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Show STIFF POKER GAME. LED TO MISUNDERSTANDING! AND TRAGEDY. Urrlel l..r ih Hale of Hi I Uj n.l (In Man Hail Ilia If. Ilaoged llnl tllill lb lllhr Was lot lo I ic. rj The man who tits Into n game of poker In a strange region without drat understanding the rules of the game Is liable to get Into trouble, says an old Catlfnrnlan For there's a lot of different kinds of poker played In thla country, and Ihe worst of It Is that the man who plays the kind of ginio he was raised on In his own section of tho country Is always blind to the beauties of the entirely different gnmo that he drifts Into when ho gets awiy from his own neck o the woods I onco saw n game of poker thot resulted re-sulted pretty seriously for two players play-ers on account of the lack of understanding under-standing betwewen them beforo tho game started as to Just what the handa were worth It waa In Vallejo, back In 'C3, and Vallejo waa then a red-hot town I was In Ned Car-baugh's Car-baugh's big Vallejo faro milt on Sunday Sun-day afternoon for the game was as wide-open on Sundays as on any other day trying to pump a lllllo senso Into tho head of a fool friend ot mlno who had dubbed away nearly every dollar he had In tha world nt Vallejo Val-lejo s brace games when one of the lookouts, who knew of the Interest t took In 'watching n good gamo of poker, although I necr played the gnmo except with friends came over to where I was ttnndlng nnd said "Lou's got a rood guno of two-handed draw on with a mnn upstairs, go up and tako It In" Ho referred to Lou Corby, who was then about the hottest poker player In tho stnto of California he went out to the bark ot several Arizona shotguns nbout IS years ago When I went upstairs to the poker room Corby was sitting In his shirt sleeves opposlto a solid-looking solid-looking man ot 40 or thereabouts dressed In tho uniform nt a steamship steam-ship officer Ho was tho chief engineer en-gineer on one of tho big Panama boats and having been trnntfirrcd tome tlmo beforo from tho east to the west coast, ho waa Ignorant ot the California Cali-fornia brand of poker Thero wnt n big Jack pot In tho center ot tho table when I went upstairs to look on nt tha game It had been sweetened half a dozen times nnd nlready contained something close to 81.000 In doublo eagles, but neither man seemed to b. nblo to catch openers It went around n number of timet And every tlmo It patted each man sugared It for 850 Tho chief engineer doilt a hand Corby was ono of those frnppo chaps who pick up their cards one by one, and when ha had picked up his first two cards he calmly jolted 8-00 Into the pot, remarking "It's open," before looking at the other cards "This fistful! of mine's worth 8800 more," said tho chief engineer, who was a pretty self-contained chap himself, him-self, ahovlng tho yellow stuff Into tbo pot, "Then you want to play It for kecpa," said Corby, standing for tho raise, and discarding two ot his cards Tho chief engineer stood pat, closed up his hand like a fan and laid It face down on tho table beforo him "Do your bluffing," said ho to Corby. "Well, say 8L00O worth," said Corby, Cor-by, looking up nt tho celling "Thousand more'n you," said the engineer "And nnother," murmured Corby Now, I had been standing behind Corby when ho drew his cards, and when I saw him catch n pair of nines to hla three klnga I figured that It was all over, especially as the other fellow had been nipped In two or three standing pat bluffs before Hut tho way tho sailor man kept hitting back st Corby finally got mo to guessing, guess-ing, nnd by tha tlmo that, ho had scooped out nearly all ot ths coin from his sack I hnd almost began tn believe that he had caught pat fours When tho 81,000 raises had gono back and forth tcral timet, and thero was nearly 89 000 tn tho pot, tho chief engineer, en-gineer, cool ns n mountain trout In a shady bole, emptied out hla tack and found out that ho had a llttlo more than 81.000 left Ho shoved the money to tho center ' Call you," ho aald Corby spread out his king full "Won't do," tatd tho chief engineer, spreading out a seven-high straight flush of diamonds nnd reaching for the pot ' ' Huh? What's up? That won't do? ' said Corby, with a queer expression expres-sion on hit face "Hands oft that pott What tho devil aro you talking about? Slnco when did a flush beat a full hand?" "A flush don't, but this thing ot mlno Is a straight flush, which Is good enough to beat n mass ot fours," said tho engineer. 'Tako jour flippers oft that coin" ' Straight flush bo d dl Not on this tide of tho Sierras," yelled Corby, Jumping to hit feet, Tho words were hardly out of his mouth before tho engineer, who was n big powerful man, hnd Corby by the throat. Then he did a cruel thing Holding the gambler's throat In tho vice-like clutch ot his left hand bo deliberately poked his long, horny right forefinger with all hit strength Into Corby s right eye, putting It out Crazy with raga and pain, Corby whipped out a long knlfo, and In another an-other minute tho engineer lay dying on the floor, cut to ribbons, ' One-eyed Lou," as Corby was afterward called, had to skip to Arizona Ari-zona after that business, nnd I, tor one, wouldn't liked to have flashed any kind of a straight on him when he opened hit faro fnctory In Tomb- s tone, for be was touchy about tha loss ot thst oye All ot which goes B to show that It a man la going to H play anything mora exciting than tag ij or beantag whtn he ranges away from Ij the stretch of country ho was raited 11 In he It liable to run against some U embarrassments It he doesn't make aomo preliminary Inquiries |