Queer Luck: Poker Stories from the New York Sun

by David A. Curtis

“I have often heard people say that they do not believe in luck,” said the gray-haired young-looking man, “and they say it in the sense of disbelieving that there is any such thing as luck. To my notion that is very much the same as if they should say that they do not believe in the weather. I believe it was John Oakhurst who said that the only thing that is certain about luck is that it is going to change; but although the saying sounds philosophical, I am inclined to think it is inaccurate. I have known a great many men in the course of my life whose luck did not change. To illustrate this it may be enough to recall the stories that are told once in a great while about sailors who are swept overboard by the waves in a storm at sea and who are swept back on board the same vessel by the return current. The man who escapes drowning in such a way experiences one of the most extraordinary strokes of luck that can possibly occur to a human being. And it is almost inconceivable that such a thing would happen to any one man twice.

“Yet I know a man to whom it has happened three times. Captain Lowden White, of East Rockaway, Long Island, is a veteran seaman. He cannot swim a stroke, and when he is asked why he never learned, he cannot, or at least he does not, give any clear answer, but turns the question with a careless ‘I don’t know’ and a pleasant laugh. I think he is superstitious about it, as many sailors are, and certainly if anybody’s experience justifies superstition his would seem to, for, as I said, he has been washed overboard three times in the course of the last forty years, and each time washed back immediately on board the vessel he had just left. And that does not include the times he has fallen or been knocked overboard and saved in some other way. I, myself, once caught him by the collar after he had fallen into the water by reason of the snapping of the bowsprit foot-rope of the sloop “Martha,” near Wreck Lead. He had rubber boots on, and the current was running like a mill-race. If I had been two seconds slower he would never have come up alive. If it were a legitimate subject for a bet I would wager any reasonable sum that a man with such an experience would never be drowned.

“That is what I call one of the most wonderful runs of luck that I ever heard of. And it is something of a coincidence, perhaps, that Captain White himself is a firm believer in his own luck in other matters, though he does not talk much about his escapes from drowning. He was in his younger days fairly prosperous, and had gathered together a modest competence when he was between forty and fifty years old. Then something happened. I hinted that he was superstitious. What happened was that he killed a cat. That does not seem to the average man to be a very important occurrence, but the Captain firmly believes that it changed the whole course of his life.

“‘I had always been lucky before,’ he says, ‘and I have not had a day’s luck since.’ And the fact is, that whereas he was formerly well-to-do, he is not so now, poor man.

“I suppose everybody who plays poker believes in luck. Certainly I do, and I have seen certain things at the card table that in their way were as remarkable as the runs of a single number at roulette, that make up the pretty little romances that go out from Monte Carlo at times, and that used to be dated Baden Baden. I sat watching a game one night at a friend’s house in St. Nicholas Avenue, in which only intimate friends were playing, and two of them were ladies. I did not join, as there were six at the table, and I don’t like a game with seven in. There was absolutely nothing in the game to distinguish it from any other of the hundreds of games that go on in the family circles of up-to-date New Yorkers every night. The limit was five cents. There wasn’t a player in the game who knew enough of card manipulation to deal a crooked hand, and there wasn’t one there who would have done it under temptation. And, moreover, there wasn’t anything like temptation.

“Yet one woman in that game held a succession of hands that would have made a fortune for an ordinarily good player if he were lucky enough to hold them in a stiff game. She had been playing with indifferent success for perhaps half an hour, and I was amusing myself by noticing her essentially feminine style of play, when she suddenly began holding flushes. Five times in succession she held a flush before any special remark was made. Of course, there was the usual chatter and chaffing, but when she showed down the fifth flush in five deals, there was a general outburst of comment, and a confession by her that it did seem uncanny.

“‘It will give me the shivery creeps if I get any more,’ was the way she expressed it, and I could see that she really was nervous. That, naturally, amused me, for it was not so very extraordinary, though it was certainly unusual.

“The next hand she held nothing. Then she got a four flush and filled. Then she got a pat flush; then, drawing to the ace and king of spades, she got three more spades. The next hand was nothing, and the next was a pat flush. By this time I was excited myself, as was everybody in the game, and I made a memorandum of the last eleven hands, and began jotting down each hand as she held it.

“In thirty-six consecutive hands she held twenty-seven flushes. None of the other nine hands contained even a pair. Five of the twenty-seven were pat hands; nine times she drew one card, eight times she drew two, three times she drew three, and twice she drew four. There seemed to be no distinction of suits. The flush was of one suit as often as another. It was absolutely impossible that there could have been trickery, for there were six dealing in turn. The lady herself was exceedingly nervous about it, and although she became so excited as to continue drawing for flushes, she ceased to try to play them scientifically. Indeed, the other players ceased after a time to bet against her, and the cards were at length dealt more from curiosity than from any interest in the game as a game. At length, however, the lucky lady grew so nearly hysterical that her husband made some excuse to break up the game. I was sorry it had to be done, too, for I wanted to see how long such a run would continue, but the lady has told me since that she never, before or since, had any similar experience, though she plays frequently.

“I never saw anything exactly similar to that, but I had a run of luck once myself that seemed to me almost as curious. I went to visit a friend and there was invited to sit down at a poker game with some men I had never met before. The fact of not knowing the other players did not worry me, for I assumed that they were all friends of Harry’s, but it was not long before the fact that they did not know me began to worry me most confoundedly, for I never had such cards in my life before, and I don’t dare even to hope that I will ever hold them again. If the circumstances had been different and I could have felt free to play to win, I could have won big money, for they were playing an open game, and the limit was two dollars. At first I played my hands for what they were worth, and I won more than half the pots I played for—a big percentage when six are playing. But after a little I began to worry. It seemed to me that they must mistrust me, and I hesitated about betting as I ordinarily would. Still I kept winning and my pile of chips grew till I was positively ashamed of myself.