Poker & Pop Culture: George Devol, the Ultimate Steamboat Sharp

We concluded last week with the thundering words of card sharp John Backus in Mark Twain's "The Professor's Yarn" echoing in our ears. "I'm a professional gambler" he loudly proclaimed after outcheating an opponent in a hand of poker aboard a 19th-century steamboat.

It's an emphatic line, suggesting not only that Backus believes himself worthy of the respect due to someone in his "profession," but also that being able to cheat successfully is in fact one of the requisite tricks of his trade. So, too, is the ability to defend oneself as Backus does by holding aloft his cocked revolver to accompany his words.

As we've already seen in our earlier survey of saloon poker, cheating was a constant…