Download or read book Forgotten Games of the Old West written by G. R Williamson and published by Indian Head Publishing. This book was released on with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Faro and Monte were the most popular gambling games of the Old West. Today, most of us have no idea about Faro and Monte. Why? Whenever a gambling game is depicted in a western saloon it is Poker - whether it's television, movies, or novels we are led to believe that there were no other games, other than Poker. Why is that? Because it's easy to see a player with a full house of aces and eights is probably going to win the pot sitting on the table in front of him. We look through the blinders of our currant vision of gambling (which does not offer Faro and Monte.) What were these forgotten games, how they were played, why were they so popular, and why aren't they played in casinos today? This is the true story of Faro and Monte - readers will come to know the real story behind the games that ruled the gambling saloons of the Old West.
Download or read book GURPS Old West written by Ann Dupuis and published by Steve Jackson Games. This book was released on 2000-01-26 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Gambling in the Old West written by G. R. Williamson and published by Indian Head Publishing. This book was released on 2020-11-30 with total page 83 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gambling played a major role in the lives of the men that drove the western movement of Americans across the continent during the nineteenth century. Games of chance were dear to the hearts of not only cowboys but also gold miners, plantation owners, bankers, merchants, soldiers, trappers, buffalo hunters, muleskinners, and most of the other men of the American West, even including some preachers. Wherever there were men with money there was gambling – and most of it was crooked. Whether it was rigged, fixed, double-dealt, cold-decked, braced or otherwise manipulated - very little was left to luck and skill. Though there were some gamblers who were known as "on-the-square" or "legitimate", if that word can be used when referring to the players of the day, most used some form of "advantage" to win much more often than they lost. Some were not gamblers at all but mere con men skinning suckers as fast as they could find them. With this in mind, exactly what were the casino games of chance played during the wild days of the West, what were the rules, and how were they played? Who were the major players and where did they ply their trade? How did they employ "tricks" to cheat the other players without being detected? Why did most of the games of the western frontier pass into oblivion and why are these same games not played in gambling casinos today? Though most of us think we have a fairly good running knowledge of Old West gambling, largely provided by the westerns of television and movies, this book takes a closer look at this integral facet of our history that provokes both condemnation and revelry. Whether it was a game of poker played on a blanket or a faro bet placed in an elegant saloon, it is a safe bet to say that gambling fulfilled one of the basic needs of the early frontiersman – liquor, lust, and luck. Most settlements started with a small clump of buildings (quite often little more than tents) that usually included a general mercantile store, a livery stable or wagon yard, and a saloon. Then as the settlement grew, a few more business sprung up and more often than not additional saloons crowded in to provide the major form of entertainment available to the men of that era – games of chance. Unlike today with the plethora of entertainment choices provided by television, movies, computers and other technological devices, the frontiersman had very few choices as a diversion from his everyday toils. Most often, he was reduced to reading a book, chatting with friends, or playing a game. Books were often hard to come by and any game worth playing was worth wagering. As western saloons evolved, a typical layout usually followed along these lines: an entrance foyer, the bar area with maybe a few card tables and billiards tables in the back. Traditionally, saloons were housed in a building that was longer than it was wide, with an overhanging awning covering the front entrance. Contrary to most of our movie images of saloons, they quite often did not have bat-wing doors; instead, one or more standard wooden doors with glass panels provided access from the street. Once inside the door, customers usually saw a long bar running down the right wall. The bar was usually a massive work of oak with a brass rail that provided a foot prop while standing for a drink. Here and there, a few spittoons enabled tobacco chewers to deposit their chaws before downing a shot of redeye. To the left were a few card tables and chairs strictly meant for gambling – all drinking was done standing up. When you could not manage the upright position any longer, you were told that you had had enough and go sleep it off. Over time, a class distinction developed among saloons in which there were "low dives" and "first class saloons" Gamblers were interested in the upscale saloons while conmen and sharps operated in the "skin houses" where drunks were sometimes allowed to sleep on the floor after having their pockets cleaned out. Usually the mark of a better saloon was the addition of gambling rooms to the rear or a gambling hall located in a second story above the saloon. This accommodated the serious gamblers where large amounts of cash exchanged hands over the green cloth tables. As it evolved, saloon owners offered someone, usually a noted gambler, the gambling concession - with the saloon getting a percentage of the take. The better the location, the more well-heeled the customers, and the professional expertise of an efficient gambling operation could mean sizeable profits for the owner. Besides location, reputation was everything in the saloon business. From the Mississippi River to the Barbary Coast of California one saloon tried to top the others with what they offered and who gambled there. Big name gamblers drew a crowd and this translated into bigger profits from liquor sales and gambling. Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Doc Holliday, Luke Short, Ben Thompson, Swiftwater Bill Gates, Dick Clark, Rowdy Joe Lowe, and the rest of the old west's gambling superstars ran the gaming operations in most of the better saloons of the era. This book is the first volume of the Hip-Pocket History of the Old West (Series) providing a compact, concise accounts that cover odd or little-known facets of the American West. Historically accurate, but told in an easy to read format, with just a twist of humor. Informative, yet entertaining, the Hip-Pocket History series provides little nuggets without having to wade through a 400-page book of dry academic ostentatiousness.
