PL Poker - The History Part One (1900 - 1939)

The Gentlemans Club, known as the "Punters Lounge" was formed as a man only gaming club, in the year of our lord 1900. The local baron, Mister Ross, had an idea that a drinking establishment should be set up, in which sporting discussion could take place, and various gambling activities could be partaken in.
The club was built and the membership was taken up immediately.

The first ever competition, the 1901 PL Domino Championship was won by young Master Valiant, after three days of nailbiting competition, and the cigars were on him that afternoon. That very same afternoon, the first ever card game took place. A game of "Poker" - an American import. This was met by several loud objections - "It will never take on" said Andy of the Large, "Blasted Americans" said Sir Have-a-fancy and "Surely it is a game of luck" said Lord Michael of the Slick.
Over the coming weeks these objections died down, as more and more members became involved, and Poker took off.

The Club continued to grow until the outbreak of World War I in 1914, where the club was temporarily closed, but in 1918 the club re-opened with notable new members Sir Gareth 271, Lord Morls of Newcastle and his Honourable Michael Saban.
1925 saw the first vote to have women entered into the club, after some vociferous banner waving by Lady Pockets and Penelopeys, but despite the vote taking place every year, the first woman wasn't admitted until 1937, although the smoking room was still deemed out of bounds until the early 1970's.

The period between the wars was a boomtime for the Punters Lounge. Some amazing betting coups came off - including correctly predicting the "Bodyline" Ashes series, after Douglas Jardine had frequented the club just before making the trip to Australia - and MP David Hill having a nice speculative wager on Helen Wills Moody to win the Wimbledon singles title on eight seperate occasions - although more controversially, some Lounge members were quickly ejected after the infamous 1919 World series fix, when the price on WagerFair for the Cincinatti Reds was pushed right down after various conversations in the aforementioned smoking room.

Although perhaps the biggest bounds make by the Punters Lounge was in the field of Poker.
Aside from America, this was where Poker took off in Europe. The first great player of the era, Baron Staff would take on allcomers, and had some amazing battles with the likes of General Guess from the west, Sir Percival Jaded and the Spanish intruder El Croco.
Many guineas changed hands in this time, and World domination was likely to follow, until the outbreak of World War II in 1939 - where the club was indefinitely suspended again.

To be continued