Taking Chances Part 22

"'Why, don't you benighted people back East use the joker?'

"'Yes,' said I, 'we do. We always give the joker in a new deck to babies in arms to cut their teeth on.'

"Another queer kink in the slope game of draw is that straights don't go. I've been catching occasional pat straights and drawing to 'em all my life, and I think the straight is one of the prettiest plays in poker. In playing straights, if the chap across the table draws one card, you've got the fun of trying to figure out whether he's drawing to a couple of pairs or bobbing to a straight or a flush, and it's interesting work. If he stands pat, it's up to you to determine by the mind-reading process whether he's simply bluffing or actually has a pat straight or full hand or flush in his paws.

"Well, out on the coast they've heard occasional rumors of such things as straights being played somewhere or another in the game of draw, but you won't meet one coast man in a hundred that knows precisely what the straight consists of and what the chances are of a man's getting a pat straight or of filling a one-ended or double-ended straight. As for playing straights, they've never even dreamed of such an absurdity. I found that out in the second game of draw I got into out there.

"It was in Portland, and another four-handed game, the other three fellows being business men also. We played along for a while without my running into any snags sticking out of the coast game, and then I got on the deal four cards that had in them the making of a corking good straight, capable of being filled at either end, from nine up to queen, so that either an eight or a king on the draw would have fixed me all right. I decided to draw to it just for luck, although all three of the fellows were in and had stood a rise before the draw. When I caught my king I was glad I had decided to draw to my straight. A king-high straight is a pretty good mess of cards in any man's game of draw as we know draw back in these parts.

"There was a heap of betting on that round, and, of course, with that clipper-built straight of mine, I wasn't going to let any of 'em put it on me. I met every raise and stuck so persistently and confidently that the whole three of them began to regard me as the main guy so far as that deal was concerned and look a bit afraid of me. The last time I raised it they kind o' exchanged looks, and the man at my left called me. The other two men followed suit, and there was a general laying down of hands. The man at my left had three eights, the fellow next to him aces up on treys, and the man at my right three sixes. I projected my right arm to sweep in the good-sized pot after spreading out my king-high straight.

"'Hold up, there!' they all yelled at me at once. 'What's all this? What are you trying to do-hypnotize us?' And the man who had laid down his three eights made a reach for the pot.

"It was now my turn to think the whole three of 'em looney.

"'Is there so much smoke in here,' said I, 'that you three people can't perceive that I've got a king-high straight?'

"'Straight?' said the man with the three eights. 'Straight be d.a.m.ned!

You've got one king up on nothing. How old are you, anyhow-seven?

Straight? Listen to him!' And the three of 'em gave the hoa.r.s.e hoot in chorus. I asked 'em to get around me and pinch me, because I wanted to find out if I was dreaming or not, but they were too busy leaning back in their chairs and roaring like so many wild a.s.ses of the woods to pay any attention to me. That's what I got for not inquiring beforehand into the kind of draw I stacked up against in Portland.

"The next poker knock I got was down in Santa Barbara. I got into a game of draw with three hotel clerks, all good fellows, but all addicted to the nursery poker they play out there, and again I forgot to nail 'em up against the wall and make 'em exude information about the kind of game they purposed playing. We got along all right for an hour or so, and at the end of the time I was comfortably well ahead of the game. It kind o'

tickled me, too, when I caught the joker on the draw three or four times and beat 'em out on their own game- which is a silly game, and about as brainy as bean-bag, all the same. I also kept away from my inclination to draw to straights, and, having made this much progress, I really didn't think I was in for any more rude and costly surprises in the game. That's where I did the leap-year figuring.

"I gave myself a neat mess of clubs-four of them-with the ace for a capstone. I have always been lucky in bobbing to flushes, and this looked good. Two of the other fellows drew two cards each, and the other man asked for one. I gave myself another club, and tried to look gloomy and depressed. An ace-high flush has always been good enough for me on this side of the continent, and I bet it for all it was worth. The three hotel clerks evidently thought they were pretty well fixed, too, and, although there was nothing frantic about the betting, it was nice and smooth and even, and the pot grew in a way that suited me down to the ground. When it got so large on five-dollar raises as we thought it ought to be there was a general suggestion for a call and a show-down.

Two of my fellow players had threes, small ones, and the other two pairs that we wouldn't stay with very long back in this neck of the woods.

Well, I flashed my ace-high flush of clubs on them, and was just about to say something about easy money when the man with the best threes scooped in the pot.

