“I’ve often thought that the Lord must ’a’ meant the game o’ poker as a instrument o’ savin’ grace in the way o’ cultivatin’ those virtues ’thout which a man hain’t fit to live, nor yet capable o’ gettin’ on in the world. Now poker’ll teach a man self-control better’n almost anything else I know. You never seen a poker player what knowed the first principles o’ the game, givin’ way to no weaknesses.
“ ‘Minds me of a game I see played once on the old River Belle, comin’ down the river just after the spring floods o’ ’76. There wa’n’t no such games then as there used to be before the war, or even for a few years after. I don’t know what the reason is, but poker don’t ’pear to be respected, now, like it used to be. ’Pears like the risin’ generation hain’t none o’ the moral stamina that folks had when I was younger. Call poker immoral, I’ve heard tell, just as if ’twasn’t the greatest educator an’ highest moral training known to civilization.
“There was a good bit o’ money up in that game, for there was four o’ the nerviest men I ever knowed in it, an’ every one of ’em was out for blood. Two of ’em, Jim Waters an’ Abe Simpson, was St. Louis sports that always travelled together. Jim Blivins was another. He come from Memphis, but he’d kind o’ run hisself out o’ town an’ mostly travelled the river. ’Twarn’t that he was crooked, partic’lar. He played as fair as most of ’em did, an’ used to say that he never stacked the cards ’thouten he had reason to think that somebody else in the game was up to the same sort o’ deviltry. But the truth was he played too strong a game for the Memphis crowd, an’ it got so that nobody that knowed him would play with him, so just naturally he had to seek for new pastures an’ strange lambs. The fourth man was a feller I never seed afore, though I come to know him well enough afterward. ’Twas George Dunning, a chap f’m somewheres up in Iowa that had took to the river for business an’ somehow had struck up a friendship with Blivins. They was playin’ partners at the time, though I didn’t know it, an’ just naturally they wasn’t a-shoutin’ it out from the housetops, the same bein’ the upper deck in case of steamboats. Incidentally there was another feller in the game. He was a cattle-dealer from Texas, Dunnigan by name, that had just been up north sellin’ a slew o’ cattle, an’ was goin’ home with a wad that wouldn’t fit comfortable in his inside pocket.
“The other four was just naturally intendin’ to get hold o’ that wad, but there was some difference of opinion amongst ’em about it. Waters an’ Simpson was reckonin’ on takin’ it back to St. Louis with ’em, an’ Blivins an’ Dunning was thinkin’ o’ gettin’ off at Memphis an’ dividin’ up there. What Dunnigan was figurin’ on I don’t know, but I reckon he expected to draw compound interest on his money durin’ the time he was on the boat.
“By the time we got below Cairo the game was goin’ on under a full head o’ steam. The professionals was all well fixed for money an’ there wasn’t no small stakes played for. Nothin’ was said about a limit, neither, nor there warn’t no table stakes rules. It was just a case o’ bettin’ anything you damn please, an’ either layin’ down or makin’ a bigger bluff every time the other feller peeped.
“White chips was a dollar, reds was five, an’ blues was fifty, makin’ a tol’able stiff game even with chips, but they was a good many hundred-dollar bills lyin’ on the table ’fore they’d been playin’ long, an’ there was a feelin’ among them that was lookin’ on that bigger money than that was liable to be flashed ’most any time.
“It was reely surprisin’, seein’ that the game was that sort, an’ the men playin’ was so much in earnest, that there was nothin’ decisive-like in the fust day’s play. You’d ha’ thought that somebody’d gone broke within a few hours, anyhow, but whether ’twas that they wasn’t in no hurry, seein’ they had several days ahead of ’em, or whether ’twas that they was too much for one another, I don’t know. Anyhow, they was a-playin’ from about four o’clock in the evenin’ till after midnight, an’ nobody was more’n five or six hundred dollars out that fust day.
“You see they all played cautious. I’ve often noticed that when men are playin’ in a real important game, with plenty o’ time to play in, they’ll play a much more cautious game than they will if there’s only a few dollars, or a few hundred in sight. Anyhow, I didn’t see no bet o’ more than five hundred pushed up while I was lookin’ on, an’ that was most o’ the time, an’ I didn’t see that called nor raised on’y once. Blivins put up five hundred once on three queens, an’ Dunnigan, who had drawed one card, raised him five hundred, so Blivins just naturally laid down, seein’ ’twas a jack-pot an’ Dunnigan hadn’t opened when he had a chance, but had raised once before the draw, showin’ he had hopes of a flush or a straight.
“Well, as I said, they played till about twelve o’clock an’ nobody was hurt much. Then Dunnigan said he guessed he’d turn in, an’ nobody made any objections, only they all seemed to understand they was to go on with the game the next day.
“I must say that there Dunnigan was a foxy player. He laid down his cards a good many times that second day when an ordinary man would have played ’em, provin’ conclusive that he knowed the game. You see he was reely better off in the game than he would have been if the other fellers hadn’t been watchin’ one another the way they was. Ef either two of the four had drawed out o’ the game I don’t reckon he’d ha’ lasted more’n perhaps an hour or so, though as I said, he understood the game well enough, but just naturally he wasn’t on to the reely subtle refinements o’ scientific manipulation, an’ any one o’ them four could ha’ stacked cards on him without him knowin’ it. But the p’int was that Waters an’ Simpson was watchin’ Blivins an’ Dunning with more anxiety than a hen gives to a brood o’ ducklin’s, and Blivins an’ Dunning was returnin’ the compliment most amazin’ earnest like. Nary a one of ’em dasted to deal crooked, an’ as for tryin’ to ring in marked cards, any such trick as that would ha’ just been suicide.