The winner
William Winter
Paperback
(RareBooksClub.com, July 11, 2012)
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1915 edition. Excerpt: ...away a hand containing three eights and a pair of deuces while Worm held and did not play three tens and a pair of fours, which merely goes to prove that they knew there was a scheme afoot. Now, let me see how those cards are arranged." He found, on examination, that, as he had supposed, a new deck was packed with the cards arranged in suits and sequence, from ace to king. Then he tried an experiment. He first cut the cards six times. Then he dealt them as they had apparently been dealt by Manners. The result indicated that he was on the right track but the hands did not come as they had in the game. He took a pencil and carefully went over figures for more than half an hour. At intervals he made tentative experiments in skipping a hand or dealing from the bottom. At last, after tremendous concentration he hit on the solution. He dealt around, after cutting six times, dealt again but on this deal dealt to himself from the bottom. The third deal was regular but on the fourth he again dealt to himself from the bottom and dealt the last round regularly. He turned up the cards of each hand and found, as he expected, that each was a full house with the threes of a kind and the pairs mounting one spot at each succeeding hand. His own hand held a miscellany of cards, the highest of which was a ten. This was the last card he had dealt to himself and it took no great amount of intellect to perceive that by drawing four cards from the top he would have a straight flush with the ten high. "Well," said Henry to himself, "they bilked me good. But unless all of them were in on it (and I don't think they were) I'll take credit to myself at least for finding out how they did it. I'll bet Murdock, Gentry and Stevens could rack their noodles for a month and they...