Poker chip

“ Between trying to read into these other guy's brains and keeping them from opening mine, and blocking the Greek's sly stunt of tipping over the poker chips as a distraction, I was also concerned about the eight thousand bucks that was in the pot. The trouble was that all four of us fully intended to rake it in. My straight flush would be good for the works in any normal game with wild cards, but the way this bunch was betting I couldn't be sure. ”

“ These things suggest extremely rococo poker-chips, they look like counters to be used in playing some sort of game, for the sound reason that this is precisely what they are. And we play. We all play quite gravely, at every hour in our lives, at the game wherein these disks, which in themselves no mortal could regard with æsthetic pleasure or employ for any imaginable practical purpose, are supposed to be worth something. ”

“ There are nine more white poker-chips in a little pile under the root of a stump close by the old log. These nine white poker-chips are waiting waits to have portraits made on them. When I do get portraits made on most all the white poker-chips I do have, then one of the logging men at the mill by the far woods does give me more white poker-chips to draw more pictures of Aphrodite and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and all of us on. ”

“ But the chore boy did not have thinks like my thinks. He said he had more knows what poker-chips want than I have thinks. He says poker-chips want to be on a table in a game with men. I have thinks he has not knows what he is talking about. I have knows white poker-chips do have wants for portraits to be drawn on them—portraits of Thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus and Brave Horatius and Lars Porsena of Clusium and all the rest. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It really seemed like a private game, with all of the players masked.
I watched one more hand, as much to see how the details were carried on silently, as for any other reason, for I knew the game. It was what is colloquially known as “seven-card pique,” though it bears no relation whatever to piquet, being a corruption of ordinary stud poker. Two cards were dealt around first, face down. Then the next card was turned face up for each player. The highest card had the privilege of betting or checking the bet. The next man to the left then could bet, drop, raise or simply check. ”

“ When one of the pricked cards is felt, the dealer slips it back and deals from under it until he comes to himself, when he secures it for his own hand, thus gradually obtaining a pair of aces or kings, sometimes two pairs, and occasionally three of a kind. When this trick is successfully performed, the professional is usually able to “clean out” a greenhorn with the utmost ease and dispatch. It is a favorite mode of swindling at poker, inasmuch as it requires no partner, no stocking of cards, and admits of their being fairly shuffled. ”

“ Forty-four cards are employed, the nine and ten spots being discarded. “Chips” are “barred,” and the players stake cash or its negotiable equivalent. The bank, too, is exposed, and is placed in the center of the table, and contains from $250 to $500 in silver, arranged in stacks of $20 each. The game is very fascinating, counting its devotees by scores, and a great deal of money is bet on it. The dealer deals from his hand as in poker, and it is supposed to be exceedingly difficult for him to “put up” a game, a belief that adds not 507a little to its popularity. ”

“ Sometimes the professional marks all four fives, so that while dealing he may not only avoid giving them to the dupe, but may, as opportunity offers, appropriate them to himself. Another trick sometimes practiced by less dexterous manipulators is to place the fives at the bottom of the pack, and quietly drop them into the dealer’s hand. Cards are also sometimes secreted between the knee and the table, or in the “bug,” as in poker, or in the coat collar, so that the swindler may exchange bad cards received during a deal for good ones previously abstracted from the pack. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 players look at the balls they have received, each one noting the number which has fallen to him, and coming in or declining to play accordingly, stake their bets. This being done, a second ball is dealt to each player, and the two balls thus received constitute his hand. The betting now proceeds as at poker, the rules being precisely the same, except that the balls rank according to their numerical value, and that the complications arising from 'pairs,' 'threes,' 'fours,' and 'flushes,' cannot arise. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The game started out very early in the evening and I lost heavily according to plan. The progress of the game left me poorer and poorer. I watched their faces carefully as it went on. Slowly they were becoming enthusiastic, acquiring the instinct of the true poker player which is to continue through dawn and beyond. Their faces became radiant, eagerly each one waited for the next hand to begin. ”

“ The ordinary-looking stick leaning against the crossbar is an ordinary sort of stick, but a very useful one. He is the poker and pot-lifter. He should be a stout green stick not easily burnt. Poplar is a difficult wood to burn, but then many old hands won't use it, because it is said to bring bad luck on the camp-fire where it is used; but that is an old wife's story, and I always use it when I get the chance.
If the soup gets upset, I look on it as my fault, not the fault of the poplar poker. In fact, whatever wood the poker is made of, one always seems to get a kind of affection for him. ”

