But as brilliant as they are as card sharks, they're better as people sharks: They read rubes like primers, from the wiggle of their nostrils to the eloquent language of their constricting larynxes.
They can do more than count cards, they can alphabetize them. It watches card players touched with genius, so far up the pyramid, so into the ozone of jacks and clubs, they can feel the run of the numbers and memorize the sequence of the face cards.
It's about talent, and whether you let it corrupt or liberate your character. John Dahl's 'Rounders' is full of tense poker scenes, where fortune rides on the snap of a card and the loft of a bluffer's eyebrow or how many times someone holding for real licks his lips, but it's not really about card playing. Matt Damon is a card shark in 'Rounders.'
