Poker is a game for gentlemen (he does not hesitate to make frequent use of this abused word; he lived in a day when to be a gentleman had its obligations but also its privileges) and a straight flush is to be respected, not because you make money on it (“I have never seen anyone make much money upon a straight flush,” he says) but “because it prevents any hand from being absolutely the winning hand, and thus relieves gentlemen from the necessity of betting on a certainty. Without the use of straights, and hence without the use of a straight flush, four aces would be a certainty and no gentleman could do more than call on them.” This, I confess, catches me on the raw, for once in my life I had a straight flush, and bet on it till I was called.
Mr John Blackbridge had personal dignity, rectitude, humour, and common sense. “The amusements of mankind,” he says, “have not as yet received proper recognition at the hands of the makers of the civil law, and of the unwritten social law,” and he had no patience with the persons who condemn the most agreeable pastime that has been invented, namely gambling, because risk is attached to it. Every transaction in life is a risk, he truly observes, and involves the question of loss and gain. “To retire to rest at night is a practice that is fortified by countless precedents, and it is generally regarded as prudent and necessary. Yet it is surrounded by risks of every kind.” He enumerates them and finally sums up his argument with these reasonable words: “If social circles welcome the banker and merchant who live by taking fair risks for the sake of profit, there is no apparent reason why they should not at least tolerate the man who at times employs himself in giving and taking fair risks for the sake of amusement.” But here his good sense is obvious. “Twenty years of experience in the city of New York, both professionally (you must not forget that he is an actuary and counsellor-at-law) and as a student of social life, satisfy me that the average American gentleman in a large city has not over three thousand dollars a year to spend upon amusements. Will it be fair to devote more than one-third of his fund to cards? I do not think that anyone will say that one-third is not ample allowance for a single amusement. Given, therefore, a thousand dollars a year for the purpose of playing Draw Poker, what should be the limit of the stakes, in order that the average American gentleman may play the game with a contented mind, and with the certainty not only that he can pay his losses, but that his winnings will be paid to him?” Mr Blackbridge has no doubt that the answer is two dollars and a half. “The game of Poker should be intellectual and not emotional; and it is impossible to exclude the emotions from it, if the stakes are so high that the question of loss and gain penetrates to the feelings.” From this quotation it may be seen that Mr Blackbridge looked upon poker as only on the side a game of chance. He considered that it needed as much force of character, mental ability, power of decision, and insight into motive to play poker as to govern a country or to lead an army, and I have an idea that on the whole he would have thought it a more sensible use of a man’s faculties.
I am tempted to quote interminably, for Mr Blackbridge seldom writes a sentence that is other than characteristic, and his language is excellent; it is dignified as befits his subject and his condition (he does not forget that he is a gentleman), measured, clear, and pointed. His phrase takes an ample sweep when he treats of mankind and its foibles, but he can be as direct and simple as you please. Could anything be better than this terse but adequate description of a card-sharper? “He was a very good-looking man of about forty years of age, having the appearance of one who had been leading a temperate and thoughtful life.” But I will content myself with giving a few of his aphorisms and wise saws chosen almost at random from the wealth of his book.
“Let your chips talk for you. A silent player is so far forth, a mystery; and a mystery is always feared.”
“In this game never do anything that you are not compelled to; while cheerfully responding to your obligations.”
“At Draw Poker all statements not called for by the laws of the game, or supported by ocular demonstration, may be set down as fictitious; designed to enliven the path of truth throughout the game, as flowers in summer enliven the margins of the highway.”
“Lost money is never recovered. After losing you may win, but the losing does not bring the winning.”
“No gentleman will ever play any game of cards with the design of habitually winning and never losing.”
“A gentleman is always willing to pay a fair price for recreation and amusement.”
“… that habit of mind which continually leads us to undervalue the mental force of other men, while we continually overvalue their good luck.”
“The injury done to your capital by a loss is never compensated by the benefit done to your capital by a gain of the same amount.”
“Players usually straddle when they are in bad luck, upon the principle that bad play and bad luck united will win. A slight degree of intoxication aids to perfect this intellectual deduction.”
“Euchre is a contemptible game.”
“The lower cards as well as the lower classes are only useful in combination or in excess, and cannot be depended upon under any other circumstances.”
“It is a hard matter to hold four Aces as steadily as a pair, but the table will bear their weight with as much equanimity as a pair of deuces.”
Of good luck and bad luck: “To feel emotions over such incidents is unworthy of a man; and it is much more unworthy to express them. But no words need be wasted over practices which all men despise in others; and, in their reflecting moments, lament in themselves.”
“Endorsing for your friends is a bad habit, but it is nothing to playing Poker on credit… . Debit and credit ought never to interfere with the fine intellectual calculations of this game.”
There is a grand ring in his remarks on the player who has trained his intellect to bring logic to bear upon the principles and phenomena of the game. “He will thus feel a constant sense of security amid all possible fluctuations that occur, and he will also abstain from pressing an ignorant or an intellectually weak opponent, beyond what may be necessary either for the purpose of playing the game correctly, or of punishing presumption.”
I leave Mr John Blackbridge with this last word and I can hear him saying it gently, but with a tolerant smile:
“For we must take human nature as it is.”
The End of the Flight
I SHOOK HANDS with the skipper and he wished me luck. Then I went down to the lower deck crowded with passengers, Malays, Chinese and Dyaks, and made my way to the ladder. Looking over the ship’s side I saw that my luggage was already in the boat. It was a large, clumsy-looking craft, with a great square sail of bamboo matting, and it was crammed full of gesticulating natives. I scrambled in and a place was made for me. We were about three miles from the shore and a stiff breeze was blowing. As we drew near I saw that the coconut trees in a green abundance grew to the water’s edge and among them I saw the brown roofs of the village. A Chinese who spoke English pointed out to me a white bungalow as the residence of the District Officer. Though he did not know it, it was with him that I was going to stay. I had a letter of introduction to him in my pocket.
I felt somewhat forlorn when I landed and my bags were set down beside me on the glistening beach. This was a remote spot to find myself in, this little town on the north coast of Borneo, and I felt a trifle shy at the thought of presenting myself to a total stranger with the announcement that I was going to sleep under his roof, eat his food and drink his whisky, till another boat came in to take me to the port for which I was bound.