Poker (tool)

“ 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. ”

“ Now whiskey poker is the very stupidest form of gambling that the mind of man has ever conceived, though at the end of the evening some folk hunger after it as a kind of final fillip. Each person puts down a certain sum—it may be a sovereign, it may be five sovereigns; poker hands are dealt out, the cards being displayed face upwards on the table; there is no drawing; whoever has the best hand simply annexes the pool. ”

“ With the Shoshone, poker is not alone a relaxation, the game wherewith to wear out a long and listless evening, but it is a passion, a duty and a devotion. He has a face designed especially for poker. It never shows a sign of good or evil fortune. You might as well try to win a smile from a railroad right of way. The full hand, the fours, threes, pairs and bob-tail flushes are all the same to him, if you judge by his face.
When he gets hungry he cinches himself a little tighter and continues to “rastle” with fate. ”

“ That the game of poker flourished on the river as it never has elsewhere, before or since, seems entirely probable. I have seen games that made me hold my breath because of the size of the stakes, and because of the fact that I knew the players were all armed, and a shot or a stab was certain to follow a hasty word or a suspicious act. ”

“ It is now all confused, an impression of events with out sequence, a mass of little prominent purposeless things like rock conglomerate. I remember leaning my elbows on a low window-ledge and watching a poker game going on in the room of a dive. The light came from a sickly suspended lamp. It fell on five players,—two miners in their shirt-sleeves, a Mexican, a tough youth with side-tilted derby hat, and a fat gorgeously dressed Chinaman. The men held their cards close to their bodies, and wagered in silence. Slowly and regularly the great drops of sweat gathered on their faces. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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 remainder of the pot—a goodly sum—lay in a confused heap in front of him, and before speaking he looked at it steadily for a space wherein one might count fifty. At length he said, raising his hand, as if registering an oath:
“I am done with poker. I have nothing to say against the game. You all know how well I love to play. To my mind there is no other sport that equals it. None, I believe,15 so shows the skill and the mettle of a man as this does. Yet, loving the game as well and admiring it as much as I do, I give it up from this moment, forever. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It can be introduced into club rooms, and made to take the place of draw poker with cards. It is attractive and fascinating, and played the same as draw, and the novice would rather play it, as he knows there will be no shuffling up on him, no monkey work with the cards, and he has as good a chance as the gambler and won’t be afraid to play alongside of him any more than he would at faro bank. ”

“ Now, as a game for recreation and pastime, I do not object to it; it is said to possess qualities as an intellectual game, superior even to whist. But when engaged in for the purpose of gambling, I class it with other games in which professional gamblers live and thrive, by cheating and robbing those with whom they play. It has been said there is no such thing as a [10] ‘Square Gambler’; and a well-known Wall Street banker has said: ‘Whoever plays poker will cheat.’ I can not agree with the latter, but, with my definition of a gambler, I fully agree with the former. ”

“ 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. ”

“ PING-PONG is really table-tennis, and had its origin in that game. Its immense popularity lasted only a brief space of time, and its greatest vogue was in France and America.
POKER is probably a development of il frusso, an Italian game of the fifteenth century. A similar game called primiera was played in Italy in the sixteenth century, and thence journeyed into Spain. In France this became ambigu, and later appeared in England under the name of brag. Poker is distinctly an American game, and seems to have descended more directly from the game of brag than from any of the others. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And, Gordon, here’s your pistol. I think it will be safer in your hands than it was a short time ago. And now I am going to give you a few parting words of advice.
“In the first place, young fellow, don’t gamble. If your blood is too red to heed this admonition, learn to play poker. It’s a scientific game and a square one, usually—always so among gentlemen. Never bet against another man’s game, nor play against a percentage. Gambling games of that kind are like the play of life, the percentage is in favor of the dealer, and it fetches you sooner or later. ”

“ The players must throw away their discarded cards before taking up or looking at those which they draw.
216In poker, as fairly played, every player is for himself and against all others, and to that end will not let any of his cards be seen, nor betray the value of his hand by drawing or playing out of his turn, or by change of countenance, or any other sign. ”

“ The person conducting the game then takes the bottle, in which the balls have been placed, in his hand, and throws them from its open mouth, one to each player. The latter then examine the little spheres which they have received and either forfeit the chips which they have already laid down or make their bets in the same manner as in playing poker. Precisely the same tactics are employed in both games. When the “call” is made the player holding the ball on which is inscribed the highest number wins the bet, by which is meant all the stakes which have been placed upon the table. ”

“ This is the proper way to use the Vest Holdout and if used on this principle any ordinary Poker player with a moderate amount of discretion can use it month after month in 9 out of every 10 Poker Games in the country, it is a fine Invention and any one that plays cards for a living need it more than they do snide Jewelry or Flashy Clothes with holes in their pockets instead of Dollars. There is but one way to gamble successfully and that is to get Tools to work with and have the best of every Game you get into. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No game is too small for them, though they will play heavily at times, but they manage to live on their little skill by worming their way into friendly games of poker, such as are played all over the country, but perhaps more openly in the West than in the East.
“When Dick Bradley happened along our way and stopped over at our town, we had, though we did not realize it immediately, all the elements of a drama right at 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. ”

“ It was a part of his regular patrol of the boat, and he was as particular to see that nothing was going wrong at the card table as he was to see that everything was right elsewhere on the boat. Of course, poker itself was not considered wrong. It was part of the regular routine of life. A man could play or not, but a man who would object to anybody else playing would have been as lonesome as a prohibitionist in Kentucky. ”