Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 April 1885 — Luck at Cards. [ARTICLE]

Luck at Cards.

Every one has noticed the air of grim suspicion with which the man is regarded who tells a story about cards. Poker-playing has become so popular now that the game is almost universally understood. Playing for pennies and buttons goes on in our best families, and ladies who formally confined themselves to bezique, chess, loto, old maid, whist, euchre, casino, parchesi, and like brisk and entertaining novelties, have all given way to the seductions of the little game of draw. The beauty of poker is that it is a new game at every deal, and it is the only game of cards which never becomes wearisome, unless the luck is very much against you. Poke!’ stories are almost innumerable. Quite the most remarkable one I ever heard was that about Harry Genet, the former politician, who ruled New York for a short time and subsequently went io prison. The game cccurred when Genet was at the height of his fame and fortune. Seven men were at the table too many by two persons at least—and they were all friends. They were playing $5 limit, and at that time they were not playing straight flushes. The highest hand was four aces. Genstlost $1,860 on one hand. He held the ace and three kings. . Everybody came in; Genet raised them and they staid. Then they drtew cards. Genet discarded his two extra cards, which happened o be an ace and a nine spot, and drew to Iris kings. He almost turned cold when he got another king on the draw. Everybody around the table drew cards, and when they got to the Sixth player, who also h d threes, the dealer was obliged to grather the discards, reshuffle them, and deal .them out again. The betting l>egan, but in the-course of a few minutes, they discovered that Genet and the sixth man at the table had extraordinary hands, and so they fled and leaned back in their chairs to watch the betting. Genet knew that nothing could beat his hand Lut four aces, and as he had thown away one ace to till his kings, and there were only four aces in the pack, he felt dead sure of the pot. When the betting reached SI,BOO they laid down their hands. The six h man bad held three ac«s, and in redealing the card had received tbe fourth ace. It is a thing that might occur once in a thousand years. I have heard a story of a similar draw on a Mississippi bat poker on the Mississippi is fraught with such extraordinary mystery, according to the legends of the game, that the majority of men would fee afraid to play on tho river, even at a 2-cent limit.— Rfoofciyn Eayle. What seems only ludicrous is sometimes very serious.— Rabelais.