One of the more enduring cultural reflections on 19th-century poker is the fast story "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" by the yankee poet and fiction writer Bret Harte. First appearing within the California-based magazine Overland Monthly in January 1869, the tale helped make Harte famous and was later the root for several films and a good an opera.
Rather than depict a poker game or exploit the inherent drama produced by the conflict of a poker hand, Harte's story instead uses poker in a thematic way, presenting the sport as one of many activities deemed morally objectionable and deserving of punishment by people with authority in a mid-century California town. Ultimately the tale presents a thoughtful sketch of the Old West that conveys the complicated status of poker in American culture on the time it was written (and that resonates still today).
Getting Rid of Poker Players and Other "Improper Persons"
The story opens in late November 1850 within the interestingly named California town of Poker Flat. John Oakhurst, a certified gambler, correctly senses a sudden alteration within the town's "moral atmosphere" way to the strange behavior of others in his presence. Sure enough, in a "spasm of virtuous reaction," a secret committee was formed "to rid the city of all improper persons," Oakhurst included.
Two men have already been hanged, and shortly Oakhurst and 3 others — a thief referred to as "Uncle Billy" and two prostitutes, "Mother Shipton" (a madam) and the "Duchess" — are forcibly exiled from Poker Flat.
The narrator highlights the committee's hypocrisy, noting how a few of those in control of executing such justice had lost to Oakhurst at poker. In fact, we're told he probably would has been hanged besides if not for "the crude sentiment of equity residing within the breasts of these who have been fortunate enough to win from Mr. Oakhurst."
Oakhurst is described as receiving his punishment with "philosophic calmness."
"He was an excessive amount of of a gambler to not accept fate," we're told. It's this recognition of that which he cannot control Oakhurst has learned on the tables, a personality trait that surfaces again on the story's conclusion.
A "Streak of Bad Luck" for the Outcasts
We follow the four outcasts out of town as they travel toward neighboring Sandy Bar, a trek that requires a hard passage in the course of the Sierras. The trip might be accomplished in a day, but after traversing half its length the gang try to persuade Oakhurst into stopping and putting in camp for the night.
Using a poker metaphor, Oakhurst argues against their "throwing up their hand before the sport was played out." But ultimately he gives in and so they arrange camp.
Bret Harte
While the others get drunk, a tender man named Tom Simson happens at the group, accompanied by his girl, Piney. The pair are traveling within the opposite direction, leaving Sandy Bar for Poker Flat within the hopes of having married starting a brand new life there.
Oakhurst knows Simson from having played poker with him before at Sandy Bar. In fact, Oakhurst cleaned out the youngster — stated within the story because the "Innocent" — then afterwards gave him back the money he'd won, instructing him never to gamble again. For this gesture Simson remains grateful. It also shows Oakhurst is hardly as malevolent or dangerous because the Poker Flat committee judged him to be.
Oakhurst again agrees to assist Simson by arranging to permit him and Piney to camp with the others. The skies — and the tale — take a depressing turn, however, as they awake the next day to come to find a snowstorm. And making matters worse, Uncle Billy has stolen off with the mules, leaving the rest five no approach to escape.
Only possessed with ten days' worth of provisions, Oakhurst recognizes the location as potentially dire, but keeps his concern to himself in order to not worry the others.
They pass the time singing and taking note of Simson retell stories from Homer's Iliad, translating them into "the present vernacular of Sandy Bar." Meanwhile, Oakhurst is careful to not produce the pack of cards he carries with him, the implication being he doesn't wish to introduce poker into this scene of "square fun."
That said, poker has prepared Oakhurst well for the existing trial. Long sessions have meant he's "often been per week without sleep," thus preparing him to address the test of physical endurance the trip has presented. Poker has also helped equip Oakhurst with a type of mental fortitude to resist the sudden misfortune that has befallen the travelers.
"Luck... is a mighty queer thing," he tells Simson. "All you recognize about it for certain is that it's sure to change. And it's studying when it is going to change that makes you."
He additionally notes the "streak of bad luck since we left Poker Flat" and the way Simson has now been made to share in it. However, after a life of riding out such downswings in fortune, Oakhurst soon involves realize this to be one instance through which his luck is not going to changing.
Oakhurst Plays His Last Card
They reach the tip in their provisions, and Mother Shipton — who, it's discovered, have been starving herself to save lots of food for the others — perishes. It's one more example of selflessness some of the outcasts, among whom only Uncle Billy shows himself to be morally lacking.
Oakhurst then takes Simson aside, provides him with a couple of snow shoes, then points him towards town where he and the others cannot go — Poker Flat. When the "Innocent" asks Oakhurst what he intends to do, the answer's brief and to the point.
"I'll stay here."
Alas, although we never learn of young Simson's fate, his try to rescue the others fails because the final scene shows "the law of Poker Flat" discovering the Duchess and Piney having died.