Download or read book Gambling Games of the Old West written by G R Williamson and published by Indian Head Publishing. This book was released on 2021-01-11 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most of the gamblers of the Old West got their start and reputations by working the circuit of the Mississippi River boats, the railhead cattle towns of Kansas, or the boomtowns that popped up around gold or silver mining. The gunfighter Ben Thompson got his start by running the Bull's Head Saloon with partner Phil Coe in Ellsworth, Kansas. Ben's friend, Bat Masterson, also started his career in the cattle towns of Texas and Kansas. In general, these legendary gamblers were known as "legitimate" or that they played a fair game without cheating. Truth be told, all of them knew the methods employed by the "sharps" to clean the pockets of the other players at the table. They had to know these "tricks" in order to spot a cheater at their table. Did they ever use any of these advantages to increase their odds? Probably so, but the public's perception of these men was that they ran a "square game". Hip-Pocket History of the Old West (Series) This compact book that gives concise accounts of odd or little-known facets of the American West. Historically accurate, but told in an easy-to-read format, with just a twist of humor. Informative, yet entertaining, the Hip-Pocket History series provides little nuggets without having to wade through a 400-page book of dry academic ostentatiousness.
Download or read book Down Darker Trails Terrors of the Mythos in the Wild West written by Kevin Ross and published by Chaosium. This book was released on 2017-10-30 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Call of Cthulhu scenarios
Download or read book Wyoming Lawman written by Victoria Bylin and published by Steeple Hill. This book was released on 2010-10-01 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Matrimony? Never again for deputy sheriff Matt Wiley. The only good thing from his first marriage is his daughter. His little girl might want a mother, but Matt knows that no woman should have to deal with his guilty secret, or his anger at God. He'll do his duty, serve the town of Cheyenne and keep his distance. Yet when courageous single mother Pearl Oliver comes to town, watching from the sidelines isn't an option— especially when Pearl lands herself in danger. His heart, Pearl's life and the safety of their town are all at risk. Only the love and faith he thought he'd left behind can help him win his way to happily ever after.
Download or read book Seven Games A Human History written by Oliver Roeder and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2022-01-25 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A group biography of seven enduring and beloved games, and the story of why—and how—we play them. Checkers, backgammon, chess, and Go. Poker, Scrabble, and bridge. These seven games, ancient and modern, fascinate millions of people worldwide. In Seven Games, Oliver Roeder charts their origins and historical importance, the delightful arcana of their rules, and the ways their design makes them pleasurable. Roeder introduces thrilling competitors, such as evangelical minister Marion Tinsley, who across forty years lost only three games of checkers; Shusai, the Master, the last Go champion of imperial Japan, defending tradition against “modern rationalism”; and an IBM engineer who created a backgammon program so capable at self-learning that NASA used it on the space shuttle. He delves into the history and lore of each game: backgammon boards in ancient Egypt, the Indian origins of chess, how certain shells from a particular beach in Japan make the finest white Go stones. Beyond the cultural and personal stories, Roeder explores why games, seemingly trivial pastimes, speak so deeply to the human soul. He introduces an early philosopher of games, the aptly named Bernard Suits, and visits an Oxford cosmologist who has perfected a computer that can effectively play bridge, a game as complicated as human language itself. Throughout, Roeder tells the compelling story of how humans, pursuing scientific glory and competitive advantage, have invented AI programs better than any human player, and what that means for the games—and for us. Funny, fascinating, and profound, Seven Games is a story of obsession, psychology, history, and how play makes us human.
Download or read book Deep Trails in the Old West written by Frank Clifford and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2012-09-24 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cowboy and drifter Frank Clifford lived a lot of lives—and raised a lot of hell—in the first quarter of his life. The number of times he changed his name—Clifford being just one of them—suggests that he often traveled just steps ahead of the law. During the 1870s and 1880s his restless spirit led him all over the Southwest, crossing the paths of many of the era’s most notorious characters, most notably Clay Allison and Billy the Kid. More than just an entertaining and informative narrative of his Wild West adventures, Clifford’s memoir also paints a picture of how ranchers and ordinary folk lived, worked, and stayed alive during those tumultuous years. Written in 1940 and edited and annotated by Frederick Nolan, Deep Trails in the Old West is likely one of the last eyewitness histories of the old West ever to be discovered. As Frank Clifford, the author rode with outlaw Clay Allison’s Colfax County vigilantes, traveled with Charlie Siringo, cowboyed on the Bell Ranch, contended with Apaches, and mined for gold in Hillsboro. In 1880 he was one of the Panhandle cowboys sent into New Mexico to recover cattle stolen by Billy the Kid and his compañeros—and in the process he got to know the Kid dangerously well. In unveiling this work, Nolan faithfully preserves Clifford’s own words, providing helpful annotation without censoring either the author’s strong opinions or his racial biases. For all its roughness, Deep Trails in the Old West is a rich resource of frontier lore, customs, and manners, told by a man who saw the Old West at its wildest—and lived to tell the tale.
