The Education of a Poker Player (High Stakes Classic)

Author: Herbert O. Yardley
Publisher: High Stakes
Buy this book at Amazon

<< Previous Page   Next Page >>

FIVE-CARD DRAW, JACKS OR BETTER 19

My mother died when I was sixteen years old, and thereafter I did pretty much as I pleased. I inherited two hundred dollars from her and with this, together with the money I had saved from odd jobs, I made my first venture at poker. The take-out was twenty dol lars in chips but a player could play open; that is, he could play with the twenty dollars in chips plus whatever he had in his pocket. Aside from cash in the pocket, many played open by backing their play with real property-cattle, farms, grain and the like. The player was never asked how much he played open, but if he was bet more than the chips he had in front of him, he was required to put up the differ ence in acceptable IOU's, and if he didn't have all the difference he played for the pot while the other players, if they wished to continue the betting, bet on the side. After a man went broke he was permitted to play one round without any money and if he won the antes he had another start.

Three games were played at Monty's-stud, draw and deuces wild. In the first the dealer anted two dollars. In draw and deuces each player anted fifty cents. Not more than seven were permitted to play, because in draw and deuces so many stayed that the game was slowed up by shuffling the discards to fill out the draw, and a slow game works against the house, which in this case took a fifty-cent cut per game.

In the Foreword I mentioned briefly how I haunted the poker tables and tried to put in practice what I had seen by dealing to my self. I had played plenty of poker for small stakes with school kids, but this was big-league stuff.

The first night I played I think my heart never left my mouth- in any case it all seemed like a bad dream the next morning. I didn't lose much, because to my way of thinking I played conservatively- but the going was rough. It is one thing to face eleven football oppo nents when you have ten men with you, but to face six hungry wolves alone is something else indeed.

The next few days I watched the game to get over my fear, then I tried it again. And I lost. The alternate observation and play went