man that lost the most lost his temper also?’
“‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I did notice that.’
“‘Well,’ he chuckled, ‘he is the fellow we have been trying all winter
to catch.’
“That was a relief, but I never got over my regret that the easiest
winnings I ever made at poker should have come when I was trying my
best to lose.”
“I quite believe, as you do,” said one of his listeners, “that there is
such a thing as luck, but do you think that it is affected by anything
that we can possess?”
“Meaning a rabbit’s foot or a child’s caul, I suppose,” said the
gray-haired young-looking man with a smile. “Well, I wouldn’t like to
declare myself on that point, but I can tell you one more story that
is true within my own knowledge. About five years ago I met a man
on Broadway, whom I had formerly known as a speculator and a roving
character in the West. He was a good fellow, with a reputation for
being square that I had never heard questioned, and he had, when I knew
him well, been unusually successful, so that he was very well off for a
young man. I was therefore surprised to see that he looked very seedy.
Moreover, he had a discouraged look which I had never seen on his face
before.
“I questioned him, and he frankly declared that he was ‘dead broke’ and
in trouble. He had tried New York in the hope of mending matters, but
had decided that his best chance was to go West again. I offered to
help him, but he would not borrow more than a trifle, which he needed
toward his fare to Chicago. While he talked I noticed that he wore a
small but very brilliant opal in his scarf-pin, and half-laughingly I
asked him if he ever expected to have any luck while he wore that. It
was not an expensive stone, but it was a very pretty one. He looked
at me, half surprised, for a moment, and then he took the pin out and
looked at it thoughtfully for several moments before speaking. At
length he said:
“‘I don’t know that I ever had any superstition. In fact, I don’t know
that I have now, but it is certainly curious. I bought that stone about
two years ago, and everything I have done in a business way since then
has resulted in a loss. I have lost some thousands more than I had, and
have still to pay the debts. I think I’ll throw it away. The setting is
worth the price of a dinner, I guess, so I’ll keep that.’ And he pried
the jewel out with his pen-knife and tossed it into the gutter.
“I met him again last week, and he returned the loan, taking the bills
off a roll that it would do you good to look at. He told me that his
luck had changed the day he threw the stone away, for he received a
letter that afternoon which put him on the track of a contract by which
he made twenty thousand within a year, and that since then everything
had prospered as it always had before he bought the opal.
“I don’t feel called on to say what I think about it, but those are the
facts, and, to say the least, they are curious.”
Storms’s Straight Flush
_IT CAME NEAR COSTING HIS LIFE AND ANOTHER’S_
“I am not one who is disposed to quarrel with the inevitable,” said
the gray-haired young-looking man as he lighted his pipe in the club
smoking-room. There had been considerable discussion in the club as to
the propriety of allowing pipes, but he had taken no part in it. He
had simply kept on smoking his pipe till the others had settled the
question, and when it was settled he continued to have nothing whatever
to say.
“I don’t quarrel with the inevitable,” he remarked, “and I realize
that changes of all sorts are among the things that are inevitable.
Modern progress cannot be stayed, and modern improvements cannot be
ignored. We have new business methods, new political doctrines, new
translations of the Bible, and even the new woman, and there does not
seem to be any possibility of ignoring them, or even getting away from
them. I therefore make no objection to change of any sort, further than
to cling to the old order of things myself, as far as I can. Aside
from that I am strongly in favor of new-fangled ways--for those that
like them. Indeed, I always think of what President Lincoln said: ‘For
people that like that sort of----’”
“Oh! forget it,” said the man with his heels on the fender. “Excuse
me,” he added, as the other looked at him in mild surprise, “but that
is such an awful chestnut. What has provoked you to philosophizing?”
“Was I philosophizing? Well, perhaps I was. One of the youngsters asked
me to join in a game of poker a little while ago, and I was going to
do it, for I like poker when the stakes are not too heavy, but he told
me they were playing with a joker.
“Now, they may get up a game of poker one of these days with high, low,
big and little casino, and the right and left bowers in it, and it
may prove to be a game that will be much liked by those who play it.
Certainly, I will have nothing against it. But when I sit in at the
game I want to play it as I learned it. So I declined the invitation.”
