The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-09-05
POKER AS PLAYED IN PARIS.
A Queer Game Which Americans
would Hardly Recognize.
FROM the ST. Louis Gl3be-Democrat.

| in his hand a list of names; and like
racing list when things go wrong, TOO
many of the names ar scratched. Ihe
sheep are separated from the goats. Snail
il be said the just from the unjust? Sue
cess is a great justiher
! Although commonplace freeze-out, the
! list of Mons. jules and the peculiar cir
1 cumstances which gives the list existence
add every kind of piquancy 20 this real
/ tiger. The first six on the list are sitting
/ in. Each has declared his stake, one $50,
say one $50 and so on, the limit of the
declaration being, say again, $780, Chips
! are handed each TO represent the varying
values, and the game begins. With some
| bizarre improvements on the great Ameri-
1 can concentration of all thievery, the
| game is poker.
| Poker-Le Jeu de PockeT.
The limit in betting is the amount of
chips before one. The man with the 500
worth of chips, to make a superstition, bets
all of it on the third deal. What shall the
$50 man do there with a fair hand? He
may put up his so, have a sight for his
good money, and so on the others. Many
run, but only one receives the crown. The
others, cleaned out-nettoyee, to cleanse,
to scour. to wipe, TO purge, to discharge of
! incumbrance, TO unoil (when oiled), TO
mundify and to clear (by means of artil-
lery), being the equivalent, exact, in
French slang-leave the table, and their
names are marked OH. lney are SCIhlCHSu.
Here is where the sin of 1t comes in.
These Frenchmen sit at poker in the
Press Club for style and gain. And as
they have understood the game to be a
game of bluff and way-Up betting they are
not willing to sit quietly. Or were four
willing to play moderately, following
something like the value or the hands, the
other two would shame them tempt them,
dare them and gain glory plus the antes-
valuable antes-Dy continually pushing.
For sure the buffer will be caught in
time; but in the meantime how the poor
mug shivers at the thought of being push
ed out of it, where admiration, wonder
ment and awesome curiOusty surround the
table two rows deep.
Another good man is turned down. Jules
calls the next name on the list. The list is
long.
1t is not to insinuate tnat these gentle
men in evening clothes are babes and
stockings at the game am that any clear
eyed. frank-faced, true-hearted American
natures nobleman-need only to appear
to stand them on their heads. 1t has
been tried. Only, as the Arizona Kicker
says, they have their idiOms. One night
l saw some of them.
The PLAYERS all had strong views on the
good form and utility of the strad'lle.
Their practice, indeed was nothing more
than fidelity to the handbook privately
the world of sport as of society, whose in
innate acquaintance with the game was
gained, as everybody knows, in the first
New York clubs The ante was 81. The
next man stradd.ed it-$2. The next "a.
The next, IS. The next, SIS. And the last,
$50.
Now as. according to the handbook of
the Comte de D, a raise before the draw
is nothing but second straddle, there
was straddling again after the deal. Max
i'm: Not to straddle at this period is
plain confession of your weakness. Fur
thermore TO straddle is TO double! Poor
little Demi-Siphon straddled so far dane
ing at the Moulin Rouge, that she could
not be got together. Straddllng al the
Press Club may be almost as disastrous.
Sixty-four dollars.
The next man laid $l2 on his cards and
waited patiently for a sight" One hun
dred and twenty-eight dollars! The rest
put up the debris of their table stakes
and waited for a "sight."
Il must be confessed that all had decent
enough hands. Yet a game that smacks
as much of roulette or baccarat as poker
is food for thought. The man who had
S12 and called for a sight won-on ''un
brelan"-what we call three of a kind.
Another with a lower "brelan' sighed,
Another had a straight, "une sequence,
always beaten in French power by three
of a kind. And two had two pairs each.
To be complete, learn that a flush is ''un
hux." a full hand is Gun fun and
straight flush "une sequence-fulP'-it be-
ing beaten by "un poker" what we call
four of a kind.
They say one generation cannot judge
another. In the same way it Is hard for
an American to enter into the mixed mo-
tives of a Frenchman playing poker, in
particular these Frenchmen, these Paris
ians, for whom the game has different
antecedents memories and reputation.
Poker. above ALL here is fashionable, as
having its rise in the anglomaniac chat
eau, golf and tennis, Paul Borget chron-
icling; gems chic sets; Influenced, secondly
by that real force, the title-marrying
American girl. These high ones are too
polite for ii must be, to be ever on the
straddle; and in chateau smoking rooms
I have seen games Of penny ante operat-
ed on something like good principle; but,
without exception. l believe there always
was there as a guardian angel. one of
! these so-called title-marrers, to shed her
sweetness and light upon a crooked gem
| GRAFTON. Left to themselves, the French
have strong tendency to improve poker,
welcome 'blazes'' and the joker straights
that run. say, two, four, six, eight, ten
! and otherwise.
From the chateau-the chateau as we
| think it in America, the great chateau,
/ where there is that large life as of an
| EnRnSn country mouse, ana not the mucn
more usual chateau of to-day, a cottage
with a wall around it,, poker has been
| passed on to the officers messes in the
! army, these folks great swells also. That
| of Dion, to my knowledge. plays the
| knockout variety of the Paris Press Club.
| After all, it is game. Some kind of a
! game. Any old game.
| 1t does not follow from all this that
! there is no real poker played in Paris
! There are enough Americans. All kinds
of Americans. Any old Americans. There
are insurance agents, canvassers, solicit
! tors, que saise je? brave hearts, though
not always abnormally cheerful. Now and
then, without a word of French, they will
| insure a Frenchman who has not a word
of English. You win admit they ought to
| be fair poker players? "Que sais-je?" and
| again. who knows? The fact remains that,
| impecunious, they get on. In running
| against one of them recently all of his
smaller mysteries of ways and means lost
SAVIOR in the strange fact that the cheerful
! loafer had a sum of money! At Henry's
| bar there are many side escapes, yet all
of them were needed by him to evade the
watchful brethren. Later, when he had
shaken off the hungry ones, he told me
h. he oil