One of the more famous loser stories concerns a Harvard student from Lichtenstein, who gambled away a semester's allowance in a night. Then he put his Lotus Elan and his title (he was a Baron) on the table--and lost them both. The winner returned the title and the Lotus in exchange for the use of the car the following weekend.
But Harvard poker is very different from the poker played in the Boston saloons. There, if a player does not pay his debts, he has good reason to fear for his health. Students usually stick to games within the University, though they love to tell of the time one of the champions went into Boston after a big night at Harvard. He played at one of the city's most elite establishments, and lost $1800. He returned the next night and cleared $2300. "That takes a great deal of guts," an admirer said, "but after all, he did grow up in the backroom of a Harlem gambling joint."
The "Harlem Gambler" was backed that night. But in most Harvard games students play with their own money which comes from a previous summer's earnings or a parental allowance. A successful player can keep going all year on the basis of his earnings. But a player who has been "hooked," even if he frequently loses, rarely gives up the game voluntarily.
One player came to the end of a long evening and found that his losses were more than he could afford. But on his last hand he was golden--a blue bicycle (ace to five of the same suit). He called his father long distance and described his hand. His father agreed to back him if he would promise to stop playing poker. The student ended his career as a poker player several hundred dollars ahead.
Walking past Cahaly's one evening, a poker player pointed to a freckled face bent over Time Magazine. "That is Raging Thurmond," he announced, "one of the Dunster greats." A legend in his own time. Thurmond has flown in professionals from New York and even New Orleans to sit in at some of the Dunster House games.
Another renowned Harvard gambler was Vic Marma who invented a brand of poker known from Dartmouth to Princeton as Miami Marma. A.B., the Webster of Harvard poker, introduced a number of new terms including "K and L" --the game we all Know and Love (seven-card-stud-high-low), which is the type of poker most commonly played at Harvard.
Playing with the same people so often, each gambler develops a very characteristic style. "A.B. just radiated strength. He dominated the table, and could get away with more bluffs than any other player I've ever seen," one friend reminisced. A.B. was also known for his endless conversation which invariably unnerved his opponents.
The Machine
Then there is "Larry The Machine," now a graduate student at M.I.T. Larry, who plays in the Dunster and the Leverett games, spent last year in the casinos of San Francisco. He considered going professional but instead decided to come East to graduate school. "It took me three months to psych out the casino players." The Machine explained. "They are all quite good; they follow the rules. But they don't think about a hand the way the guys at Harvard do. The poker here is definitely of a higher quality."
Larry looks like a character out of Richard Jessup's Cincinnati Kid, which is to a poker player what St. Augustine's Confessions is to a Catholic. Larry has the pallid face, the light-colored eyes ringed with yellow--signs that mark the man who spends his days sleeping off the exhaustion of a night at the table.
Under Massachusetts law poker is not illegal, but a player can be prosecuted for collecting winnings over $5. If the loser does not sue within 30 days, anyone else can file charges. The winner can be fined for twice the amount he has collected, but no one has been prosecuted by the state since the 1880's.
The Harvard administration has quietly indicated to the hard core players that it does not approve of poker. But when asked to stop playing in his room one student merely moved his to a different entry. "What the eye doesn't see the heart won't grieve for," he said, describing Harvard's policy. "As long as it does not interfere with our grades they don't care," he added. In spite of his confidence, a number of Senior Tutors have allegedly been on the rampage.
Some regular poker players do maintain good grades, but a majority have taken leaves-of-absence for one reason or another. As one poker player explained: "These guys have not found anything else here. I was in a play but I didn't like the people. I tried out for the CRIMSON, but didn't like the people around there either. Freshman year I was the Young Republican ward leader for my entry, but that wasn't right. Then I took up poker--and the people are really great. This is the way I've decided to do Harvard."
Another player enthusiastically described the glory of a week at the poker table: "The game starts in the evening and continues on through the night. At 7:30 in the morning when the House dining room opens the players break. We go out into the sun, the white light which sears the eyes. It is the only time we see the sun. After breakfast we go to bed until the evening when the game begins again." For these students poker is not a game. It is a way of life.