The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-10-27

l | the farm. I must have been abou <, twelve years old when l had a fairly ] correct idea of how poker was played When the civil war broke out l was
 about fifteen years old, and my master i having gone into the Confederate army | l ran away and finally got to Chicago 1 There l worked in a saloon and my tal- 1 ent for cards soon became known. l worked for three dollars a week tol l just two months. Then, with packer who agreed to give me fifty dollars a month for a year and share hall my
 profits, I became a professional poker l player. The fact that l was black ana 1 had better education than a good
 many of the bum gamblers whom l met about the green table gave me a reputation. That was what l Wantea' I had clerks, boolfkeepers ana small 1 fry gamblers hunt me up ln those aays and make dates with me for a game. l l used to have superstitious gamblers by the way, all gamblers have some particular superstitions-come around
 and beg me to have a game with them, because they had been playing in hard luck for a season. They thought II they would have dectsed change i'll
 luck Before I was eighteen, although
 lack of sleep and my nervous, exciting
 pursuit made me look several years old
 CT, l was playing in games in Chicago
 where a jackpot frequently contained
 two and three hundred dollars. The
 very day the Chicago newspapers pub
 lished the news that Lincoln had signed
 .i.- t;n,, 1oT 1E inn
 was free man. l figured up my cash
 and personal assets, which were forty
 three hundred dollars. Had l been a
 free man a few years before l might
 have then had double that capital, but
 was constantly afraid some one
 would find out I was a slave and take
 all my money on a threat of sending
 me back to old Missouri, and l never
 cared to accumulate wealth.
 "The most wonderful days l ever
 knew for poker playing were In the
 first ten years after the war The sol
 dier boys came home from army and
 camp life expert poker players, and the
 game had an extraordinary revival. l
 believe it was about 1870 that General
 Robert c. Schenck of Ohio made the
 game famous In Europe. The poker
 rooms in Chicago and St, Louis multi
 piled fast and all did a smashing big
 business just after the war The AL
 caZar club on Madison street in Chica-
 go was run by three eX-army officers and I had some stock in 1t. In 1867 and
 1868 a total investment of eighteen
 thousand dollars there yielded forty
 thousand dollars a year clean profit, The Morrison club on Polk street was a gorgeous affair, and l know person. ally that it's net annual profits were over six hundred per cent. on the in vestment.
 From Chicago I went west. l was in Virginia City in the marvellous days when men sprang from mining laborers to multi-millionaires in a year. jThen went to San Francisco and since 1875 l have played for weeks and months in every town of thirty thousand or more population In the west, The fact that am black man has been the greatest factor in my success for over a third of a century. Every day I have people come up to me and say they have heard of me. I know if 1 had been white I would not be remarked among the army of professionals in the west l have made several long tours among the gambling clubs in the eastern states, but shall go there no more. A prejudice exists among the poker play CTS there against tting in a game with a colored man, and I cannot do my best when I feel that every winning make is not looked upon as it would be if taken by white man. John Nor rissey was the finest man l ever met professionally in the east. It was one winter in Albany. He invited me to his club at Saratoga, but, I never accepted
 Have I found poker generally played honestly? Yes, in the professional sense of the phrase, but not in the strict moral sense I mean that poker is the art of deceit and moral lying. But the most honorable men I have ever known, so far as their word and conduct go outside of gaming, are pro- fessional gamblers. Some of the bravest men (not of the daredevil, oravado type of men that one meets in the mining and cattle towns out west, | out moral heroes) have been gamblers. l There are lots of John OakhurSts | among us. Poker is the science of look | ng serene and unconcerned when you nay be secretly shaking with fear of disaster. The older l grow and the | more play poker the more l am sure it 1 s the least known of any game of | ards It is the young fellow who is having the usual beginners luck who Snows all about poker. Generally po- ler is played far more honestly nowa- lays than twenty or thirty years ago. man who has played the game in all he western towns as long as I have must necessarily have been an honest player or he would not be alive
 The scientific playing of poker Is the greatest school of human nature ever invented. I once lost eight hundred lollars by an opponents observing a cry minute fact in my nature at that ime. It was fifteen years ago at Lead ill. I was on the Santa Fe railroad ne day, going from Trinidad to La unta, Col. Colonel George Gucker
 md several other professionals were long. Some one found that we could ot make connection at La Junta, Col nel Gucker casually noted that in my yorry about missing close connection ghtly fingered the buttonhole of my oat with my left hand. Ii was several yeeks later that Gucker and I met in a anne at T,eadvi11e Thara wore civ of