The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1907-08-24

eyes Then the man whose deal 1T was
eoughed the prearranged signal that it
was about to happen. He was the star
dealer of the bunch, but by this time
Fritz was so picked that it wasn't nee
essary to do any dealing. The dealer
just rang in a cold deck, all fixed, and
it looked like the squarehead's hour
was nigh.
They were playing all jackpots, and
for this, the mean deal. Fritz was IN
der the gun. He squeezed his assort-
ment out, one by one, and then, plac-
ing his left hand over his left orb so
as to make sure. he took a long peek,
and saw that he had not been mistak-
en-. He was there with the goods
three mines and a pair of queens.
He remarked, maltily, that he con-
sidered it bad poker for the man under
the gun to crack it under any circum-
stances, but that as the hour was get
ting late he'd take a IS opening chance
with his pair of jacks.
THE man next to Fritz gazed ref1ec-
lively at the rafters of the room for
quite spell. Then he boosted it $50
Next man placed his cards on the
table on front of him, pared his nails
for about half a minute and then
observed that he considered his
papers to be worth 800 more.
The next man didn't do any. pre-
lihinary upstage business at all, but
came right out with the statement
that it'd cost 'em still another hun
dred to pull papers
THE dealer pretended to look some
blank over this, but he finally broke
out with the crack that he wasn't go
ing to be stampeded out of a pot on
which he had the top pair Of openers
and he made it still another hundred.
Now, I don't know. ana nobody else
knows, whether Fritz shifted a rodent
right at that stage of the game He
isn't a talker and he hasn't told any
body the why and the wherefore of
his play at this juncture. OF course,
he had a nice mess of papers, and
all that, but still he wasn't very well
acquainted with the people he was
playing with, and he may have taken
that fact into consideration. In cir
cumstances of that sort the ordinary
man playing poker with strangers
full as something altogether too nice,
coming pat, to be worth while. and
comink pat to be worth while, and
nine men out of ten would have
pulled out then and there under that
fire of boosts from all hands. But
there never was anything ordinary
about Fritz.
He didn't do any more boosting
himself on his pat hand. but he stood
the other raises and stuck along The
rest of 'em stood the dealers raise,
too, and so there they were, five men,
all intending to set up a claim for
the junk in the middle of the batze.
"It was one of the friskers who
told this story on himself and his
pals, and. what happened right at TINS
stage of it was peculiar.
Fritz, of course the under the gun
man. was the individual first re-
quired to name how many papers he
wanted. But he was studying the
moves of the people on his left, wait
ing to see them make the initial
sortings of their hands before dis
carding 1t must be given to him
that he perceived that every man
jack of them except the dealer in
tended to stand pat. The dealer s
draw couldn't of course be judged
before he'd served the others.
Now whether Fritz was just drunk
and foolish or whether he had it rugged
out in his cOnk that his hand was
bum doesn't appear and can't appear
But, seeing that the others to the left
of him were going to stand pat-and
all of the others except the dealer had
| boosted it upon nothing just to give
the dealer a chance to send it along
Fritz with the greatest deliberation on
earth. discarded his three mines and
drew to his pair of queens. His dope
may have been that his hand was top
ped by somebody, or he may have been
| just a plug.
But the amazement of the dealer
when Fritz discarded three of his pap
ers and asked for. three was immense,
I was told. He knew what Fritz had,
of course, and he knew what he had
four tens. But Fritz's way of drawing
certainly spoiled a little bit of the per-
centage, at any rate, of what looked
like a cinch. For the dealer didn't
know lust what shape the cards that
remained in the deck were in Yet the
four tens that he'd given himself in
the deal looked pretty neat, and there
didn't seem much chance of Fritz peat
| ing it on a three-card draw.
$50, covering up his astonishment over
Fritz's queer way of discarding and
drawing, the dealer discarded one.
Fritz picked up his three, looked at
them out of the one lamp and bet hum
bred right off the coil
THAT put the man next to him in
kind of stupor. He. too, with the others,
was PUZZLED over Fritzs draw, knowing
| that the dealer had intended to give the
/ alderman a s9ISH phony hand for the
| skinning. But ne got KICK on the leg
and a signal from the dealer after Fritz
! had made his bet and he boosted it along
a hundred. The same signal answered
/ for the other two, and they were IN with
d
/ hundred boosts, too.
| 1.-The dealer took everything into con-
| sideration and the experience of life
/ time told him that it was impossible for
Fritz. with his three-card draw, to have
| four to beat. He raised it $500.
| Fritz called all of the raises and so
| did the three others, just to give the game
| the proper tone so to say, for it looked
| like a pipe for the dealer. And when
| Fritz called the dealer himself breathed
| a sigh of relief. The fact of Fritzs call
| ing clearly showed, figured the dealer,
/ that he was freed.
| Forty days in jail cheerfully re-
marked the dealer. spreading out his four
| tens. and his three pals, with phony i'm
precautions, tossed their papers into the
/ discard.
" 'Dey von'd do calmly remarked Al
! derman Fritz. -Four tybewriders, and he
tossed the quartet of ladies face up into
/ the center and scoOped down the money.
Then Fritz, remarl0ing that he had to
/ hike back to Buffalo to count the day S
| cash and close up his saloon, cashed in
/ and the game was over, Fritz so Tar out
| in front that the four friskers were lost
/ in th9 dust.
Fritz may have got wise to it that
/ he was being trimmed when he caught
/ that nine full and all the rest looked Ike
/ standpatters, and he may not have. Any
how there was some drawing, two wO-
/ men to a pair of them from a deck that
was rung chilled. The trouble was the
| deck wasn't chilled, ali through, and ii