"'Must have left your specs at home, my boy,' said I, thinking he was only fooling. 'Pa.s.s that pile over.'

"'For why?' said he.

"Then I looked him over and saw that he was serious.

"'For why?' I repeated. 'Well, the instructors at whose feet I sat to learn what is learnable about the game of draw poker always taught me to believe that a flush is better than threes.'

"'Yes,' said he, 'but didn't you draw a card?'

"'What the devil difference does that make?' I inquired.

"'Oh,' said he patronizingly, 'I see you're a bit new at the game. You see, you can't draw to flushes. You've got to hold 'em pat.'

"Well, that was the worst jab I had yet received, but I had to stand for it, on the 'do-as-the-Romans-do' principle.

"In San Diego I got into a game with some fellows who were so warm that they wouldn't play anything but jack-pots. At the start-off of the game-the first hand-none of the four of us could open it. It went around three times, and on the fourth deal I caught a pair of queens. Two of the other fellows stayed. I caught another queen, and played the hand for all it was worth. When I was called I showed down my hand, and had 'em both beat.

"'Foul hand,' said they. 'You didn't have openers,' and they looked at me suspiciously.

"'The d.i.c.kens you say!' said I. 'I went in with a pair of queens and caught another one-there they are.'

"'But you needed aces,' said they, all at once. 'It went around four times, and jack-pots are progressive, of course. D'ye mean to say you didn't know that? Sorry, old man, that we'll have to split the pot.'

"'Are they always progressive out here?' I asked.

"'Always,' they answered, and that settled it. The pot was split."

THE PROPER TIME TO GET "COLD FEET."

_Few Gamblers Perceive "the Psychological Moment" For Quitting Play and Retiring Rich._

An old man whose mind is still alert, and the movements of whose tall, somewhat stooped body are as free and spry as those of many a man fifty years his junior, is Cole Martin, once the most famous faro dealer in this country. He slipped the cards out of the box for the statesmen with a penchant for gaming who lived in Was.h.i.+ngton fifty, forty, and thirty years ago, when it was deemed no disgrace for the strong men of the land to try an occasional buck at the tiger, openly and above board. Martin is now verging upon 80 years of age, and even to the present generation of Was.h.i.+ngtonians his white-bearded countenance is very familiar. His age does not tell upon him, and his commerce among men is about as wide now, he says, as it was back in the fifties. He had a great deal of money at one time in his career, but most of it went by the board. He had the caution to purchase an annuity for himself a good many years ago, and upon this he lives comfortably. He has pa.s.sed most of his life in Was.h.i.+ngton, but before and after the war of the rebellion he had adventures in many parts of the United States where gaming was at its highest. He is a mine of curious, first-hand information about the statesmen-gamesters who were great figures in the national life of the country before the war, and the local newspaper have published many of his reminiscences of this sort. He is not garrulous, but once he gets into his stride and the company is congenial he talks well and entertainingly. He was speaking recently of the case of the well-known young American turf plunger who, after having beaten the English racing game to the tune of $150,000 a few weeks ago, waded in so recklessly that, only a short time later, he quit $90,000 to the bad.

"Another example of the chance taker who has not mastered the fine science of quitting," was his way of summing it up. "That seems to be the most difficult point in the gambling business-to know just the right time to quit. Few men master it. I never did, myself. I wish I had. Any fool can go on playing when he is away ahead of his game, but it takes a man of unusual strength of character, perception and foresight to knock off when, after riding a high tide, he notices that it begins to ebb.

The scientists, I believe, talk of a 'psychological moment.' I don't know of any business in life in which the psychological moment plays a greater part than it does in gambling. Most of this country's old-time gamesters have died, as you know, very poor, or, worse, poverty-stricken. I never hear of the death of one of them leaving not enough money behind to have his body put into the ground that I don't recall the time when he had tens or hundreds of thousands. The gambler by profession has many a psychological moment in the course of his career, but he rarely takes advantages of them. He goes on dabbling at a percentage that his common-sense tells him is against him, and that he has only temporarily beaten, and after a while he finds himself broke; then he asks himself remorsefully why he didn't break off when he was on top of the wave. I have known a few professional gamblers who knew just when to quit. Some of them are still alive, old men like myself, and they are well fixed. Those of them who are dead left good sums of money behind them.

"I once saw George Plantagenet, one of the best known of the New Orleans gamblers before the war, win $60,000 in an afternoon's play at faro.

This was in Memphis. He cashed in and left the bank. After supper he returned with all of the money and he began to buck the king. He played it open every time and the king lost eight straight times in two deals.