“ The next man can raise him, and so on; if all pass he takes the pool, or if anyone calls him they then draw one ball more, or two balls as agreed upon and bet again. If the hand is called they show down and the highest hand takes the money; if there is no call the one that made the last raise takes the pool, the same as 434in draw poker without showing his hand. This is to save him from showing too many good hands, as he may stand in with the dealer ”

“ It beats all dice throwing to death. Let all dice throwers who make dice their specialty take notice it will win Dollars where dice wins Pennies. Any man can get a game with it in a Billiard Saloon, and to get a game is to get all the money there is in the house. In his travels with one of these he can win a Million. The game is called High Ball Poker, and is simply this: 2 or 20 players put up their ante the same as in draw poker at cards, then each player draws one ball ”

“ On the draw the deuce man called for one, the next man stood pat on a flush, the next drew two cards and didn’t fill, the next163 drew to two pairs and didn’t better, and the dealer took three. The opener proceeded to make merry at his expense. ‘You raised it on a pair, eh!’ he exclaimed. ‘Well, you have a nerve, to be sure. Do they play that kind of poker where you came from? If they do you have come to a good place to learn the game. Why, I have you beaten without a struggle.’ And he shoved one hundred dollars into the pot.
“‘Yes,’ said Overland Jack, coolly. ”

“ Special slots in the floor and walls were provided in the other rooms for chips, so these bits of evidence could be hustled out of sight in a very few seconds. Hoffman told me that while the auction players won and lost large sums, the money itself mattered little to them, and that they would take no newcomers. For that reason, although bridge always has been one of my best games, I was introduced to a group in the third room, where a game known as “blind opener” poker was in progress.
Only four were at the table, and they welcomed both Hoffman and myself. ”

“ A habit established itself among us of the players coming down to the ground on all fours immediately after the act of throwing; it was the consequence of bending too far forward in order to get in all the chips at the peril of neglecting the centre of gravity. The chips that flew outside of the triangle were gathered by the next player and those in the inside allowed to be taken by the player, should he be able to throw a chip from his hand and lay it on them one by one. ”

“ This percentage is technically known as the “rake-off,” and insures the proprietors of the establishment a handsome royalty on all winnings. In “stud” poker the dealer always represents the “house.” The players are never permitted to handle the cards. To quote Tennyson’s poem of The Brook, the “man in the chair might say—
‘Men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.’” In the public gambling rooms, also, many of the gaming devices seen upon fair and circus grounds are to be found, notably the wheel of fortune. ”

“ 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. ”

“ By observing this direction, it will be found difficult for a player to discard a different number from the number he draws, without detection. Any dealer who is ‘Playing in’ with another, and helping his ‘Pard’ to extra cards, and receiving the same number in discard, can avoid detection by immediately gathering up the discarded ones, and putting them on the bottom of the pack from which he is dealing. ”

“ Two4 of the players had laid their pocketbooks alongside their chips. They had not played so before, but the gambling fever had come upon them with the excitement of good hands, one against another, until the friendly contest had become a struggle for blood. Fours had been shown several times since midnight, and beaten once, while straight flushes had twice won important money. Deck after deck had been called for, and tossed aside in turn after a few deals, till the carpet was strewn thickly with the discarded pasteboards, but there was no change in the remarkable run of the cards. ”

“ Occasionally there would be some pretty big bets, but they all won and lost so nearly even that no one was much ahead. Then to an outsider it became evident that each of the other three was playing for Smith’s money, although Smith himself did not, I believe, suspect anything of the sort. As I said, the play was straight enough, but three first-class players can bring any ordinary player to grief easily enough in a four-handed game without any crooked manipulation of the cards, if they work in concert, and Smith was soon losing heavily. ”

“ 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 dealer then places a stake in front of him. A single chip usually constitutes this stake, and is called the ante. Having concluded this preliminary part of the business, five cards are dealt to each player. As in Loo, all look at their hands, and declare in turn what they will do. The choice of three things is given them: They can throw up their hand, and go out of the game for that deal; keep their cards as they are; or they may change as many of their own cards as they like for the same number from the remainder of the pack on the table. ”