📗 Exploring Erdnase Book Club: The Mindset of the Professional Gambler
Update #3
Before we discuss this week’s content from Erdnase, I thought I’d provide a brief update about the book club. I’ve decided that it would be better to merge my weekly updates on Substack with the Exploring Erdnase posts on my blog so that everything can be found in a single location. This will make it possible to read all of the content related to the book club in your email inbox (or via the Substack app). I’ll continue to post the updates to my blog until the end of this month. Then I’ll only add them to Substack (there seems little point in duplicating the content in this way). With this change in mind, I’ve also updated the previous two posts on Substack to include the content from my previous blog posts. You can access all past updates on the Substack archive page.
Marty
In his introduction, Erdnase offers many interesting insights into the mindset of the professional gambler. This particular passage caught my attention:
“The passion culminates in the professional. He would rather play than eat. Winning is not his sole delight. Some one has remarked that there is but one pleasure in life greater than winning, that is, in making the hazard.”
He goes on to further characterise the professional gambler as someone reckless with money and enamoured by the act of gambling itself rather than the financial reward at stake. It sounds like Erdnase is describing what modern psychiatrists call a compulsive or problem gambler (and not a professional card player). Much more is known about the psychology of gambling nowadays, thanks to the work of people like Dr Robert L. Custer, who did groundbreaking research into the pathological nature of gambling (more on him in a future article). It is quite remarkable that Erdnase identified some of these attributes more than one hundred years ago when the sciences of psychology and psychoanalysis were still in their infancy.
Erdnase then goes on to point out the difference between an occasional and professional card player:
“As a matter of fact the principal difference between the professional gambler and the occasional gambler, is that the former is actuated by his love of the game and the latter by cupidity. A professional rarely ‘squeals’ when he gets the worst of it; the man who has other means of livelihood is the hardest loser.”
Here, he is saying that the professional is motivated by a love of gambling, whereas the occasional gambler is driven by greed.
Was Erdnase a Professional Gambler?
The repeated use of the word “hazard” in the introduction suggests that the author was not a professional gambler (or had retired), as I doubt this is how a full-time gambler would describe his favourite pursuit. In fact, the text suggests that the author was a cautious gambler and had experienced first-hand the dangers of gambling with fast company. The following excerpt also supports this idea:
“We give the facts and conditions of our subject as we find them, though we sorrowfully admit that our own early knowledge was acquired at the usual excessive cost to the uninitiated.”
Magician Vs. Gambler
In the introduction, the author also differentiates between the magician and the gambler:
“There is a vast difference between the methods employed by the card conjurer in mystifying or amusing his audience; and those practiced at the card table by the professional, as in this case the entire conduct must be in perfect harmony with the usual procedure of the game. The slightest action that appears irregular, the least effort to distract attention, or the first unnatural movement, will create suspicion; and mere suspicion will deplete the company, as no one but a simon-pure fool will knowingly play against more than ordinary chances.”
I think this idea of “harmony” that Erdnase mentions also applies to the conscientious card conjurer. Incongruent actions won’t lose you an audience, but they will diminish the power of your performance. If your audience is suspicious of your actions, they’ll be less impressed with your magic tricks.
Making Your Own Luck 🍀
The introduction also demonstrates that the author, whoever he was, understood that success at the gaming table has more to do with probability than luck and how advantage play (or card table artifice) is the only way to make a reliable living from gambling:
However, the vagaries of luck, or chance, have impressed the professional card player with a certain knowledge that his more respected brother of the stock exchange possesses, viz.—manipulation is more profitable than speculation; so to make both ends meet, and incidentally a good living, he also performs his part with the shears when the lambs come to market.
In Summary
As you can see from this collection of excerpts, there is plenty to learn from the introduction of The Expert at the Card Table. I suggest you read it carefully and then read it again! Finally, I’ll finish with what I think is the best piece of advice Erdnase offers in the introduction (and perhaps the most valuable advice in the entire book):
“There is one way by which absolute protection against unknown advantages may be assured, that is by never playing for money.”
Happy reading!
Marty
P.S. Remember, you can also download a copy of The Expert at the Card Table for Free using the following link: bit.ly/teatct. Here’s the full introduction from the book for those of you that might not have read it yet:
The passion for play is probably as old, and will be as enduring, as the race of man. Some of us are too timid to risk a dollar, but the percentage of people in this feverish nation who would not enjoy winning one is very small. The passion culminates in the professional. He would rather play than eat. Winning is not his sole delight. Some one has remarked that there is but one pleasure in life greater than winning, that is, in making the hazard.