"You could scarcely have told, from the equal peace that dwelt upon them, which was she that had sinned," the narrator observes, an implicit criticism of the unfair moral judgment cast upon the outcasts.
The group also find Oakhurst "with a derringer by his side and a bullet in his heart," having shortened his own life by an additional day or two within the hopes of extending those of the others. Before killing himself, Oakhurst had pinned a playing card to a pine tree along with his bowie knife, his number of the deuce of clubs perhaps symbolizing the decreased value he'd estimated his remaining moments to possess.
On the card, the lawmen see that Oakhurst has written his own epitaph: "BENEATH THIS TREE LIES THE BODY OF JOHN OAKHURST, WHO STRUCK A STREAK OF BAD LUCK AT THE 23D OF NOVEMBER, 1850 AND HANDED IN HIS CHECKS AT THE 7TH DECEMBER, 1850."
Understanding the Gamble That may be Life
The story ends enigmatically with the narrator regarding Oakhurst as "without delay the strongest and yet the weakest of the outcasts of Poker Flat," although this type of paradoxical character assessment may also be explained.
What distinguishes Oakhurst — or makes him the "strongest" — is his correct understanding of ways poker requires one to just accept the influence of luck, both good and bad. In other words, as he understands it, poker isn't an immoral game for "improper persons," but an activity for mature adults capable of accept and withstand the game's inevitable ups and downs.
Such is life, of course, with the death-causing snowstorm revealing the harsh indifference of Nature (or "fate") that Oakhurst also accepts with "philosophic calmness."
That said, poker isn't for everybody. Young Simson — the "Innocent" — isn't prepared for its challenge, something Oakhurst recognized after fidgeting with him back at Sandy Bar. Nor are those committee members whose response to losing at cards is to punish winners with execution or exile, and to group poker with other activities thought to violate their self-righteous (and inauthentic) sense of virtue.
Meanwhile, Oakhurst is the "weakest" of the outcasts for a similar reason, his understanding of the placement having encouraged his noble self-sacrifice. And it's worth noting that poker has prepared him to simply accept losing — to grasp when it's time to have "handed in his checks."
Adaptations
The first adaptation of Harte's story was a 1919 silent film (now lost) starring Harry Carey. It featured a captivating narrative frame wherein Carey's character, an owner of a gambling hall, reads Harte's story which then gets dramatized on screen with the landlord imagining himself within the role of Oakhurst. When Harte's story ends, the film returns to the gambling hall owner's situation, showing him applying a lesson of varieties from the tale to his own life.
"The Outcasts of Poker Flat" (1919 film)
A later 1937 version stars Preston Sturges as Oakhurst and prefer the sooner film adds quite a lot of subplots and extra characters to round out the tale. Meanwhile the 1952 adaptation during which Dale Robertson portrays Oakhurst is more faithful to the source, although introduces a villain who actually plays poker with Oakhurst at one point. That version also includes a different ending that finds Oakhurst, the Duchess, and the young couple all surviving.
It was adapted again in 1958 for television with George C. Scott as Oakhurst and a tender Larry Hagman as Tom. Then later an Italian film made in 1975 with the (translated) title Four of the Apocalypse also loosely adapted the "Poker Flat" tale, combining it with another Bret Harte story while adding in new material. The "spaghetti western" was directed by Lucio Fulci, best known for gory exploitation fare like Zombi and town of the Living Dead, and thus unsurprisingly incorporates a lot more graphic violence than Harte's story suggests.
Then only a few years ago (2009-10) the composer Andrew E. Simpson wrote a one-act chamber opera dramatizing the tale. It was performed most recently in 2012 (to positive reviews), and from the summary appears to follow the source material a lot more closely than any of the cinematic adaptations.
Conclusion
"The Outcasts of Poker Flat" neither champions nor condemns poker, but rather evokes the sport to indicate certain ideas about human nature and our relative willingness and/or ability to resist misfortune. It also uses society's judgments about poker as a place to begin for exploring our ideas of fine"" and "bad" behavior, including the tendency to pass judgement on others much more harshly than we do ourselves.
Finally, there is something all for Harte having chosen to incorporate "poker" within the name of the California town from which a poker player is banished and where the sport is related to other activities (thievery, prostitution) deemed "improper." It almost looks as if the folk of Poker Flat are denying something essential about themselves when looking to rid town of the sport — or a minimum of the town's best player.
In any event, the title of the unique story — repeated in most of these adaptations — has an extra effect of associating poker with outcasts, making it seem something belonging to the periphery at best, if not cast out altogether.
From the forthcoming "Poker & Popular culture: Telling the tale of America’s Favorite Card Game." Martin Harris teaches a course in "Poker in American Film and Culture" within the American Studies program at UNC-Charlotte.
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