The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-08-06
CALIFORNIA POKER
The Engineer Did Not Know That
Straights Were Ignored.
(Chicago Inter-Ocean.(


Chicago Inter-Ocean.)
1.-THE man who sits into game of
poker in a region that is new to him
without first finding out the rules of
the game as it is played in said region
is liable to stack up against a heap
worse trouble than did the British sol
der who elomped into a Mohammedan
mosque with his boots, spurs and top
covering on" said a Californian. For
there's lot of different kinds of poker
played in this country and the worst
of it is the man who plays the kind of
game he was raised on in his own sec
ton of the country is always blind 70
the beauties of the entirely different
game that he drifts into when he gets
away from his own neck o the woods.
Poker is a good deal like Injun talk.
I used to be able TO talk pretty fair
Modoc Injun; but l guess if Ia talk
MOdoc to bad Shoshone or an impet-
uOus Brule Sioux he's begin to figure
on how my baird do for tepee lining.
And there's more mixed brands of
draw poker played around the United
States and territories than there are
Injun dialects.
Il once saw a game of poker that re-
suited pretty seriously for two players
on account of the lack of understand
ing between them before the game
started as TO just what the hands
were worth. 1t was in Vallejo. back
in SO Vallejo was then one of the real
hot little towns near San Francisco.
on account of the great expectations
Of the riches they We're going to ac-
cumulate out of their grape ranches;
which about this time became thicker
in that part of California than truck
farms in Connecticut. Every man
who owned a grape ranch figured on
buying steam yacht and going
around the Horn to New York in it
inside of a few years: they thought
that in few years the California wine
making business would pan out so big
that they could afford TO have a little
fun with the few thousands of dollars
in ready coin that most of them had
on hand after getting their vines in
the ground. They had their fun all
right, but the fancy card men from
San Francisco got the bulk of their
cash. San Francisco is only thirty
odd miles from Vallejo, and when the
San Francisco sure thing dealers and
riffiers heard of the light hearted skit-
tishnesS, not TO say damphoOIishness.
Of the grape TaucherS around Vallejo.
they tiocked into that burg and for a
couple of years made it a good imita-
ton of Angels camp-until the good
phylloxera and black rot dashed the
hopes of the Sanguine tourists and
cleaned them out altogether.
Lou Corby's Two-handed Game.
Il was in Ned Carbaugh's big Vale
jo faro mill on Sunday afternoon-for
the game was as wide open on Sun
day as on any other day-trying to
a --,4<
fool friend of mine who had dubbed
away nearly every dollar he had in the
world at VallejO's brace games. when
one of the lOOkOuts, who knew the in
tereSt l took in watching a good game
or poker, although l never played the
game except with friends, came over
to where ] was standing and said:
LOUIS got a good game of two
handed draw on with the new man
up stairs; go up and take il in
He referred TO Lou COrby, who was
tnen about the hottest poker player in
the state of CalifOrnia--he went out to
/ the bark of several ShOtguns about fif-
teen years ago. He had run faro
games in most of the big towns in Cal
norma for the money there was in it.
but he Dlayed for the fun of the thing
ana he always played on the level for
ne wasn't a man who cared to mix
business with pleasure. and he WOuldn Z
I have found any entertainment in
stacking the cards and dealing from
| the bottom and middle in games that
he got into Just to enjoy the study of
card percentage.
when l went upstairs to the poker
| room COrby was sitting in his shirt
sleeves opposite a Solid-looking man of
40 or therea bouts. dressed in the uni
/ form of a steamship officer When I
was told that he was the chief en-
glneer Of one Of the big Panama boats
| didn't have much trouble in figuring
out where he got hold of the big sack
of gold coin he had with him. for in
/ those days. you know. the chief en-
gineerS of the west coast ships used
To have charge of the cOaling Of their
, vessels. and they considered il quite
legitimate to make a rake-ofT of sew
| eral thousand dollars every time they
cOaled. for coal then cost from 500 To
$50 ton out that way. and the chief
engineers had the making of the re-
port as to their bunker space and en-
tered into arrangements with the ship
] coalers on the Mexican coast It was
| the custom of the day for the engineers
/ to feather their nests in this way, and
/ nobody thought wrong of it.
Jack Pots For Big Stakes.
This chief engineer had lust been
| transferred from the east to the west