Poker & Pop Culture: Cards, Characters, and Truth-Seeking Fictions

Remember back in school, how eventually most of us discovered we either liked literature and art, or that we were more comfortable with math and science? Usually the grades we earned helped signal our preferences to us, helping us figure out whether or not we preferred stories or statistics, words or numbers.

Then we found poker, which if you think about it equally appeals to both groups. There’s enough math involved to satisfy that crowd — and in fact a lot more math than most of us realize, if we’re willing to explore. There’s also the table talk, the game’s rich and unique vocabulary, and, of course, the seemingly endless supply of stories the game produces — some true, some made up, and many a combination of both.

Writers of literature have frequently found poker a fertile source for stories. We’ve already covered a few examples in this series, highlighting 19th-century poker tales like Bret Harte’s “The Outcasts of Poker Flat,” Mark Twain’s “The Professor’s Yarn,” the funny “Thompson Street Poker Club” stories of Henry Guy Carleton, among others.

The first decades of the 20th century found more fiction writers inspired by America’s favorite card game, among them Stephen Crane, Bertolt Brecht, and James Thurber whose entertaining tales of card-playing we’ll highlight today.

All three stories are humorous, containing elements of satire, commentary about middle- and upper-class values and customs, and more general observations about human foibles. They all also well demonstrate how poker can serve as a great storytelling device, with the social customs associated with organizing games as well as the inherent drama of a poker hand being well exploited by these expert fiction writers.

Stephen Crane, “A Poker Game” (1900)

Best known for his Civil War novel The Red Badge of Courage — assigned to some of us during our school days (remember?) — Stephen Crane was a novelist, poet, and short story writer often associated with other “realist” authors among his contemporaries. Sadly Crane’s life and output was cut short by tuberculosis at the young age of 28.

Among the first posthumous works of Crane’s published was a brief though memorable tale simply titled “A Poker Game.” The setting of the game somewhat recalls that of Cassius M. Coolidge’s “Dogs Playing Poker” paintings (produced just a few years later) — that is to say, a private game among members of the upper-class such as is suggested in a parodic way by Coolidge’s card-playing, cigar-chomping canines.

Crane’s imagined game involves a group of wealthy New Yorkers gathered in an uptown hotel room. “Usually a poker game is a picture of peace,” the narrator begins, emphasizing the refined, respectable setting before adding what could be called a lengthy defense of poker as worthwhile pursuit — and not at all the morally-questionable, dangerous game others were then describing it.

“Here is one of the most exciting and absorbing occupations known to intelligent American manhood,” we’re told. “Here a year’s reflection is compressed into a moment of thought; here the nerves may stand on end and scream to themselves, but a tranquillity as from heaven is only interrrupted by the click of chips. The higher the stakes the more quiet the scene.”

Among those participating in the five-handed game are the real-estate magnate Old Henry Spuytendyvil and the young, naive Bobbie Cinch who inherited his wealth from his recently deceased father.

As Cinch’s name might suggest, luck is on his side and while he isn’t the most skillful player he finds himself the biggest winner. Meanwhile Old Spuytendyvil — whose name means “spinning devil” — “had lost a considerable amount,” the decline in his attitude matching his dwindling chip stack.

A hand of five-card draw arises in which Old Spuytendyvil bets and only Cinch calls. Thanks to an onlooker we learn Old Spuytendyvil was dealt , and draws one. We also know Young Bob picked up , and he, too, takes only a single card.

With a “sinister” look Old Spuytendyvil fires a bet, and Cinch pauses to think. “Well, Mr. Spuytendyvil,” he finally says, “I can’t play a …

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