Card Games of the Wild West
People are surprised to hear that many of today’s beloved card games had their origins in the Old West.
The gambling saloons of Dodge City or Tombstone, the towns that sprung up along the great wagon trails to the West, the mining towns of the fabulous gold and silver bonanzas in the middle of the 1800’s, all gave birth to games that today are politely played in parlors and church basements.
A review of the original rules is instructive, for they reveal much about the times.
Poker
Number of Players: Four to six, split unpredictably between honest cowpokes, newly-rich prospectors, cool-headed professional gamblers, ex-professional gamblers trying to go straight these days as the town minister, low-down cheating varmints, violent thugs hired by Big Tom (the local corrupt rancher) to intimidate young farm families, and any others who’d like to sit in.
The Playing Surface: The game is played upon a round table. Attempting to play at a square or rectangular table will result in a variety of penalties depending on the jurisdiction, ranging from relatively light fines to being hanged from the neck until you are dead, dead, dead. Know the rules of the town you are playing in!
The Object of the Game:
Win the most hands and therefore the most ‘pots,’ which are the accumulated betting amounts gathered at the center of the table.
Establish manhood.
Play with a cool elan that puts the other players to shame and leaves them sputtering with rage.
Shoot opposing players if it seems called for.
Be in a position at the end of the game to have to lean over the table with your arms outstretched in order to rake in all the loot which, unaccountably for a small one-horse town, seems to be about the same amount as held in the treasury of a mid-sized European country.
Betting: Table stakes or individual bets are comprised of gold coins, silver coins, bills of uncertain denomination and legality, deeds to mines, titles to ranches, ill-gotten gains of one sort or another, various schoolmarms and chorus girls, sacks of gold dust, old and current trousers, horses, pigs, and dogs.
Betting overall is best viewed as nearly incomprehensible. Sure, there are rules such as placing an opening bet, ‘seeing’ that bet, ‘raising’ that bet and so on, but no one really understands them, and all are generally just hoping that their ignorance is not found out. This tradition continues to this day.
How You Win: Most games come down to a single play by one player — after a dramatic pause long enough for a person to go outside, meet a nice girl, propose and marry, and open a dry good store — casually throwing an ace of spades onto the table. It is best if the card spins around in slow motion. It is like college basketball in this respect; the rest of the game doesn’t seem to count much, only the last few seconds.
Beginning Play.
Dealer starts with a new deck of cards.
EYE the other players grimly, one by one.
If musicians are involved, there should be low ominous throbbing in the basses, with perhaps a forlorn guitar theme introduced and then fading.
DISCARD any extraneous cards, keeping the jokers.
SHUFFLE the cards thoroughly, then pass the deck to the right, inviting that player to CUT the cards if he wishes to.
While he does that, dealer STARES out the window at tumbleweeds being tossed around by the wind, REFLECTING, if the dealer chooses, on the grim realities of the times, and how it hardens men, but nonetheless lets them retain a slim vestige of hope and dignity.
Take what was the bottom half of the stack and place it on top of the other.
DEAL the cards, face down, until each player holds five cards. Hold your cards so as to prevent other players from seeing them.
Each player arranges his cards into potential pairs, three of a kinds, straights and flushes.
The player to the RIGHT of the dealer opens play. He THROWS several coins into the center of the table.
The next player matches that bet, then SHOOTS the player directly to the left of him in the earlobe as a warning.
The next player and then the next and so on either meets the bet or declines, until everyone at the table has played or folded their hands.
Before play returns to the dealer, the low-down varmint – and remember, there can be ONLY ONE low-down varmint at any single game – tries to make a break for it for some reason. The player directly across the table from him SHOOTS him, winging him in the LEFT ELBOW and gesturing him back to his seat. The low-down dirty varmint takes his seat and RESUMES play.
When play completes a circuit around the table and returns to the dealer, the dealer pulls out a large knife, or what you might call a short sword, and plunges it into the center of the table for no good reason. It stands there QUIVERING for the better part of the rest of the game.
Play resumes.
Once the first round of betting has concluded, players can DISCARD either one or two cards from their hands and ask the dealer for replacements. This stage of play is accompanied by a good deal of shouted insults, flying knives, shootouts, and for good measure, arrows coming in through the saloon windows.
Play resumes.
This is the final round of play, so players are urged to BET intelligently and SHOOT straight.
Before the final round of betting is complete, at least one player must SHOOT DOWN the saloon’s chandelier from the ceiling, sending it crashing to the ground.
The player two players to the RIGHT of the dealer must SHOOT two men at the top of the stairs of the saloon who have been drawing a bead on someone. Those two men must TUMBLE NOISILY DOWN THE STAIRS upon being shot and continue to TUMBLE NOISILY DOWN THE STAIRS until game play is concluded.
The pile of bets on the table now TOWERS over the playing surface, and players must PEER through or over the various hills and valleys of wealth.
Finally all betting is concluded and players SHOW their hands. Several players SHOOT several others upon seeing the now-visible hands in order to cover their chagrin at being taken in by the cool-handed betting and elan shown by the professional gambler that I have spoken of earlier.
Play MOVES OUTSIDE where shootouts in the middle of the street are initiated and concluded, the low-down varmint is revealed as Big Tom himself in disguise, the ex-gambler beginning a new life as the town preacher instead becomes an ex-town preacher and returns to gambling, the cool-head professional gambler decides to give this preaching business a try, and the thugs, seeing how the story and history is playing out, decide to try a new line of business, perhaps computing coding. All others lose interest and wander away.
The two guys TUMBLING NOISILY DOWN THE STAIRS finally reach the bottom and pick themselves up and brush away the dirt they’ve picked up on their downward journey.
Players RECONVENE at the table. It is now time for the SECOND HAND OF PLAY.
