Books: Deal the Cards

DEALER’S CHOICE: THE WORLD’S GREATEST POKER STORIES (277 pp.)—Edited by Jerry D. Lewis—A. S. Barnes ($3.95).

For the most part, this anthology of “Americas second most popular after-dark activity” consists of short classics—from Stephen Crane’s A Poker Game to John OHara’s Where’s the Game? —still worth more than a white chip. Some of them, though, seem to begin after the deal has started and end before the reader gets his fifth card. Best of the lot, perhaps, is Somerset Maugham’s Straight Flush, a poignant tale of a man burdened with failing eyesight, and not idiocy, who chose the one time in 64,973 chances to misread his hand and toss a small straight, all pink into the discard. The gentleman gave up his hobby of a lifetime and directed his future interests toward philanthropy.

In addition to the fictional treatment of the game, help is offered to the guileless by Oswald Jacoby and Russel Crouse as they wrestle with the problem of how to play and how not to play poker. Unfortunately, their efforts may force some readers to the conclusion that, in order to operate profitably, larceny up to and including purse-snatching is not to be despised.

Dealer’s Choice touches also on some historical gems. Poker has survived despite almost constant tinkering with the rules. It was struck a staggering blow in the last century when a group of losers in Toledo devised “Jack-Pots,” which called for an ante before the deal, and jacks or better to open. A Southern gentleman named John Blackbridge fought back against this Northern plot to ruin the game. In 1879 he wrote: “[It is] as if one should be obliged every few minutes to stop playing poker and waste some chips purchasing tickets in a turkey raffle.”

Just as serious was the short brush with respectability the game had in 1871, when the U.S. Minister to Great Britain, Robert Schenck, got a little something going at Queen Victoria’s estate in Somersetshire. Her Majesty happened by and took a hand. She was delighted and asked Schenck to draw up some rules. He obliged and added that “it is good practice to chaff (talk nonsense) with a view to misleading your opponents.” This brazen encouragement of coffee-housing caused U.S. poker purists to demand his recall.

Others of her sex followed the Queen’s lead. In the ’90s, Spalding’s published a book on poker written by A. Howard Cady. The publisher mercifully concealed the fact that the “A” stood for Alice. The girls are still a problem. In Ladies Wild, they get the complete Robert Benchley treatment. “The next hand was to be Whistle Up Your Windpipe . . . seven-card stud, first and last cards up, deuces, treys, and red-haired queens wild, high-low-and-medium.”

Franklin P. Adams, himself vulnerable on the score of recklessness,* complains: “Women . . . ask repeatedly how much the blue chips are worth, and the red, and the white; how much they are allowed to bet; they have to be reminded that they’re shy, that it’s their turn to deal, to bet, to shuffle . . .”

On one thing F.P.A. and Benchley more or less agree: keep women the hell out of the game—if you can.

*He once drew four cards to a slice of rye bread.