The Colorful History of Poker: Poker and Power
“Sex is good,” writer David Spanier noted in his book, TOTAL POKER, “but Poker lasts longer.” Poker’s seductive staying power, in fact, has led it to become not only the most popular card game on the planet, but the game of choice among power brokers. Perhaps it is its legendary history among the likes of Wyatt Earp and Wild Bill Hickok, not to mention its guest role as the game of choice among officers of the Starship Enterprise. Or perhaps the fact that it is the quintessential “vying” or betting game gives it an allure. Whatever the reason, it has been popular with the power set for quite a while.
Many U.S. Presidents have played. President Ulysses S. Grant, according to his fellow soldier William Tecumseh Sherman, played Poker throughout his presidency for money. It is not surprising, given that Poker was frequently played in the Civil War by soldiers and officers on both sides. Grant did not mention the game in his memoirs, though.
Warren Harding, President #29, played the game at least twice a week, and, allegedly, once gambled away a full set of White House china. He played so regularly with his advisors, in fact, that they were nicknamed “The Poker Cabinet.”
In the modern era, Presidents Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Lyndon Johnson were players. Poker playing had a destiny-shaping role in at least one President’s life. To Richard Nixon, born into a gambling-averse Quaker family, the Poker games he learned to master in the Navy were not only a kind of rebellion, not only a way to be “one of the guys,” but, as it turned out, a way to fuel his political ambitions. The $8000 that he took home in the 1940’s–which, of course, was worth much more in those days—financed his first Congressional campaign in 1948, a race he won.
The power set does not, of course, include only Presidents. The richest man in the world definitely has a thing for Poker. In his memoir, Bill Gates wrote about dorm games that lasted into the wee hours, and that were, to him, as mentally stimulating as anything he found in class. While that may say as much about Harvard as it does about the world’s most popular card game, all that intellectual stimulation had a considerable tangible result: he says he won much of his start-up costs for Microsoft in what he called “the Poker strategizing experience.”
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