In addition to rock, another form of entertainment that has found its way in recent years is a card game, namely poker. This game was long associated with the Chicago of the 1930s and its shady characters who cut their cards in dark and smoky places behind locked doors.
Those who wanted to join some of these games have never come out alive. Before being adopted by the general public, poker was therefore most often practiced in the shadows of the mafia compounds of underground casinos.
Today, this bad reputation is more folklore than reality. Once admitted into the world of the modern glittering casinos, the game ended up being glamorous: those who can afford and like the risk willingly engage in the game of poker. A midway between sport, gambling and games of skill, poker has many fans today in all walks of life. And obviously, the art of inducing your opponent into a costly error with a poker face does not only seduce men.
One interesting character of the Chicago of the 1930's is Samuel Smith, better known by the nickname of 'Snake Oil' Sam, born in 1920 and dead around 1976. His nickname was related to his regular use of a smelly snake oil oilment which he used to often massage his hands.
Samuel Smith was born in Chicago on the day of the official declaration of Prohibition from an unknown father, probably an itinerant salesman. His adoptive father, a professional poker player, seems to have started very early the young Samuel poker in games such as backgammon and craps. At 6, he would have won his first $2 note by offering a portion of 'cut the high card' to a player, a friend of his tutor. He always kept this post as a personnel fetish.
From 1928, when he was 8 years old, he attended the restaurant Matt Schulien's Tavern where he met illusionists and tricksters with his tutor. He loved to tell that one night he crossed a big mafia boss. He quickly understood the foundations of the game of cards and cheating, and serves as a best boy to the older man and the people who frequented this place. His career is found, he will become a professional card player and cheater.
He attended the various bars and establishments in Chicago and made a specialty of cleaning up the sales representatives visiting for Congress in town. Obviously they did not have online poker and bargains like the titan poker bonus code, so one had to be a bit more ingeneous to make money playing card games. So in 1941 he joined the army to play poker with American soldiers payroll, a business that earned him a nice nest egg. In 1944, he was sent to the front and participated in the liberation of Belgium.
One fay while on leave in Amsterdam, he got approached by Little Richard, a patented Brussels cheater, with whom he will bind a solid friendship, Roger from having helped him out of a brawl in a bar. Back in the States, he is demobilized but poker in barracks is no more relevant since new laws against cheaters.
Between 1946 and 1974, he joined various Chicago bar owners to rip off some pigeons and he regularly travels throughout the country in search of big game, Stud Poker action, and sometimes small scams. He always takes the identity of a traveling salesman to pluck his victims.
In 1972, Richard reconnects with his American friend, because he wants to buy a set of loaded slot machines for a coffee in Brussels. The latter is sick with cirrhosis and knowing that his days are numbered, presents him with his game of backgammon and cheating equipment in remembrance of their friendship, so that this material does not disappear in the wild.
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