When Is A Con Not A Con? When It’s a Boggs Con

I once had the opportunity to play a friendly penny-ante game of poker with the currency artist JSG Boggs. Boggs had been trying all afternoon to get up a poker game, but the only people who wanted to play were Boggs, myself, my brother-in-law Jim, and our friend Al. This was during a party at our property over a Memorial Day week-end; there were probably 40 or 50 people there for the week-end, so it was surprising there weren’t more players. But it was just the 4 of us.

Let me say right upfront that I’m not a particularly good poker player — I play only very occasionally, and then only in very casual games with friends with extremely low betting (nickels, dimes and quarters). Boggs, I learned during the game, is accustomed to higher-stakes games in which players risk many thousands of dollars. But I enjoy a friendly game of poker; I said I’d play, but it had to be low antes and betting, and I wouldn’t play with more than $20.

So after dinner we played poker. We each started with $20, and we scrounged in my big coin jar to break everyone’s $20 bill into nickels, dimes and quarters. I think the ante was a quarter, and betting was mostly nickels and dimes, with occasional hands bringing out crazed bets of a quarter or even (gasp!) 50 cents.

During the course of the game, Al went bust, followed shortly by Jim, so that it was just Boggs and me remaining. At one point I had a fairly sizable pile of coins in front of me; I think Boggs was down to less than a dollar. But then things turned around, and soon all my coins migrated over to Boggs. I busted out as well. I swept all the coins back into my coin jar, and the four $20 bills were now sitting in front of Boggs.

While Boggs and I played, Jim and Al, having nothing better to do, stayed in their seats on the other side of the table, talking to each other and paying little attention to the game. They weren’t even aware of when the game ended; they just sat over there continuing their conversation. After the game, Boggs told me that I was actually a better poker player than I thought I was. He told me that I needed to have more confidence in my own playing skills.

He also told me that I needed to control my “tells.” “Tells” are the behaviors, expressions or habits by way of which we unconsciously signal to the other players what kind of hand we have or what a bet really means. Nervous eyes, slumping posture, sitting upright, glancing at your chips, glancing at the deck in the dealer’s hand, glancing at your hole card, a frown, a half smile, a raised eyebrow, scratching one’s nose or chin: these can signal to the other players whether I have a good hand and I expect to win, or I’m bluffing, or I have crap but if I get the right card on the next draw I’ll have a winning hand.

Boggs described my tells to me. By golly, I always thought I had a decent poker face, but to someone who is good at reading tells, I was apparently an open book. I was giving away the quality of my hand with every bet!

Anyway, Boggs tried and tried to convince me that I was actually a pretty good poker player. Finally told me he wanted us to play another poker game. He asked me if I had any more money. Well, here’s the gist of that conversation:

Boggs: Do you have any more money?

Me: Well, yeah, I think so, up in the house.

Boggs: How much?

Me: About $60.

Boggs: Go get it.

Me: What? Are you crazy? You just took my $20. I can afford to lose $20, but I’m not going to lose another $60 to you.

Boggs: Go get it.

Me: No! I told you, $20 is what I can afford to lose, and I already lost it.

Boggs (in a harder voice): I’m not joking. Go get your money.

Me: No. I may be drunk, but I’m not stupid.

Boggs (sounding somewhat annoyed): What, you think I’m just trying to take your money? I’m not trying to take your money. I don’t need your money. I’m trying to prove a point here. Go get your money.

Me: No, I’m not getting my money.

Boggs (sounding angry): Look. I’m not fucking around here. I don’t want your money. If I just wanted your money, would I do this?

At this point, Boggs picked up one of the $20 bills sitting on the table in front him, grabbed someone’s lighter from the table, and lit the $20 bill.

I’m sure my eyes went as big as saucers at that. I’d never seen someone set fire to money before! As Boggs held the burning bill over an ashtray, Jim and Al, who had been deep in conversation and paying no attention to us, caught sight of the burning bill in their peripheral vision, and they swung around to stare, first at Boggs, then at me, then back at Boggs again, their conversation forgotten and their mouths hanging open.

Boggs now has our full attention. He tells Jim and Al what the burning money is all about, and they agree they’ll play another game of poker. The three of them gang up on me and convince me to go get the $60 I have in the house. By now it didn’t take a lot of convincing. I think I was convinced when Boggs set the $20 bill afire.

So we started another game. Quite by coincidence, the money I have in the house is exactly $60, which is what Boggs has left from his winnings in the first game, after burning the $20. Jim and Al dig up $60 each, and we’re off in our second game. This time the ante is $1, and bets are ranging from a quarter to $5 and even $10.

Like I said, I’m not a skilled or experienced poker player. This game is the highest-stakes game I’ve ever played. I’m also three sheets to the wind; I had been drinking steadily all evening. If I had been stone-cold sober, I don’t think I would ever have gone along with this, burning money or not.

But somehow, I was suddenly playing the best poker I’ve ever played. I was trying to pay attention to my tells, consciously avoiding them. And I was trying to have more confidence in my poker skills — that was what Boggs had been trying to hammer into me.

Next thing I know, Jim’s busted out of the game. Then Al. It’s down to me and Boggs — again.

And when the last hand is done and the bidding’s over with, all $240 is sitting in front me.

To this day, I am still trying to figure out how this happened. I’m really not that good of a poker player, while Boggs was a regular player in $10,000 poker games. It had to have been engineered by Boggs, but how?

I’m quite sure Boggs is a good enough player that he could have engineered his loss. All he’d have to do is read my tells (I’m sure I was still giving myself away, despite my best efforts), bet big when I had a good hand, and fold quickly when I had a bad one.

But how could he manage to deliberately lose to me, even while making sure that both he and I bested Jim and Al?

Jim and Al aren’t at Boggs’s level, but they’re both certainly more experienced than me. I’m convinced they weren’t in on a scheme by Boggs — they were only alone with him for a couple of minutes while I went into the house to get my money. And anyway I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have willingly gone along with a scheme that required that they each lose $60, either. Afterward, they both denied any sort of scheme, and found the whole thing quite amusing.

So how did Boggs deliberately lose to me, even while making sure that both he and I bested Jim and Al? If he bets big when he’s sure I have a good hand — so that I would win a big pot — he would be taking the chance that Jim or Al would have an even better hand. If he folds when I have a good hand, it’s likely they would have a better hand, and they would get my money but not his.

Or was Boggs right all along? Am I perhaps a better poker player than I realize?

Nah…. I’m convinced I was conned by Boggs. Boggs’s history of cons is, when he cons you, you’re better off after the con. As Ira Glass wrote of Boggs:

What I love about this is that it’s a con game, run in reverse. If the person falls for the game, they come out of it far wealthier than they went in. As Weschler puts it in his joyous little book, Boggs operates “a sort of floating aesthetical ethical crap game. Or else a sort of fairy-tale virtue test, in which the worthy agreed to sacrifice and [are] subsequently rewarded a hundredfold.”

I think that’s exactly what happened here, except instead of Boggs Bills it was poker.