“Do you play it as you learned it?” asked the other. “When I learned,
four aces couldn’t be beaten.”
“I must admit that point to be well taken,” said the gray-haired
young-looking man, “for I can remember, myself, when a straight flush
was an unknown hand. In fact, the first one I ever saw came near
costing two lives. But the straight flush, though it was in its day
a modern improvement, was a legitimate development and not a change
in the game. 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 only reason it
was not played from the first was that it had not been recognized as a
distinct hand before. If somebody should discover a new hand--that is,
a new combination of cards with a positive, individual character of its
own, sharply distinguishing it from any other combination--that new
hand might be admitted at its proper value without changing the rules.”
“There is a certain amount of interest in what you say, no doubt,” said
the man with his heels on the fender, “but it occurs to me that there
may be even more in the narration of the circumstances under which you
made the acquaintance of a straight flush.”
“Now a ‘blaze,’” continued the other, “is certainly a distinct hand,
but it seems to be a characterless sort of a thing, and not entitled
to much respect. And the same may be said of the alternated straight.
It is true that an effort was made to introduce the blaze, but it
didn’t meet with much favor. I don’t think it is played anywhere now,
and I never heard of anybody seriously proposing to play alternated
straights. Come to think of it, the straight was not a part of the old
original game, and was not universally played until within a few years.
I don’t imagine, though I never figured on it, that it is any harder
to get than an alternated straight, but it has a stronger character of
its own. That proves what I said, doesn’t it?”
“About those two lives,” said the other, lazily moving his heels a
little further apart.
“It was up in the pine woods of Minnesota. I went there one winter
to escape a galloping consumption that my doctor predicted, and had
secured a job with Brown & Martin, a firm that had several lumber
camps in the woods. There was a gang of about forty men in our camp,
and there was nothing particularly unusual about them, excepting
perhaps that there was rather more card playing at night than the
bosses liked to have. I don’t know that it is prohibited in any of the
camps--certainly it was not in those days; but gambling is discouraged,
for the men’s sakes as well as for the bosses’, and as a rule there
isn’t much going on.
“The lumbermen are very impatient of restraint, though, and no
intelligent foreman interferes with them much outside of working
hours, and as there were half a dozen men in our camp who were
inveterate gamblers, the infection spread until there were four or
five poker games going on every night. Our foreman was a Yankee from
Maine, a strapping big fellow, who did not play himself, and strongly
disapproved of it, but he had a great amount of discretion, and beyond
speaking his mind freely he did not try to stop it.
“This was thirty years ago, mind you, and, as I said a moment ago,
the straight was not played everywhere. We played it, however, for
there were a good many there who had become familiar with it, and they
insisted on it, and the few who were disposed to grumble at it as a
new-fangled notion submitted, though not with the best grace. If you
remember, the straight, as played then, only beat two pairs. Its value
as the lowest complete hand had not yet been recognized.”
The other man nodded.
“One of the men in the party I usually played with was Will Davison, a
big, overbearing sort of man, who grew sarcastic whenever a straight
was played, and who made it a point to throw down his own hand rather
than draw to a sequence of four, calling attention to what he did.
“‘I have no use for a boy’s game,’ he used to say with a sneer, but the
rest of the party overruled him, and he liked the game too well to stay
out.
“One night a young law student from Columbia, who had gone West as I
had for his health, joined our game, taking the sixth hand. Davison
didn’t like that, either, as I noticed by his expression, but Harry
Storms, the student, was a general favorite, and the rest of us all
welcomed him, although we were a little surprised when he offered to
play, for he generally spent his evenings poring over a law book, and
we had thought he didn’t know the cards.
“We speedily found out that he did, though, and that he was not afraid
to back his hand for what he thought it was worth. We played only a
quarter limit, and as a rule we kept pretty well inside of the limit,
too, so that it was not often that there was more than two or three
dollars, even in a jack-pot. Storms, however, generally bet the limit
when he bet at all, and as the boldest player generally sets the pace,
we were soon playing a stiffer game than had been seen before in the
camp.
