Chapter 8

I had to push to get everything ready to board the ship, but I made it. As soon as possible, I made contact with the purser and the captain to let them know that I was back and wanted to run a poker game. I offered them the same deal as before, and they instantly took me up on my offer.

I was also in luck to find two of my poker friends on board anticipating another dull trip to Europe because that was where their wives wanted to go. Naturally, they were delighted when I told them that I wanted to have another poker club formed if they could find three more members. It turned out that was no problem.

It also turned out that one of the men knew a man traveling in tourist class who was a good poker player, but did not have the resources to operate at our level of wagering. However, the man thought that the tourist class man would be interested in sitting in on our game as a non-playing dealer. That was perfect if the man, James Ledbetter, could meet my specifications.

The poker friend took me to meet Ledbetter, and he immediately struck me as the perfect dealer for me. He had some experience as a poker dealer in three different high level gambling operations, but he had found it expedient for him to leave New York to avoid the ire of a criminal boss who believed that Ledbetter had been the one who had caused him to lose a large sum of money.

James had been the dealer in the game in which the crook had lost over $600,000. James insisted that the problem was that the criminal was not as good at poker as he thought he was. Okay, I had met a lot of people like that, so I had no trouble believing James’ story. I was sure that I would know quickly if James were cheating any player, so I hired him at a fixed rate to deal for us.

Of course, we were playing in the most posh game room in the ship, and no tourist-class passenger would be allowed into the room. Hell, I could afford it, so I upgraded James’ ticket to the elite class so that he could deal. This cost me less than $1,000, so I figured that it was a good investment. I was toying with the idea of making James a permanent employee if he worked out as well as I hoped.

Anyway, the purser made the ticket upgrade and ushered James into a first-class cabin. That solved all of those problems, and we were in business. We started the game as soon as we were three miles from the New York City harbor. We were going with a $10 ante, and that was chump-change as far as the players were concerned. I saw immediately that I should have set the ante higher, and would do so if I continued to play poker at sea.

The game ran through the first few hands with me losing the first few rounds as I sized up the men I had never before played with. Two of them fell into the class of men who were overestimating their ability at draw poker, but the third man was on a much higher level. I did not think that he was equal to me, but I certainly had to pay more than average attention to him. He also acted as if he were surprised at my level of skill, too.

By the 10^th round, I was playing at my usual level, and I was setting my level of winning at my usual 60% so that I would not scare people off. That was fine because the pots never ran less than $400, and, as the day went on, occasionally ran as high as $1,500. Those pots I always won.

By the end of the day, I was the big winner, but the man whose skill level had surprised me broke a little below even. The other three men were the big losers, and I was afraid that they might drop out unless they started to have better luck. Were it not for that very good player, I could have done a better job of distributing the losses among the other players and kept them happy. I did not know what to do to keep our little club alive.

The man cornered me at dinner, and surprised the hell out of me. “Mr. Albert, I must compliment you on your skill level at draw poker. I think that you are the best player I have ever had the pleasure of playing against, and I owe you a confession. I was hired by Mr. Holmes to join your game to verify whether or not you were running an honest game. Of course, I will tell him that you were, and your skill was all that was enabling you to win so much.

“This is the last session that I will attend. I will excuse myself after a hand or two when we reassemble and not bother you again. It was a pleasure playing against you, but I have now used up all of my expense allowance, and I cannot afford to grace your game any longer. However, I do know that there are a number of men who would dearly love to join your game, so you will not lose by my absence.”

“Thank you, Mr. Williams. I appreciate your honesty in telling me why you were in the game and why you are leaving. I wish you well, and you are welcome to return to the game at any time there is a seat available. Goodbye and good luck.” We shook hands, and I never saw him again around the ship after that day.

After Williams left, I gained full control of the game and managed to even out the losses of the other players so that they were eager to return to the game tomorrow. Meanwhile, we picked up another player shortly after Williams left the table, and things returned to normal as far as I was concerned.

The rest of the trip to London was spent playing poker or restocking myself so that I could continue playing. James said, “My God, Mr. Albert, I had no idea how draining poker could be. I am exhausted at the end of a session, and all I do is deal the cards and make the exchange when a player wants replacement cards. I honestly do not know how you are able to keep playing the way you do and, on top of that, keep winning. I guess that I can stick with it as long as you need me, but I am sure going to be happy to get a couple of days rest without poker.”

I guess that showed how single-minded I was when it came to poker. Sure, I was tired from a session at the poker table, but that was more from sitting in one place for hours than it was anything else. I was considering having us all take a five-minute break every hour just to get the blood flowing in our legs. A short walk should make us all feel better, so I decided to try that tomorrow.

We spent a few days docked in London while the ship took on supplies to replace those consumed in the crossing of the Atlantic. James and I spent the time taking in some of the tourist attractions offered by the city, and, after three days, I was ready to get back to playing poker.

We finally pulled away from the dock and headed for Gibraltar. One of my poker friends was still on board—his wife was headed for a full scale assault on Rome. From his demeanor, you would have thought that Henry Woods was headed for a stint in Purgatory. From the looks of things, I do believe that Henry would have ditched his wife in Rome if he could have gotten away with it and picked her up when the ship came back on its way home. During that time, he would have played poker and loved every minute of it!

As it was, Henry recruited four other like-minded husbands to join us at the poker table at least until we reached Rome. Since we were scheduled to stop several times at intermediate ports, he was looking forward to four more days of poker. Of course, with the new players, I had to go through my learning cycle with the new players, so we had been at sea for a couple of hours before I was ready to start my 60% winning routine again.

During our stop in Marseilles, we were delayed in leaving because of a mechanical problem with the ship. It was nothing major, but it did involve ripping out some of the steam piping and replacing it before we could leave. During that time, James and I went on a tour of the city.

I had always been interested in guns, first from a self-preservation viewpoint, but later on as an admirer of a beautiful gun as a bit of artwork. Therefore, when the tour group passed a little gun shop on a side street, I could not resist leaving the tour to investigate the guns, since there were several examples in the display window which caught my eye. I really do not know why James followed me into the shop, but he did.