Characteristics Of The Great American Game Now Fashionable Beyond The Seas

It is a fascinating game, because in it one's judgment, coolness and pluck count for even more thanluck, though some old veterans assert thut even "a fooi can bet a good hand." But I know that theirassertionis toosweepng. A fooi cannot bet a good hand n as to get all the inoncy that ean be got out of it. To a veteran pokerjlayer any mistake of eye or action ie an indication toguide him, and 1'lldefy a fooi to take, though, a good hard 'bluff." Round the poker-tablea man of anything like acute judgment can gauge his opponents admirably, because more opportunitiea to do soare offered. It is there tbat one sees a nan as he is, and avarice, generosity, joldness and skill show out first or ast, generally in the way the player nanages his hand. Oh, yes! there is 10 doubt but that if a man mustplay cards for money the noblest and best vay to play them ia in a select poker ;roup. The carne is peculiarly an American one. It fits in with the national temjerament and I cannot imagine a nodel poker player without also .hinking of the frothy methoda in use n many of our business affairs; methods that make tho American a 'buil" or a "bear," as hisinclinations or interests díctate; that water stocks iuu uuuua miu jjuii up a ui. ., vw ing of a railroad until lts rails are mried in a mass of debt and everyody "Iets go." It all these transactions "bluff," pure and simple, is the dictator and the greater part of the stock in trade, with an elegant assortment of cheek as a reserve fund and an inclination to cali on "ace high." When the cali comes, if it ever does come, a man is often unready in apokergameor "ón'change." Our ureat speculators all play poker and have done so for many years. If as boys they had playod the game they would have sat on the ends f rom whence limit betsonapairof "deuces" or "trays" would have come and an air of innocence would have spread its lays around when the other fellow "dropped out," the "deuces" went into the deck and the pot was raked in.