_Wherein It Is Shown That It Is Easy Enough to Be Cool When Playing with
Another Man's Money._
"I happen to know that a considerable number of the most famous
professional gamblers in this country made their reputation with other
men's money," said a Rocky Mountain man of large experience. "These men
have had their names heralded far and wide as the stakers of thousands,
and even hundreds of thousands, upon the turn of a card, and innumerable
yarns have been spun as to their cool, John Oakhurst-like manner of
scooping in a table full of money upon the smashing of a bank, or of
calmly lighting their cigars and strolling out when fortune went against
them. So far as the stories themselves are concerned, some of them are
undoubtedly right; but all of them leave out the very essential fact
that the men were simply players of other men's money--'table touts,' we
call 'em out West. I suppose it is a reasonable proposition that it is a
whole lot easier to risk another man's money at the table than it is to
endanger your own. Of all the men I am telling you about hardly a one
had enough luck at the tables to keep himself warm when putting up his
own coin; perhaps it was owing to the extreme caution of their play
under these conditions and the far greater strain involved in the
hazarding of their own money. They could take another man's money--the
money of a man who probably did not know the difference between 00 and
33 in a wheel layout, but who could afford to venture almost an
unlimited amount of money on a game--and in at least eight cases out of
ten they could run the initial stake into a pile that would mean for
themselves a rake-off or percentage of thousands or tens of thousands;
but in venturing their own money I have seen few of them who were any
good in the matter of keeping their nerve under rein.
"Back in the sixties Tom Naseby was generally considered the most
dangerous man at a faro table on the Pacific Slope. Bank after bank,
from Portland to San Diego, went to the wall under his system of
play--or lack of system, I ought to say--and at the end the San
Francisco banks shut him out altogether, so that he was compelled to
start a layout of his own. Among Naseby's smashes that were famous on
the coast was that of breaking Byron McGregor's Kearny street
institution to the tune of $150,000; of hitting up Tillottson's $10,000
limit game in San Francisco for $100,000 and closing the doors, and of
banging Ned Jordan's bank in Portland for $125,000, all within the space
of three months. Yet Naseby told me himself that on none of these plays
was he venturing a _sou marque_ of his own money--that it had all been
handed over to him, the initial stakes for each big play, that is, by
Ralston, the millionaire San Francisco banker, who committed suicide.
Out of each winning Naseby of course got a big cut of the money, for
Ralston went into the thing for the sport of it and was a very generous
man. Naseby, who belonged to the tribe of savers for a rainy day, hung
onto these rolls. Naseby played faro with just about as much skill as a
Zulu wields a war club, and he frankly confessed that his coups were
simply the result of unlimited confidence and unlimited backing allied
to bull-head luck.
"Frank Burbridge, the most famous poker player that Portland has ever
brought out, was another man who made his reputation as a gambler upon
the strength of the vast winnings he hauled out upon stakes furnished by
wealthy men. Some of these rich backers of Burbridge remained behind the
screen and only received Frank's reports as to how he made out in the
games for which they staked him, but others came out into the open and
sat alongside Burbridge when he was playing with their money--not for
the purpose of watching him, for he was strictly on the level, but just
for the fun of watching the game. One of the big contractors for the
building of the Oregon Short Line, a man worth many millions of dollars,
was one of Burbridge's clients who liked to watch the expert poker
player play the hands. He was constantly staking Burbridge for big games
with dangerous opponents. If Frank won, all right; he got most of the
money himself. If he lost, all right, too; the contractor simply went
into the thing for the mental distraction it afforded him.
"I was a witness of one of those big games in which Burbridge engaged
with a stake furnished by the contractor. It was played at the old
Willamette House in Portland, and it was a two-handed game. The other
player was a very wealthy Portland man who was said to have made a big
pot of money by simply making the suggestion that he intended to
parallel the Oregon Short Line. This rich man thought he knew how to
play poker until his friend, the contractor of the Short Line who was
Burbridge's staker, put him up against the latter--partly for the
interest of watching the game, and partly, perhaps, for other reasons.
Anyhow, the Portland man had a whole heap of an opinion of what he knew
about poker, and played the game incessantly for pastime. He had never
happened to sit in a game with Burbridge, and Burbridge's backer finally
suggested to the Portland man that he have a try at what he could do
with the man who was known to be the most expert player of poker in the
Northwest.
"'Oh, he's a professional,' said the Portland man, 'and I don't play
cards with professionals in a contest of skill such as I see you want to
make this. I play with 'em once in a while just to study their games,
but not for big money. I wouldn't trust them under such circumstances.'
"'Well, you trust me, I suppose, don't you?' said the contractor.
"'Certainly,' was the reply.
"'All right, my friend,' said the contractor, 'I'd just like to find out
to satisfy my own curiosity how good you can play poker. I don't amount
to much at it myself, and I don't think you're any better than I am.
Very well. You sit into a game with Burbridge, and I'll deal all the
hands myself, and sit by to see fair play--though Burbridge plays just
as fairly as I would myself under the same circumstances. Does that
proposition suit you?'
"'Yes,' said the Portland man, 'I'd just like to give Burbridge a whirl
under those circumstances.'
