Poker (card game)

“ It only remains to point out that the Americans as a people are frantic gamblers, and that they are infatuated enough to regard gambling as a form of sport. Probably more gambling at cards goes on in the United States than in the whole of the countries of Europe put together. The proper American is everlastingly playing at poker, which is a bluffing game, and which he will assure you trains him for his business. The American card-sharper has been famous in song and story time out of mind. For sheer coolness, audacity, and skill at the job, he has never had an equal. ”

“ The very first card played by the non-dealer is the trump card.
Any one playing the ace of trumps marks four points to himself; for king he marks three; for queen, two; for knave, one; for the five of trumps, five; and for the ten of trumps, ten. When the knave, ten, or five are taken by superior cards, the points belonging to them are scored by the winner.
In counting for game, the five of trumps is reckoned as five; all the other aces, kings, queens, knaves, and tens are counted the same as in All Fours.
POKER. The game of Poker is better known in the United States than in England. ”

“ In all, four cards were turned face up for each player, and the seventh and last card dealt face down. Opportunity thus was given for five bets on each hand. All of this money went into the center of the table, and when the final call came, the best five-card poker hand that could be made out of any of the seven-card aggregations won the money.
“Chips at this table are worth five, ten, twenty-five,” assured my monitor. At the end table of this row they sell for twice this amount, while across there,” and he waved his black-draped arm, “is a cheaper game. ”

“ These are either divided equally among the players, or, more usually, one player acts as banker and sells chips to the other players, redeeming them at the end of the game. There are several varieties of the game, but Draw Poker, played by from 2 to 6 or even 7 persons with a pack of 52 cards, is the most popular. The player who wins the cut for deal shuffles the pack, which is then cut by the player at his right. He then deals five cards, one by one, to each player. If a card is faced during the deal the player must accept it; if two are exposed a new deal must ensue. ”

“ Witness the following, which is culled from the circular issued by one of the 'Sporting Houses':—
'To smart poker players.—I have invented a process by which a man is sure of winning if he can introduce his own cards. The cards are not trimmed or marked in any way, shape or manner. They can be handled and shuffled by all at the board, and without looking at a card you can, by making two or three shuffles or ripping them in, oblige the dealer to give three of a kind to any one playing, or the same advantage can be taken on your own deal. This is a big thing for any game. ”

“ The person who now is requested to show his hand is the player seated next to him who last saw the raise, though if such player should not have a good hand to show, he may, if he likes, go out without showing his cards.
Perhaps to a greater extent in Poker than in any other card game, the great aim of a good player is to conceal his system of playing; therefore, although a player going out relinquishes all hold upon his stakes, he would rather do that than show an inferior hand. ”

“ In the mad rush of those times men could not sit still long enough to play poker or any other similar game; they must needs stake their all on the turn of a single card, or on one whirl of the wheel. With the decline of the banking games, however, poker leaped into favor, and many were the elegant quarters fitted up in the upper stories of buildings in the central part of the town, where gentlemen were wont to gather in the evening to indulge in what rapidly became a favorite pastime. ”

“ The proceedings in the elevator and tunnel were the same as on the previous occasions.
Five minutes later I was seated at one of the tables inside, with five hundred dollars' worth of chips before me, gambling as I never had gambled before in my life. The game into which I went first was straight poker. I chose it because it was the card game with the highest stakes of the evening. I played carefully, yet with a desperation that meant I should win, given an even break in the luck.
That even break did not come to me at the straight poker table. ”

“ A sucker thinks when he sees a mark on a card that he is robbing the gambler, and he is just as much of a robber and gambler as the other man.
When two persons bet, one must lose; and there is no law in this country to compel a man to bet his money or jewelry on anything. So my advice is, don't you do it.
A COLD DECK. I was aboard the Sultana, bound for Louisville, and got into a five-handed game of poker. When we landed at the mouth of the Cumberland, two of our party got off to take a boat for Nashville ”

“ I suppose everybody who plays poker believes in luck. Certainly I do, and I have seen certain things at the card table that in their way were as remarkable as the runs of a single number at roulette, that63 make up the pretty little romances that go out from Monte Carlo at times, and that used to be dated Baden Baden. I sat watching a game one night at a friend’s house in St. ”

“ Those who don't understand much about poker would find it unintelligible, and those who do would probably find it tedious; and to specify even the approximate amount of the stakes is unnecessary, for to some it might seem unbelievable, and to others it might seem insignificant. It is sufficient to say that every man at the table was an experienced gambler and each of us regarded it as a stiff game, an exceptionally stiff game for even the Bristol. ”

“ The principle underlying draw poker is that a hand is valuable exactly in proportion to the difficulty encountered in getting it—that is, according to the smallness of the chance you have of holding it. Fours were supposed to be the hand that was the hardest to get, and so fours were the winning hand. When somebody discovered that the chances of holding a straight flush were fewer than the chances of holding fours, the straight flush took its place strictly in accordance with the rules of the game as already formulated. ”

“ The game of 'high-ball poker' is one which is essentially American, both in origin and character. It is somewhat simpler than the proper game, but possesses no particular advantages over poker, as played with cards, beyond the fact of its comparative simplicity. On the other hand, the appliances required for playing it are more expensive, and not nearly so convenient. ”

“ In fact, nobody thought about it after the interruption until it was too late for a showdown and the chips had all disappeared, nobody knew where. It takes a pretty serious happening to destroy all interest in a game of poker just at the moment when somebody has raised the limit in a big jack-pot and each player is confident of winning. ”