“It was stiffer than I was used to, then, for I was only a youngster,
and hadn’t played much, so I was naturally too much absorbed to notice
for some time that we had attracted the attention of a number of other
men, who crowded around us, watching the play in silence. When I did
look up I saw Aleck White, our foreman, looking on with an expression
of profound dissatisfaction, but as he said nothing I did not feel like
quitting the game, especially as the luck was a little in my favor just
then.
“Presently there was a jack-pot of one dollar and fifty cents on the
table, and as it went over three or four deals without an open, it was
sweetened up to three dollars and odd before Storms threw in a quarter,
saying, ‘I open.’ I sat next to him, and, looking at my hand, I saw
that I had aces up, so I stayed, of course. The next man stayed also,
and then Davison, who was next, raised it a quarter. There seemed to be
some good hands around, for everybody stayed, even after the raise, and
there was nearly five dollars on the board before the betting began. It
does not sound very exciting now, but, as I tell you, we did not play
heavily. There were no professional gamblers among us, and the men were
all working for day’s wages. A dollar meant more then than it does now
to me, and it was a respectable sum to any of us.
“Before anybody drew cards Storms said: ‘Is there any reason why we
shouldn’t raise the limit for this one hand?’
“I had suspected him of bluffing once or twice before that, and I
thought this was surely a bluff. Moreover, I had a fool sort of
confidence that I was going to get another ace, so I said promptly: ‘I
haven’t any objections.’ Davison spoke quickly, too. ‘Suits me,’ he
said, and the others, with a little hesitation, agreed: ‘Make it fifty
cents for this hand only,’ said one.
“‘Oh, hell!’ growled Davison. ‘Make it a dollar while you are about
it.’ I felt that this was too heavy for me, but I was too excited to
object, and, as I said, the hands must have been pretty good all
around, for no one else remonstrated, and a dollar it was.
“I did no better in the draw, and I had sense enough to lay down when
Storms threw in a dollar, for he had stood pat, and I didn’t feel like
holding up a bluff from where I sat. The next man had drawn two, and
he hesitated, but finally put up his dollar. Davison held his hand pat
also, and raised Storms a dollar. The next two laid down.
“Storms raised back, and my left-hand neighbor laid down, leaving the
struggle to the two men. Davison raised it five dollars, and one of the
men who had pulled out exclaimed: ‘I thought it was a dollar limit?’
“‘Well, what business is it of yours?’ said Davison savagely. ‘Storms
is the only one that has a right to kick. If he is afraid to bet I’ll
stick to the limit,’ he added with a sneer.
“Storms laughed. ‘I’ll see your five and raise you ten’ he said,
putting up the money.
“Davison pulled out a wallet and, putting a ten-dollar bill on the
table, said: ‘That’s all the money I have with me, but I’ll give you an
order on my pay and raise you ten.’
“‘And I’ll see that the order is not paid,’ said the foreman, quietly.
“There was a moment’s silence, and then the foreman spoke again. ‘I
don’t propose to interfere with anything you fellows do within reason,
but I am not going to see you robbing your families.’
“‘He is right,’ said Storms. ‘I don’t want to play out of reason.
Perhaps we have gone far enough.’
“‘Oh, well, if you are afraid,’ said Davison, insultingly, ‘I just make
it a call.’
“Storms laughed again good-naturedly, and said: ‘Well, let it go at
that,’ and he laid his cards down, face up.
“‘A flush, eh?’ shouted Davison. ‘That’s what I thought you had,’ and
showing down a king full on aces, he reached for the pot. ‘That’ll beat
anything but fours.’
“‘But my hand beats fours,’ said Storms, also reaching for the money.
‘It’s a straight flush.’ And so it was, jack high. It was the first one
I ever saw in play.
“‘Straight flush be damned!’ exclaimed Davison. ‘Who ever heard of
beating fours?’ And as Storms still attempted to take the money,
Davison grappled him across the table, shouting and cursing violently.
“Storms struck one or two blows, and good ones, before any of us could
interfere, but as Davison had him in a close grip he could not spar,
and he seized the other’s throat, choking off his wind instantly.
