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Biggest Raise In Poker History...
You may think that poker players make big raises today! but back
in the day when all poker players carried a gun the stakes where
even higher.
I Raise You New Mexico!
Back in 1889 the wild west was famous for big stake poker games.
High rollers would play games for stakes of $50,000, that's about
11 million dollars in today's money! One of the biggest gamblers
of his day John Dougherty would often carry around $100,000 to fund
his poker games. Dougherty only played No Limit poker and refused
to play against anyone who couldn't match his bank roll. Finding
players to take him on was a difficult task, until a cattle baron
(Ike Johnson) from Texas agreed to meet Dougherty in Santa Fe for
the poker championship of the West.
Over hundred people arrived in Santa Fe to watch the showdown,
prominent citizens of the day including The Governor of New Mexico
L Bradford Price had ringside seats to watch the poker game.
The game started and both Johnson and Dougherty began betting heavily
on the first hand, After just a few minutes the pot stood at $100,000.
Johnson began to run out of cash and rather than lose the pot to
Dougherty he wrote out a deed to his ranch in Texas and 10,000 head
of cattle, valued in excess of $100,000.
This left Dougherty in a fix, without enough cash to cover the
raise Dougherty would have to fold. Dougherty pondered for a second
then jumped up and pulled his gun on the Governor of New Mexico.
Handing the Governor a pen and a document he said "Now, Governor,
you sign this or I will kill you. I like you and would fight for
you, but I love my reputation as a poker player better than I do
you or any-thing else" without reading the document the Governor
signed hastily. Dougherty threw the document on the table and said
"I'm raising you the Territory of New Mexico" Johnson
replied "All right, you can take the pot. But it's a damned
good thing for you that the Governor of Texas isn't here!"
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