“ The seductive game of poker is one that I do not understand. I do not care to understand it, because it cannot be played without the putting up of a good deal of the coin of the realm, and although I have nothing to say against betting, my own theory of conduct in the matter is this: that I want no man's money which I do not earn, and I do not want any man to get my money unless he earns it. So it happens, in the matter of cards, I content myself with euchre and other games which do not require the wagering of money.
On board the Atlantic steamers there is always more or less gambling. ”

“ Whenever a new pack of cards is introduced for use, and the first deal shows an unusual number of good hands, or even at any time during the game, whenever an unusual number of good hands are out at the same time, or two unusually large hands are out against each other, it is well not to bet all one has on his hand, though he holds four aces ”

“ I never saw anything but poker played in the house, but the game was sometimes for tremendous stakes. Everybody seemed to have almost unlimited money who came there to play, for money was plentiful in Washington that year, and a thousand-dollar bet was no more an occasion for surprise than one of fifty dollars, though a five- or ten-dollar limit game was common enough,114 too. You could play a modest game if you liked, for there were several tables going every night, but if you preferred, you could generally get into a table stakes game and flash any sort of a roll you saw fit. ”

“ What is the matter with settling this thing with poker? We can play freeze-out, and three games will settle it, the winner dropping out each time.’
“The proposition caught me. You know I used to pride myself on my poker. After a little hesitation the others agreed. The man who proposed it had the cards, and we counted out six hundred coffee beans for chips and began playing on a blanket folded and laid on the ground. You would think the details of a game like that would fix themselves in the memory, so that I would be able to tell you every hand I held and every bet I made, wouldn’t you? ”

“ The thoroughbred running horse is a peculiar animal. While he is often beaten, the very wisest veterans of the turf have a favorite maxim to the effect that "The ponies can't be beat"—meaning the thoroughbred racers; which sounds paradoxical enough. Poker, too, is a mystifying affair, in that all men who play it appear, from their own statements, to lose at it persistently and perennially. There is surely something weird and uncanny about a game that numbers only losers among its devotees. However, poker-players are addicted to persiflage. ”

“ Five men of better nerve never dealt cards than the five who sat playing poker the other night in one of those up-town club-rooms that are so quietly kept as to be entirely unknown to the police and the general public. The game proved to be phenomenal. ”

“ The “capper,” who plays in with the dealer, the screw box, sanding the cards, playing with fifty-three instead of fifty-two cards, and preparing the cards so that two can be drawn from the box at once, and still adhere to each other, at the will of the dealer, are a few of the difficulties a better has to overcome before he can win any money at faro.
The most popular game played in the city, however, is draw poker, and this game is not confined to the gambler’s den or the club room. ”

“ If the inexperienced, unsophisticated reader will carefully peruse the foregoing paragraphs, he will have but little difficulty in reaching the conclusion that playing poker is about as hazardous as “encountering the tiger in his lair.”
STUD POKER. Another variety of poker in great favor among the gambling fraternity is called “stud poker,” a stud poker table being now considered a necessary adjunct to every first-class gambling house. The necessary outfit for the game consists of checks, cards and a table large enough to seat 10 or 12 persons. ”

“ Each player in turn looks at his turned card and makes his bet or raise. A common variation of Stud-Poker consists in stopping the deal after two cards, one face up and the other face down, have been dealt, and betting on those two cards. A third card is then dealt and betting again takes place, the process being repeated after the fourth and fifth cards have been dealt, the value of the different hands changing with each added card. A player failing to “stand” any raise must retire from that pot. ”

“ Poker seems also to be a game evolved by gamesters of the United States from the old Primero, with its ancient derivations, for so many of the rules and expressions common in the modern game may be traced to the fourteenth century. It is played by four or more persons, who bet on the value of their hands, a pair being the lowest and a straight flush being the highest hand, the names of which were inherited and explain themselves. ”

“ It was the moment of moments that men wait weeks for in a poker game. The news of it tingled over the Tivoli. The onlookers became quiet. The men farther away ceased talking and moved over to the table. The players deserted the other games, and the dancing-floor was forsaken, so that all stood at last, fivescore and more, in a compact and silent group, around the poker-table. The high betting had begun before the draw, and still the high betting went on, with the draw not in sight. Kearns had dealt, and French Louis had opened the pot with one marker--in his case one hundred dollars. ”

“ I want to impress strongly upon you the fact also, that the game of Draw Poker is an expensive recreation. It’s only a question of time, and means at your command, as to the amount of money you will lose. The longer you play, and the more means under your control, the [15] more you will be out of pocket in the end. Like the ‘Outside Public,’ in Wall Street, it is only a question of time. At some other time, my boy, I will talk to you about Wall Street, but not now. With many, the loss of money at Draw Poker is the smallest item. ”

“ The fault is not in ‘Smithy,’ as you call him, but in you yourselves, in not giving that attention to the game that your friend ‘Smithy’ does. A good, honest, and successful poker player is one who not only follows the rules of the game—with such variation as circumstances seem to require—but always has his eyes open, his head clear, and knows all that is going on in the party with whom he is playing. He sees [44] and remembers their bets before they discard; he never forgets the number of cards discarded, and he soon learns their general style of playing ”

“ Outside of “banking” games, however, there is one which is almost as peculiarly American as is base ball. “Poker” seems to be, for some unexplainable reason, looming up as a National pastime. Some reference has already been made to gambling at the fashionable club house and in the family circle. Under such circumstances poker is the game par excellence. Stakes ordinarily run high, no matter how small the introductory ante may be. ”