"So the game was arranged. Four or five of us were invited around to the
old Willamette House to look on while the game progressed. The two men
sat down to the game about 8 o'clock at night. The Portland man--I will
call him Tunwell, which is pretty close to his right name--had
occasionally met Burbridge, who was a very smooth, urbane sort of chap
of thirty, and so they nodded good-naturedly to each other when Tunwell
came into the room. The contractor was on hand with his check-book. The
conditions were simply that the contractor was to deal each of the
hands, and then retire from the table with the remainder of the deck
until the call for cards. Then he was to dish out what cards were called
for, and get away from the table again until the hand was played. The
rest of us were to sit around, with the privilege of having peeps at the
hands. Tunwell was to have the privilege of asking the advice of any of
us as to proper plays, as Burbridge was to be permitted to refer hands
that heavily involved the contractor's purse to the latter--not to seek
advice, but simply to inform him what he intended to do in the play. The
game was to be without limit, and the chips were worth $5, $25, and $50.
"So the game began. Tunwell soon proved himself a pretty cool man. He
didn't put up a stingy game, but he simply had the proper sort of regard
for the worth of the cards the contractor dished out to him, and he
played them right, as we who were watching the game and had a chance of
seeing both hands soon discovered. Two or three times in the early part
of the game I, for one, thought he was a bit overcautious, but in
general his line of play was away above the average. Tunwell was a big,
gray-eyed man of the type that is jammed full of well-controlled nerve,
and he held himself on this night in additional check because he knew
that he was up against a hard proposition. The play at first didn't
amount to much--fifty or hundred-dollar bets occasionally--and both men
seemed to be sparring for information on the style of each other's play.
Tunwell finally decided upon a bluff. He had a nine high, and he went up
to $500 on it. Burbridge laid down. This was pretty good for Tunwell,
but he had the sense to show no exultation. Now, after making a thing
like that go through, most men would keep on bluffing until called when
on steep and craggy ground, but Tunwell didn't. He resumed the system of
playing for what his hands were worth. This he stuck to for half an hour
or so, when he was $800 ahead of the game and then he made another bluff
on a pair of queens. Burbridge, who had three aces, laid down, and
Tunwell's pile was amplified by $1,000.
"'That was a cold bluff, Burbridge,' said Tunwell.
"'Oh, I don't think so,' said Burbridge. 'There was too much confidence
in your eye for that.' Which shows that even a great poker player is as
likely as anybody to get mixed when it comes to studying eyes in a game.
"After a while Burbridge caught a pat full house, and Tunwell filled a
still better full hand. It was Tunwell's bet, and he went $1,000 on it.
Burbridge laid down--wherein it was plain to be seen that he was a man
who possessed that indefinable thing, the poker player's 'hunch.'
"Now, all these plays I'm telling you about were simply part of the
warming up. The two men were simply studying each other. They didn't
really begin to play poker until two hours after they sat down.
"Then the contractor dealt Burbridge a promising set of threes, and gave
Tunwell a neat two pairs, with aces on top. Tunwell filled with another
ace, and Burbridge got nothing worth mentioning in the draw, so that his
three nines didn't look very big to us against an ace full. It was
Burbridge's bet. He was one of those men who lay their cards down on the
table and look up at the ceiling before making a bet.
"'Five thousand dollars,' said he finally, still looking up at the
ceiling reflectively, and the contractor, who had seen Tunwell's draw,
winced a bit.
"Tunwell looked at him pretty hard and scanned his hand. He raised him
$5,000.
"'And $5,000,' said Burbridge, quietly. Now, the contractor was a pretty
game sort of man, but we could see that he felt badly over this.
"Then Tunwell laid down. Burbridge's bluff worked. Of course, not until
after the game did we tell him what Tunwell held that time, and when we
did he said:
"'I felt from the first, before I made a bet that he had me beat--but
the bigger a man's hand, the easier it is to bluff him out of the
money.' Queer remark, wasn't it?
"Tunwell kept his nerve like a major after this heavy fall, and we
couldn't see the slightest sign of faltering in his style of play. The
game went back to the $100 basis, and was comparatively uninteresting
for an hour or so. In the course of the play during this time Tunwell
caught four queens pat--a very remarkable thing--and got 50 only out of
the hands. But unlike what most poker players would do under such
circumstances, he didn't throw down the hand face upward on the table
with an oath. He wasn't that kind of poker player.
"Just about midnight both men simultaneously decided upon a bluff--and
it's not often that men happen to do this in a two-handed poker game;
when they do, something always drops. Both men stood pat. There wasn't a
pair in either hand. It was a choice experience to note the offhand way
with which Burbridge made the first bet on this pat hand of his.
"'Ten thousand dollars,' said he, and his backer, the contractor, went
to the window, raised it, and poked his head out for air.
"'Same, more than you,' said Tunwell, scanning his hand as if it was the
real thing.
"Burbridge raised him another $10,000 and flicked a bit of ashes off his
collar. Now Tunwell felt that his man was bluffing.
"'I call you,' said he.
"'Ace high,' said Burbridge.
"'Ace high here,' said Tunwell.
"'Queen next.'
"'Queen next here.'
"'Nine next.'
"'Nine next here.'
"'Six next.'
"Tunwell tossed his four that was next on to the table face upward
without the movement of an eyebrow.
"'Six wins the $60,000,' said he, and the contractor strolled back from
the window.
"'Better luck next time, Tunwell,' said he, smiling, while Burbridge
drank a glass of water.
"'There isn't going to be any next time, my boy,' returned Tunwell. 'I'm
no hog.'"