“The foreman jumped in, of course, as did two or three others, but
Davison had a knife out in an instant, and if he hadn’t been caught in
time would have stabbed his antagonist. As it was, it was a difficult
thing to pull them apart, for their blood was up, and they would
certainly have killed each other if they hadn’t been stopped. When we
dragged them apart they struggled like two wild beasts. And that broke
up poker playing in that camp for the winter, for the foreman put his
foot down hard.”
“And who took the pot?” asked the man with his feet on the fender.
“The foreman made them divide it. I don’t know as he had any right to,
but his word was law with us then.”
For a Senate Seat
_A POKER GAME IN MINNESOTA THAT HAD POLITICAL IMPORTANCE_
“Poker has often been called the national game,” said the gray-haired
young-looking man in the club smoking-room, “but I fancy there are few
citizens who fully appreciate how much influence it has exerted on the
destinies of the nation in one way and another. We hear stories now
and again of the winning and losing of fortunes, and sometimes how
large estates and mining properties have been staked on the chances
lying between two hands. And every lobbyist in the country is familiar
with the old device of losing large sums in a friendly game with a
legislator whose vote is desired on one side or the other. Such
things, naturally enough, sway public interests as well as private to
no small extent, but I have seen a seat in the United States Senate
lost on four queens.”
“Of course you are not talking seriously,” said one of the party.
“But I am,” was the answer, “seriously and literally. It happened in
Minnesota soon after the war. Political conditions in that part of the
West were very different to what they are now, and in fact all other
conditions were, too. It was at about the beginning of the real growth
of the North-west. The value of the wheat fields had been learned,
but the Swedish and Norwegian immigration was in its infancy, and the
lumber industry, that afterward grew to such enormous proportions, was
then making comparatively few men rich. Minneapolis was a small town
on the south side of the river, and St. Anthony was a town of the same
size on the other side. Now it’s all one city, but at that time nobody
dreamed of St. Paul being eclipsed in size or importance.
“I was knocking about late one summer at that period, and had made
many friends around St. Paul and Minneapolis, some of whom were State
officials, and I had heard much talk of the struggle there was to be
in the next Legislature over the election of a Senator. Two men were
in the race, and as they were both popular the contest was likely to
be a close one. Party questions did not enter in, for the State was
strongly Republican, and no Democrat stood a show. But which of the two
Republicans would carry the Legislature was a matter of great doubt,
and I saw bets made on the issue as early as the first of September.
As the time of election drew near, it was evident that the choice
for Senator was going to govern the nomination of candidates for the
Legislature, and as both the Senatorial aspirants were long of head as
well as long of purse they were using all the influence they had in the
county conventions which were to be held early in October.
“Right there was where the importance of the lumber industry came in.
The money on which the lumbermen in the upper counties lived came to
them mostly through Minneapolis and St. Anthony, and the perfectly
legitimate business relations between them and the business men of
those two cities naturally gave the latter much influence among the
former. There was a rollicking, happy-go-lucky man in Minneapolis whom
everybody called Doc Martin, for no reason that I could discover except
that he wasn’t a doctor. He was part owner of a saw-mill, and spent the
most of each winter in the woods with his men. He was credited with
being as influential as any one there was, among voters, but he had a
rival in another man named Gilmartin, who was a logger himself, but
had for a dozen seasons been foreman of one gang or another. Martin was
a rich man, but Gilmartin was seldom flush, excepting in the spring,
when he had drawn his winter’s pay. These two men were known to be
strong partisans, one favoring one of the would-be Senators, and the
other the other, and it was generally thought that they would both go
electioneering when the county conventions were held.
“The week before that was to happen I was one of a party who drove
from Minneapolis to a road-house on the Fort Snelling road near the
Minnehaha Falls, partly for the enjoyment of the moonlight and partly
for a game supper such as the house was famous for providing. Martin
was one of the party, and as there were two or three other high rollers
with us, I had made up my mind that it would be daybreak before we
would get back.
“I was right, but before the night was over we had more excitement
than I had expected. We had had the supper and an abundance of good
wine with it, and were sitting around the table enjoying some rarely
good punch when somebody proposed poker. No one objected, and in a few
minutes there were two games in progress, for there were eleven in
the party. Six played at one table, and Martin and I and three others
were at the other. The game was a fairly stiff one, ten dollars being
the limit, and the cards ran well enough to build up some heavy pots.
