The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-03-05
ORIGIN OF POKER

In an0Sf er work, An Exposure of
the Arts and Miseries of Gambling"
published by G. B. zieber. Philadel-
phia, in 1s43, on page SO there is re-
lated an incident that occurred In 1895,
In New Orleans, In which five men. all
Of them from up the river, agreed to
play poker until one of them should
have won all the money Of the others.
That he did not find this an easy task
is shown by the fact that it took thirty
hours continuous play to freeze out
two of them; the third played on for
fifteen hours longer, and the two who
were left kept at for ten hours longer
before one Of them fell off his chair
exhausted, but not busted" None OF
the party long survived this ordeal
Weather the game was full-deck
or tWenty-card poker is not stated, but
in another part of the same book
twenty-card poker is very fully de-
scribed, while fulldeck poker is not
mentioned.
In another work, Gambling Expos
ed published by Peterson. there is a
chapter on poker which begins by re-
marking that there is no mention of
the game In any of "Hoyle's Games"
then published. This allusion would
be to Cowperthwaite, Philadelphia, in
1888, and to George Long, New York,
TN 1925, both Of whom published works
under the title of "Hoyle's Games"
The author decribes ii as game
much played on steamers coming from
New Orleans, usually with twenty
cards only, and by two, three or four
persons, each having five cards.
Green, in his preface, says he is
writing in the spring of 1S43, and in
the book describes an incident which
happened on the river "a few years
ago" So the game must have taken
place some time i'm the thirties.
In none of these books is poker spoken
of as particularly new game on the
river or in the vicinity of New Orleans,
and ii is clear that the game was then,
I'm 1S40, pretty we'll known as far up as
Cincinnati, Louisville and probably in
most of the river towns.
All the evidence about poker which
has come to light points TO it's origin
I'm New Orleans. The question is where
did New Orleans get it from. or is il
an Improvement on some game known
to the population of that city, who, it
must be remembered, were French and
used French terms in any games that
they played
There is no French game with only
twenty cards, but there are several
French games in which all the poker
hands are to be found except four of
a kind. Ambgu, brelan and many
others viii at once suggest themselves.
But all these French games are play
ed with three cards only in the hand
of each player. Where could the in
ventoTs of poker have found a game
played with five cards in each hand
and the pack consisting of twenty
cards only?
The standard pack of cards i'm
Europe from the earliest days has been
what is now called the piguet pack,
thirty-twO cards. There is only one
country I'm the world that uses a pack
limited to twenty cards. and that is
Persia; but the game is not called
poker. 1t is called ''as mas"
Those who are familiar with this an
cient Persian game unhesitatingly as
seTt that some Frenchman must have
brought it to New Orleans in it's print
tive form, with the pack limited to
twenty cards and the hand of each
player increased to five The question
still remains, how did it change it's
name?
The name of as mas is not only the
name of game-it is now generally
used to distinguish the Persian cards,
with which as mas is played. from
the European cards, which are modern
The old Persian pack had eight suits
and was called "ganjifeh, word
which seems to be derived from the
Chinese and means paper cards. The
word is at present applies to Euro
pean playing cards only, five cards in
each suit.
The old Persian pack had no aces,
court cards and spots, like ours. but
each suit was made up of pictures
which ranked: lion king, lady, soldier
and dancing girl. This pack was call
ed varak DIS; varak I asands. orsim-
ply as, from the game as or asands
which was played with II. This an
cient game was simply twenty-card
poker, as it was first played in Ameri-
ca at the beginning of this century.
But if poker was originally known as
asands, how came it to lose that name?
It seemed to the writer and also to Mr..
Jessel that the answer to this question
must be looked for in the language of
the people who brought the game from
Europe. if they did bring it.
If they brought It TO New Orleans
from Persia, or if some resident of
that city was familiar with the Per-
sian game and drought 1t an improve
ment on the French games of ambigu
and brelan, the intToducer was pro-
badly French and more familiar
with French games and French terms
than with Persian. If this theory were
correct the next thing to do would be
to examine all the books published
i'm the French language on the sub
ject Of playing cards and card games.
Curiously enough, one of the oldest
and most authoritative works on card
games was published In France and
ran through a great many editions.
This is the famous Academic UniVer-
selle des Jeux. Ches Theodore Legras,
au Palais Paris"
In the 1865 edition of the work we
find the first description of the French
game of hoe, which is carefully dis
tinguished from the italian game of
hocca.
This game of hoe continues to be de-
scffbed' until the edition of 1902, with
no mention of any improvement or
change in its form. In 1873. however,
page 305, we find a description of 'le
Jeu Poque," which exactly agrees with
the game known to all German child
rem as pochenspiel, or pochen. The
Academic des Jeux' speaks of poque
as a defendant or offshoot from the
older game of hoe.
The popularity of poque is that after
the cards are dealt and each player
has taken from the common pool the
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