Each player in turn, commencing with the one at the left of the dealer, declares whether he can and will open the pot; if he declines to open, he says, “I pass.” If he has the requisite hand, and elects to open, he says, “I open.”
If no player opens the pot, then each player deposits in the pool the same amount that was previously contributed, and the deal passes to the next player. The same performance ensues until some player holds the necessary cards, and is willing to break the pot.
A player may break the pot for any amount within the limits of the game and each player in turn must make the bet good, raise it, or pass out.
After all the players who determined to go in have made good the bet of the player who opened the jack-pot, and the hands have been filled, then the opener of the pot makes the first bet.
If all pass, up to the player who broke the pot, the latter takes the pool, and can only be compelled to show the jacks, or better, necessary to break the pot.
One of the most vital adjuncts to poker games as played in the many “club-rooms” scattered throughout the United States is technically termed the “take off.” It is an amount taken by the proprietors out of the pots as a percentage due the “house” on every hand “called,” and shown down; a pair of aces and another pair, and you must “go to the hole” with a check. The “hole” is a slot cut in the middle of the table, leading to a locked drawer underneath, and all checks deposited therein are the property of the keeper of the place. At other resorts the house “takes off” for each pair of jacks or any better hand shown on the call, while at others the percentage is exacted for any two pairs shown. It will be readily seen, by any intelligent reader, that it is only a question of time when all the player’s chips will go into the “hole.” The exaction of the “take off” is justified on the score of incidental expenses, lights, etc., but a compound interest note, on which interest is computed quarterly, will not take away your money more surely or more rapidly than this innocent looking “hole.”
In “stud-poker” the dealer attends to the “take off.” He is supposed to take one check for every pair in sight, and for every “call,” but owing to a manual dexterity acquired through long practice he is enabled considerably to exceed the stipulated limit, and it is but a short time before all the money played against the game is in the table drawer.
Having briefly outlined the principles of the fair game of poker, and explained the relative value of the hands of cards which may be[be] held by players, it is next in order to explain the various advantages obtained by professional gamblers over those whom they propose to fleece, such as stocking the cards, employing marked cards or cards previously prepared, “crimping,” “ringing in cold decks,” “holding out,” false shuffles and cuts, “convexes” and “reflectors,” &c., &c.
First will be described the simplest of all known methods of stocking the cards, viz.:
STRIPPERS.