We had all indulged freely enough to give ourselves thoroughly to the
enjoyment of the hour, though we had not been drinking heavily, and
there wasn’t a man there under the influence. Altogether it was a
delightful occasion. Suddenly the door opened, and Gilmartin looked in.
“‘I don’t want to “rough in,” boys,’ he said, ‘but I stopped here to
get supper on the way home, and the landlord told me you were here, so
I thought I’d ask you to drink with me.’
“He was greeted heartily, for everybody knew and liked him, and a
bumper of punch was poured out for him forthwith, his invitation being
peremptorily laid on the table. Then, as a matter of course, it was
suggested that he take a hand in the game, and he being more than
willing, he sat at our table.
“‘We’re playing ten-dollar limit, Gil,’ said one of the party, who
knew that money was not always plentiful with the big fellow. But he
laughed carelessly and said: ‘That’s all right,’ as he pulled out a
hundred-dollar bill and bought chips.
“Martin looked at him rather keenly, as I thought, for an instant, and
said:
“‘Been out to St. Paul to-night, Gil?’
“‘Yes, I have,’ said Gilmartin, and I was sure that I saw a
half-laughing look of defiance on his face as he answered. It
puzzled me at the moment, but I understood the question and answer
afterward. Martin, it seemed, suspected that Gilmartin had perfected
his arrangements to go electioneering, and that he had the money in his
pocket with which he was expected to do his work. It was this that he
had asked by implication, and Gilmartin, understanding him perfectly,
and knowing that he could not keep his secret long from the other, had
admitted it. As it proved, he had five thousand dollars in greenbacks
with him.
“The game went on without any special development for perhaps half an
hour before I noticed that Martin was playing against Gilmartin as
heavily as he could, and only trying to hold his own against the rest
of us. Gilmartin held his end up fairly, and was not far from even when
Martin got his first good chance at him. It was a pretty play, too, for
Gilmartin thought, as the rest of us did, that Martin was bluffing
when he stood pat, and contented himself with coming in without a raise
every time it came his bet, until the rest of us had dropped out. Then
he raised Gilmartin the limit. Gilmartin had a jack-high flush and was
confident, so they had it back and forth till Gilmartin called and gave
up four hundred dollars to an ace flush.
“That was the heaviest pot for a long time, but presently the two got
together again, and Gilmartin lost two hundred more. Then he grew a
little nervous and Martin grew cooler. Then Gilmartin became angry,
though he controlled himself tolerably well, and I was sure that Martin
would beat him. So it proved. It came my deal soon after in a jack-pot,
and Gilmartin opened it. We all came in, standing Martin’s raise. I
had aces, but didn’t better in the draw, so I laid down after one
raise. Martin drew three cards, as did each of the others, excepting
Gilmartin, who drew two. He bet the limit, and the next man laid down.
Martin raised it the limit, and another man and myself dropped out.
Gilmartin raised, and the fourth man threw down his cards. That left
the two alone again, and Martin raised back.
“‘Ten better than you,’ said Gilmartin savagely, and then with a short
laugh he added, ‘You won’t get away with me this time.’
“‘If you think so,’ said Martin quietly, ‘what do you say to taking off
the limit?’
“‘That will suit me exactly,’ said Gilmartin, and Martin pushed up his
last blue chip and a hundred-dollar bill.
“‘I’ll see that and go you five hundred better,’ said Gilmartin
eagerly, and he skinned the bills off from a big roll that he drew from
an inside pocket.
“‘Does my check go?’ asked Martin. ‘I haven’t so much money with me.’
“‘It’s good for fifty thousand, and you know it,’ said Gilmartin.
“‘I raise you a thousand,’ said Martin.
“‘And I’ll go you a thousand better,’ exclaimed the other. He was
getting excited, but nobody dared to speak. It was a serious matter to
interfere in a game like that.
“‘A thousand better,’ was the response.
“Gilmartin hesitated. He looked at his cards and thought for a moment.
Then he counted his money.
“‘I’ll have to call you,’ he said finally, ‘for I’ve only got twelve
hundred left.’