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Is there any particular reason for which Data is wearing a hat during his poker plays?

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Is it to limit some of his extra abilities that would allow him to easily win?

Or is it just his desire to look more like a human, or more like professional poker player?

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    Haha... what's the deal... I get it! Because, poker, deal, lol that's good stuff.
    – corsiKa
    Commented Jan 6, 2015 at 18:11
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    What's "strange" about this hat in the context of playing poker?
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Commented Feb 20, 2015 at 2:10
  • @LightnessRacesinOrbit Yeap, you're right. Suggestion that Data's hat is strange removed! :>
    – trejder
    Commented Sep 19, 2016 at 19:06

2 Answers 2

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These hats actually exist:

Green eyeshades are a type of visor that were worn most often from the late 19th century to the middle 20th century by accountants, telegraphers, copy editors and others engaged in vision-intensive, detail-oriented occupations to lessen eyestrain due to early incandescent lights, which tended to be harsh (the classic banker's lamp had a green shade for similar reasons).

They're often used by poker dealers in casinos. While I don't have any canon reference, I assume Data wore one of these in order to "play the part".

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Data might have super-human abilities but that does not make him a super-human poker player. On his first game, we see him thinking he got this all right and that he is sure about winning because he is a super-computing living machine.

He soon realizes that it takes a lot more that computing skills to play poker and he got beaten by Riker.

His visor is only an item that some poker players use to try and distract the adversary from looking at their eyes. Data has done a lot of research before playing poker. He then realized that some of the poker players were using things like that or glasses in a poker game, but he did not fully understand this concept until he got beaten by Riker and then decided to go further into his learning of poker.

Off course in real life these were originally use by people involved in accounting, auditing, economics, and budgeting. The phrase "green eye-shades" can be applied to individuals who are excessively concerned with financial matters or small and insignificant details (sounds like Data to me). -Source: Green eyeshade-

I just want to point out that Data was not suffering from eyestrain, wich gets me to conclude that Data is using this for style.

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    I think that type of visor is traditionally used to prevent eyestrain when dealing cards, not to hide your eyes--since it's transparent it wouldn't do a very good job at the second, poker players who want to hide their eyes just use sunglasses.
    – Hypnosifl
    Commented Jan 5, 2015 at 14:17
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    Its a style LOLLL.. its the same as having a big enormous mustache .. you can even compare it to a magician trick to help and distract you from keeping your eyes out of where the action really is
    – Rocket
    Commented Jan 5, 2015 at 14:20
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    That might conceivably be someone's reason for using it, but it's not what they are marketed for, so I don't think real people who wear them would typically give that as a reason. If it was just meant as a distraction, why would it always traditionally be the dealer who wears it, not the other players? And card dealers in casinos who aren't playing in whatever game they're dealing are often shown wearing them in TV shows (and stock photos, look up "card dealer" on a google image search), though I don't know if real casino dealers still do.
    – Hypnosifl
    Commented Jan 5, 2015 at 14:29
  • I use it for style lol and I'm not always the dealer. The deck turn arround the table just like in TNG's poker games. And whoever the dealer is get to choose the type of poker we play for this deal. And I even started to use this hat when I first saw Data with his lol. Took me everything to find one
    – Rocket
    Commented Jan 5, 2015 at 14:42
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    They're designed to reduce eye strain from incandescent lights. If you're not in a room with incandescent lights (or if your eyes a robotic and you don't suffer eye strain), then style is all you've got. :)
    – Brian S
    Commented Jan 5, 2015 at 15:11

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