That cost Plantagenet $20,000 of his winnings. The lid had been taken off the game for him. When the dealer pulled out the eighth straight losing king Plantagenet cashed in. He was frank enough to admit that he had cold feet.

"'While freely acknowledging that I am more or less of a d-d fool,' he said coolly, 'I strive for the reputation of knowing when I've got enough, even of a good thing. I quit. This is just my time to quit. If the box were only depleting me gradually but surely I don't doubt that I'd go until I was all up. But I can see legible handwriting on the wall from as considerable a distance as my neighbors, and when I'm on top, as I am now, well and comfortably, and eight straight kings range themselves against me on the left hand side of the layout, that's the kind of a signal I'm waiting for, and I pa.s.s. I'll bet any man on the side, just for a flyer, $5,000 that the next king out of the box wins, but no more faro.

"Frank Wooton, the proprietor of the layout, was standing by when Plantagenet made this little talk.

"'You are wise in your generation, George,' said he. 'Now, it is about a 10 to 1 shot against the king losing again. Consequently you can afford to give me at least 2 to 1 on that proposition. I'll bet you $2,500 to $5,000 that the king does lose the next time out.'

"'Taken,' said Plantagenet, covering Wooton's money, and the crowd gathered round to watch the dealer riffle the cards. The box was fully half out before a king showed, and it showed on the losing side-nine straight. Wooton pulled down the side bet.

"'Which I may remark,' said Plantagenet with the greatest coolness, 'that this ninth consecutive lose of the king simply confirms and makes good the hunch I had to quit when it lost the eighth time. But I will go a bit further to prove that my inspiration to quit is a proper and sensible one. I will bet you $1,000 that I can buck your bank now with dummy chips representing all of my winnings and the roll I originally started with, and that, although I shall play as carefully and as cautiously and as earnestly as I would did the dummy chips really represent money, I shall lose every stack within two hours.'

"Plantagenet and Wooton were old friends, and the latter knew that Plantagenet would try to win with the dummy chips even though he would be $1,000 loser if he did.

"'Go ahead and prove your case,' said Wooton, and a dealer who was off duty was called upon to deal. Plantagenet kept cases himself and played his own particular system with all manner of care and effort. Wooton stood by and saw that Plantagenet was playing his regular game.

Plantagenet's luck had deserted him, and he lost two bets out of every three. It seemed impossible for him to get down right, and he lost steadily. He had played in his last stack in an hour and forty minutes and Wooton hand him the $1,000.

"'That's the way it would have been had I been playing with money,' said Plantagenet, and Wooton agreed with him. Plantagenet was one of the men who knew when to quit, and when he died, with his grandchildren around him, in the early seventies, he left more than $500,000 to be distributed among his heirs.

"Edmund Baker of Louisville, who was not a professional gambler, but who outdid most of the famous professional gamblers of the South in the late fifties in the heaviness of his play when he felt in a winning humor, was another man who knew when to quit. I saw him win $32,000 in one night at bank in the rooms of the old Crescent City Club. Then he curled up all of a sudden and cashed in. He wasn't a quitter in the ungenerous sense, but he used to say that the little angel, supposed by the sailors to sit aloft and watch out for Jack Tar, had a habit of informing him, when he was bucking another man's game, just the proper time to pa.s.s it up and quit. It was a matter of pure hunch with him. On this occasion Joe Randolph, a heavy player from Virginia, twitted Baker a bit for not pressing his luck-for quitting when he seemed to be winning four bets out of five.

"'All right, Randolph,' said Baker after he had cashed in. 'I'll let you make five $10 bets in my behalf on the deal now running and I'll bet you an even $2,000 that I (or you) lose four out of the five; this, just to show you that my intuition about the proper time to lay off is good.'

"Randolph took that bet, which was a good one, with more than an even chance in his favor, and he lost, for every one of the five bets lost.

Baker would quit when he was loser just as suddenly as he would when he was away ahead of the game. I saw him lose over $3,000 in a four-handed poker game with friends in one of the parlors of the old St. Charles Hotel between the hours of 6 and 9 o'clock one evening. He had practically an unlimited amount of money at his disposal, considering the size of the game-$200 limit-but he yawned and pushed his chair back with the simple statement that it wasn't his night. The next night he lost $2,000 more to the same three friends, and again he resumed his seat. On the following night he was $4,000 loser after four hours' play, but he gave no sign of quitting.

"'Isn't it pretty near time for you to stretch your arms and forsake us again, Baker?' asked one of his friends in the game, jokingly.