Canada Bill, Karl May, and Imagining the Old West

This week’s installment of Poker & Pop Culture over on PokerNews is the last of a few entries discussing “steamboat poker” during the 19th century. The last of the characters discussed is William “Canada Bill” Jones, a hustler who was in fact better known for his prowess dealing three-card monte than for his poker playing. In fact, George Devol (with whom Jones partnered for a time) said “he was a fool at short cards” (i.e., poker).

The section on Canada Bill covers one of the more famous quotes attributed to him, one having to do with it being “immoral” to let suckers keep their money, a line that comes up in Rounders (among other places).

One side road that I didn’t go down in the column…