it's kind of impressive that all that information is still in there if you want to see it on a rewatch anyway I'm sorry will was getting screwed but just when all hope is lost bootstrap bill drops his big bootstraps right on the table with a commanding and hilarious move twelve five twelve fives call me a liar wrap the bed okay so on top of throwing himself on the sword again bootstrap kind of made a really funny joke here using math so given the four fives Jones has and the three fives Will has pretty much everyone has figured out that there are seven fives on the table but now Bill is claiming that he actually has five fives of his own bringing the total to twelve fives he's not just arbitrarily saying hi number otherwise he'd say like 15 fives or something no he's specifically implying that all five of his own Dicer fives and that he's been bluffing so hard this whole game that no one called him on it he's saying I read you all fooled this whole time I actually have nothing but fives come and get me a squid face Benzi and by the way the odds that that could actually happen are preposterous Pez stated before the of that bill personally rolled all fives is seven thousand seven hundred and seventy five to one it's extremely unlikely anyone would roll five of the same face but more than that the odds that 12 of the 15 dice on the table would all roll up the same face are over eight million to one you're more likely to get a royal flush in poker give birth to quadruplets or get hit by a meteorite but more importantly those odds are roughly the same as dying in a shark attack I mean he's standing right there bootstrap at this point the game is up Davy Jones calls bill a liar but stop bell you're a liar and you will spend an eternity on this step and let's we'll go free the better next time we make hope of course will then reveal is that he didn't need to win he just wanted to know where the key was and he can steal it later this reframes all of wills bids his opening bid is cautious mostly honest his second bid is bordering on naively reckless bidding eight fives is like hitting on twenty and blackjack but what's the alternative will wins takes the key and then what spends the rest of the time in the brig jumps ship lasts more than a few seconds before Davy Jones just straight-up murders him there's no scenario here where we'll can win this game and take the key without Davy Jones retaliating no will needed to lose and he needed to take advantage of Davy Jones cruelty and arrogance to do it in just a couple of minutes of film we've seen demonstration of wills cunning bootstraps concern for his son Davy Jones's unwavering confidence and how that very confidence can lead to his downfall now all of that analysis is based on the rules that we can absolutely confirm or in the movies version of the game but if we can infer just one more very common rule then we can actually pinpoint the most clever move of the entire game and it's this one boom game over see in most versions of liars dice a player can only accuse someone of being a liar when it's their terms which means they can only accuse the previous player in the turn order this could explain why Davy Jones didn't immediately call will a liar it wasn't his turn in other words no matter what will bids bootstrap can up it it's impossible for will to lose bootstrap phil has not only figuratively but literally put himself between will and Davy Jones which means before a single bid has even been made both the Turner men have already won will knows where the key is so that he can steal it later and bootstrap has protected his son from having to serve aboard the Flying Dutchman for eternity sort of [Music] okay I hope that one was a little less depressing than the last time I'm still trying to get these out once a month maybe like in the first week of the month or so kind of a big project I land in my lap recently that I might take up a bit more of my time so I don't want to super commit to a schedule but thanks everyone watch this one and who watched the last one and everyone who subscribed after that it like really kind of means a lot to me that you enjoyed it and still working on some new stuff for the next one so hopefully y'all will enjoy that and not right now right now but yeah hopefully hopefully y'all enjoy that one and enjoy the future ones and if not we find something else you enjoy you know you find something that makes you happy

Channel: Lord Ravenscraft

Views: 657,037

Rating: 4.8852916 out of 5

Keywords: pirates of the caribbean, dead mans chest, jack sparrow, video essay, disney, movies, math

Id: T44LuxdH0iw

Length: 19min 17sec (1157 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 02 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/duckbucketpie]

That actually clears it up a lot. Makes it even more of an awesome scene

[u/colorsplit]

What a cool video

[u/SSR2020]

Suddenly it makes more sense. I did not get everything from the movie alone.