Download or read book Son of a Wanted Man written by Louis L'Amour and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2003-12-30 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An outlaw's legacy... In a remote corner of Utah lies the secret outlaw kingdom of Ben Curry. For fifteen years Curry has ruled supreme, as his men have pulled jobs from Canada to Mexico. But the king is getting old... he wants to turn his legacy over to someone younger, tougher. Mike Bastian is Ben's adopted son, a young man who can handle a knife, a gun, his fists, but a man who's never broken the law. Now, as treachery explodes among Ben's riders, and two honest lawmen—Tyrel Sackett and Borden Chantry—begin to zero in on the gang, Mike must choose...between his loyalty to Ben and his yearning for a different life. Yet when the guns start echoing off the Vermilion Cliffs, the time for choosing is over—and the time for battle has begun.
Download or read book Black Cowboys of the Old West written by Tricia Martineau Wagner and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2010-12-21 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The word cowboy conjures up vivid images of rugged men on saddled horses—men lassoing cattle, riding bulls, or brandishing guns in a shoot-out. White men, as Hollywood remembers them. What is woefully missing from these scenes is their counterparts: the black cowboys who made up one-fourth of the wranglers and rodeo riders. This book tells their story. When the Civil War ended, black men left the Old South in large numbers to seek a living in the Old West—industrious men resolved to carve out a life for themselves on the wild, roaming plains. Some had experience working cattle from their time as slaves; others simply sought a freedom they had never known before. The lucky travelled on horseback; the rest, by foot. Over dirt roads they went from Alabama and South Carolina to present-day Texas and California up north through Kansas to Montana. The Old West was a land of opportunity for these adventurous wranglers and future rodeo champions. A long overdue testament to the courage and skill of black cowboys, Black Cowboys of the Old West finally gives these courageous men their rightful place in history. Praise for an earlier book by the same author: “Whether you are a history enthusiast or a lover of adventure stories, African American Women of the Old Westpresents the reader with fascinating accounts of ten extraordinary, generally unrecognized, African Americans. Tricia Martineau Wagner takes these remarkable women from the footnotes of history and brings them to life.” —Ed Diaz, President of the Association for African American Historical Research and Preservation
Download or read book Frontier Gambling written by G. R. Williamson and published by G.R. Williamson. This book was released on 2012-05-15 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: E-Pub edition
Download or read book The Lost Frontier written by Rod Miller and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2015-05-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of short, action-filled stories of the Old West goes beyond the tales everyone knows of the OK Corral and the Dead Man’s Hand to focus on the gunfights, massacres, and daring deeds that are the stars of local historians but not featured in general histories of the old west. These events, while less well known, offer new territory for the Wild West buff to explore. Each chapter in this book tells a story that deserves to be remembered—either because of its importance, its intrigue, or just because it’s interesting. From cowboys and Indians to explorers and electricity to warfare and gunfights to royalty and rogues, the stories here cover a frontier West your education may have missed.
Download or read book Haunted Old West written by Matthew P. Mayo and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012-08-21 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Howling hauntings from the raw mountain passes and wind-stripped plains of the Old West The Old West is filled with enough phenomenal happenings, curious mysteries, and ghastly ghosts to send chills up and down any spine. Haunted Old West is the petrifyingly perfect collection for campfire gatherings and makes an eerily ideal guide for a ghost-hunting trip to the Old West. In these pages explore horror-filled mine shafts and outrun herds of stampeding spectral cattle. Stumble upon a supernatural saloon, investigate ghost towns teeming with residents of the afterlife, and feel phantom freight trains pass through your body. Haunted Old West provides the inside story on some of the most actively haunted spots in the great American West, including: Ghostly Garnet: In summer, visitors frequent this best-preserved ghost town in Montana, but it is winter when Garnet truly comes alive. Raucous music can be heard within the Kelly Saloon, and the blacksmith’s ringing anvil punctuates the sounds of a busy 1880s street scene. Yes indeed, Garnet puts the “ghost” in ghost town. Bandit Ghoul of Six Mile Canyon: Respected businessman by day, bandit gang leader by night, Big Jack Davis amasses a fortune robbing trains, stagecoaches, and bullion wagons in 1860s Nevada. Shot in the back while robbing a stagecoach, Big Jack is now a shrieking white demon, flapping wings sprouted from his wounds and driving off anyone who gets too close to his buried loot.