To be successful at play is as difficult as to succeed in any other pursuit. The laws of chance are as immutable as the laws of nature. Were all gamblers to depend on luck they would break about even in the end. The professional card player may enjoy the average luck, but it is difficult to find one who thinks he does, and it is indeed wonderful how mere chance will at times defeat the strongest combination of wit and skill. It is almost an axiom that a novice will win his first stake. A colored attendant of a “club-room,” overhearing a discussion about running up two hands at poker, ventured the following interpolation: “Don’t trouble ‘bout no two hen’s, Boss. Get yo’ own hen’. De suckah, he’ll get a han’ all right, suah!” And many old players believe the same thing. However, the vagaries of luck, or chance, have impressed the professional card player with a certain knowledge that his more respected brother of the stock exchange possesses, viz.—manipulation is more profitable than speculation; so to make both ends meet, and incidentally a good living, he also performs his part with the shears when the lambs come to market.
Hazard at play carries sensations that once enjoyed are rarely forgotten. The winnings are known as “pretty money,” and it is generally spent as freely as water. The average professional who is successful at his own game will, with the sublimest unconcern, stake his money on that of another’s, though fully aware the odds are against him. He knows little of the real value of money, and as a rule is generous, careless and improvident. He loves the hazard rather than the stakes. As a matter of fact the principal difference between the professional gambler and the occasional gambler, is that the former is actuated by his love of the game and the latter by cupidity. A professional rarely “squeals” when he gets the worst of it; the man who has other means of livelihood is the hardest loser.
Advantages that are bound to ultimately give a percentage in favor of the professional are absolutely essential to his existence, and the means employed at the card table to obtain that result are thoroughly elucidated in this work. We have not been impelled to our task by the qualms of a guilty conscience, nor through the hope of reforming the world. Man cannot change his temperament, and few care to control it. While the passion for hazard exists it will find gratification. We have neither grievance against the fraternity nor sympathy for so called “victims.” A varied experience has impressed us with the belief that all men who play for any considerable stakes are looking for the best of it. We give the facts and conditions of our subject as we find them, though we sorrowfully admit that our own early knowledge was acquired at the usual excessive cost to the uninitiated.
When we speak of professional card players we do not refer to the proprietors or managers of gaming houses. The percentage in their favor is a known quantity, or can be readily calculated, and their profits are much the same as any business enterprise. Where the civil authorities countenance these institutions they are generally conducted by men of well known standing in the community. The card tables pay a percentage or “rake off,” and the management provides a “look out” for the protection of its patrons. Where the gaming rooms must be conducted in secret the probabilities of the player's apparent chances being lessened are much greater. However, our purpose is to account for the unknown percentage that must needs be in favor of the professional card player to enable him to live.
There is a vast difference between the methods employed by the card conjurer in mystifying or amusing his audience; and those practiced at the card table by the professional, as in this case the entire conduct must be in perfect harmony with the usual procedure of the game. The slightest action that appears irregular, the least effort to distract attention, or the first unnatural movement, will create suspicion; and mere suspicion will deplete the company, as no one but a simon-pure fool will knowingly play against more than ordinary chances. There is one way by which absolute protection against unknown advantages may be assured, that is by never playing for money. But a perfect understanding of the risks that are taken may aid greatly in lessening the casualties. An intimate acquaintance with the modus operandi of card table artifice does not necessarily enable one to detect the manipulation, but it certainly makes plain the chances to be guarded against, and with this cognition the mere suspicion of skill should at once induce symptoms of cold feet. This knowledge, or thorough comprehension of the possibilities of professional card playing, can be imparted only by practical illustration of the processes employed, and the reader desiring a complete understanding should take the deck in hand and work out for himself the action as it is described.
To discriminate and show clearly the two phases of card manipulation, the first part of this work is devoted to an exhaustive review of the many advantages that can be, have been, and are constantly taken at the card table, and to those particular methods of obtaining these advantages that are least liable to arouse suspicion. The exact manner in which each artifice is performed is fully described in minutia. Part second describes the sleights employed in conjuring and many very interesting card tricks.