Download or read book The Video Games Guide written by Matt Fox and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2012-12-01 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Video Games Guide is the world's most comprehensive reference book on computer and video games. Presented in an A to Z format, this greatly expanded new edition spans fifty years of game design--from the very earliest (1962's Spacewar) through the present day releases on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and PC. Each game entry includes the year of release, the hardware it was released on, the name of the developer/publisher, a one to five star quality rating, and a descriptive review which offers fascinating nuggets of trivia, historical notes, cross-referencing with other titles, information on each game's sequels and of course the author's views and insights into the game. In addition to the main entries and reviews, a full-color gallery provides a visual timeline of gaming through the decades, and several appendices help to place nearly 3,000 games in context. Appendices include: a chronology of gaming software and hardware, a list of game designers showing their main titles, results of annual video game awards, notes on sourcing video games, and a glossary of gaming terms.
Download or read book American Sports 4 volumes written by Murry R. Nelson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-05-23 with total page 1678 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America loves sports. This book examines and details the proof of this fascination seen throughout American society—in our literature, film, and music; our clothing and food; and the iconography of the nation. This momentous four-volume work examines and details the cultural aspects of sport and how sport pervasively reflects—and affects—myriad aspects of American society from the early 1900s to the present day. Written in a straightforward, readable manner, the entries cover both historical and contemporary aspects of sport and American culture. Unlike purely historical encyclopedias on sports, the contributions within these volumes cover related subject matter such as poetry, novels, music, films, plays, television shows, art and artists, mythologies, artifacts, and people. While this encyclopedia set is ideal for general readers who need information on the diverse aspects of sport in American culture for research purposes or are merely reading for enjoyment, the detailed nature of the entries will also prove useful as an initial source for scholars of sport and American culture. Each entry provides a number of both print and online resources for further investigation of the topic.
Download or read book DC Sports written by Chris Elzey and published by University of Arkansas Press. This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Washington, DC, is best known for its politics and monuments, but sport has always been an integral part of the city, and Washingtonians are among the country’s most avid sports fans. DC Sports gathers seventeen essays examining the history of sport in the nation’s capital, from turn-of-the-century venues such as the White Lot, Griffith Stadium, and DC Memorial Stadium to Howard-Lincoln Thanksgiving Day football games of the roaring twenties; from the surprising season of the 1969 Washington Senators to the success of Georgetown basketball during the 1980s. This collection covers the field, including public recreation, high-school athletics, intercollegiate athletics, professional sports, sports journalism, and sports promotion. A southern city at heart, Washington drew a strong color line in every facet of people’s lives. Race informed how sport was played, written about, and watched in the city. In 1962, the Redskins became the final National Football League team to integrate. That same year, a race riot marred the city’s high-school championship game in football. A generation later, race as an issue resurfaced after Georgetown’s African American head coach John Thompson Jr. led the Hoyas to national prominence in basketball. DC Sports takes a hard look at how sports in one city has shaped culture and history, and how culture and history inform sports. This informative and engaging collection will appeal to fans and students of sports and those interested in the rich history of the nation’s capital.
Download or read book American West written by Karen R. Jones and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2009-03-21 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The American West used to be a story of gunfights, glory, wagon trails, and linear progress. Historians such as Frederick Jackson Turner and Hollywood movies such as Stagecoach (1939) and Shane (1953) cast the trans-Mississippi region as a frontier of epic proportions where 'savagery' met 'civilization' and boys became men.During the late 1980s, this old way of seeing the West came under heavy fire. Scholars such as Patricia Nelson Limerick and Richard White forged a fresh story of the region, a new vision of the West, based around the conquest of peoples and landscapes.This book explores the bipolar world of Turner's Old West and Limerick's New West and reveals the values and ambiguities associated with both historical traditions. Sections on Lewis and Clark, the frontier and the cowboy sit alongside work on Indian genocide and women's trail diaries. Images of the region as seen through the arcade Western, Hollywood film and Disney theme parks confirm the West as a symbolic and contested landscape.Tapping into popular fascination with the Cowboy, Hollywood movies, the Indian Wars, and Custer's Last Stand, the authors show the reader how to deconstruct the imagery and reality surrounding Western history.Key Features*Uses popular subjects (the Cowboy, Hollywood westerns, the Indian Wars, and Custer's Last Stand) to enliven the text*Includes 13 b+w illustrations*Interdisciplinary approach covers film, literature, art and historical artefacts
