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In his forty years as a freelance writer and newspaper reporter, Bill Kelly had interviewed and written about hundreds of names familiar to us: Mickey Rooney, Rory Calhoun, Sylvester Stallone, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Broderick Crawford, Henry Fonda, Victor Mature, Ginger Rogers, Ida Lupino, John Wayne, Aldo Ray, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Leonard, Muhammad Ali, and Henry Armstrong are among many.

Bill has authored an astounding 15,000 magazine articles -- a phenomenal feat for any writer. He had appeared in Poker Digest, Card Player, Real West, True West, Treasure Search, Treasure Cache, Lost Treasure, South Bay, Country Review, True Detective, Inside Detective, California Highway Patrolman, Oklahoma State Trooper, Texas Highway Patrol, Inland Empire, Reader’s Digest, Poker World, Ring Magazine, Boxing Illustrated, K.O., and Variety. His freelance work has appeared in too many California newspapers to list here, but they include, Herald Examiner, Orange County Register and Press-Enterprise.

His critically-acclaimed Collector’s Edition of Bill Kelly’s Encyclopedia of Gunmen is a reference book treasured by historians and Western buffs alike. Bill’s second book, Treasure Trails and Buried Bandit Booty, is a collection of true accounts of buried outlaw swag, and contains clues to reportedly hidden loot throughout the United States.

Bill recently appeared on the History channel as an old west historian in High Rollers: The History of Gambling.

His latest book is Gamblers of the Old West ($24.95). An autograph copy can be purchased by contacting Bill by e-mail: wildbill@cosmoaccess.net or by snail mail: 29759 Longhorn Dr. Canyon Lake, Ca. 92804.

Bill Was born in Tom’s River, New Jersey, on May 5, 1927. He now resides in Canyon Lake, California, where he spends most of his waking hours writing tons of articles to be enjoyed by thousands of readers.

His book, EMPTY SADDLES, is a nostalgic tribute to the sagebrush sagas of the 1940s and 50s, and contains Bill’s interviews with fifty Cowboy stars that made cinema history. No release date has been set for this book at this writing***

POKER ALICE, THE WEST’S BEST LADY GAMBLER

It was something undreamed of in those days. A woman seldom visited gambling houses, yet there she was, Alice Duffield, seated at a faro table at the Ace of Colorado Saloon and Card Parlor, challenging Colorado-Wyoming gambler, Jack "Lucky" Hardesty. When the news leaked out, excitement-craved prospectors and ashen-faced gamblers rushed pell-mell towards the adobe saloon. "Hurry!" cried one old sourdough as he whirled past like a hurricane. "They say a woman is playing Jack Hardesty! I gotta see this."

Even the dust devils whirled crazily in the breeze and they half-circled down the street, seemingly aware of all the excitement going on in this infant city. The crowd of mixed humanity that filled the gambling house watched with curious eyes as a stern-faced woman, later to be dubbed "Poker Alice," settled in her seat opposite Hardesty, eyeing him flinty. Hardesty was known throughout as one of the shrewdest gamblers in Leadville. At the time, Alice was married to a mining engineer named Frank Duffield, and against his wishes, she was determined to become the first woman gambler in the west.

A hush fell over the crowed as Hardesty said, his voice tight with hostility, "Lady, have you ever played faro before?" "Nope, but that's no sweat off your carcass, " the little blonde with the British accent answered stonily. Tough miners eased forward, sensing trouble. "Like taking candy from a baby, isn't it, Jack? a gruff-looking miner teased. "Jack, aren't you ashamed taking advantage of a woman," a salty gent chuckled. The gambler's head snapped up, his eyes burning. "I'm not gonna play you, ma'am," he replied curtly. "Faro, is a man's game." "Reckon we'll sit here till you do," Alice grated. Cause I'm not leaving this table until you deal me in." Hardesty smiled. He had been weaned on faro, and, for many years faro was his profession. "Okay," he warned her, "but don't you turn on them female tears when your broke." He then told Alice and the others - three dust-smudged miners - to place their bets.

It was 'layout faro.' The thirteen cards of the suit of spades were strewn across the table. The players in this form of faro, which was popular on the frontier, placed their bets on one or more cards in the layout. The dealer then drew one card from the group. If a card selected by one or more of the players was equal in numerical value to that drawn by the dealer, those players won. If not, the dealer raked in the bets on the board. Alice, who had practiced often on a feigned layout on her kitchen table, laid silver dollars on the three cards she figured would most likely be drawn. The late Marion Speer, of Huntington Beach California, wrote in his diary: "...it was the damnedest faro game I ever saw. The game see-sawed back and forth with Alice always picking up the edge, and terminating only long enough for the players to eat a sandwich and wash it down with a boilermaker. " Around midnight, Hardesty moaned regretfully. "The bank is closed." Alice scooped up her winnings. "Beginners Luck!" the perturbed looser declared. "Beginner's luck, hell!" Alice retorted. "I specialized in mathematics while I was at the Academy so I had the odds calculated." When Alice returned to the Ace Saloon the next morning, Speer recalled, Hardesty, convinced that Alice's winnings had been beginner's luck, actually urged her to sit in on his game. Three hours later he tossed his cards on the table in a gesture of contempt and frowningly snorted, "I'm through," as he made a hasty departure. At that, Alice stood up. "Boy's," she ruminated, "I'm gonna run the bank now. Place your bets.. twenty-five's the limit!" Occupying Hardesty's chair, she went home with over $1500, a hefty sum in the 1870s.

"I'm going to try my luck at blackjack," Alice told her husband, who was trying to make her quit while she was still ahead. "Alice," he pleaded, "blackjack is a dealer's game and it has busted better gamblers than you." "I've got it figured," she volunteered. "In fact, I'll make more money than I did at faro." At the High County Saloon she sat in the blackjack game whose dealer was Sheldon Coors, a small, vinegar-featured professional gambler with St. Louis antecedents. Blackjack as it was played in the Colorado mining camps, was a permanent bank, or dealer, game in which the object was to draw cards totaling 21, or to come as close to this number as possible without exceeding it. Cards had point values as follows: an ace, either 11 or 1 at the option of the player; any picture card, 10; all other cards at face value. The banker dealt one card face down to each player in rotation, including himself. Each player looked at the card dealt him then placed his bet after which the banker, in rotation, dealt to each player until he called a halt. If his total count exceeded 21 he had lost. If 21 or under he sweetened the pot, at his option, and the banker dealt to the next player. When all the players had been dealt the banker turned over his face-down card and drew from the deck. If he made 21 he collected from all players. If he went over he paid all those who still remained in the game. If he stood with less than 21, he collected from those with lower counts and paid those still in the game with higher counts. For a mathematical genius like Alice, who had been blessed with an anomalous memory, there was nothing to it and within three hours she had busted Coors. "You're not playing with luck," he told the cute little blonde, "you're one of those rare species who can calculate the odds no matter what card comes up. You're the best I've even seen." "Certainly, this was Alice's secret," my friend Speers wrote, before he died in 1976 at age 103. "It was no problem for her to calculate her chances of winning in relation to her cards, the cards that had been dealt others, and those that remained in the banker's deck. And she was just as adept at stud and draw poker, and the other mining camp card games." Soon everyone was calling her, 'Poker Alice'. Card playing became her life style, and she would spend the entire day in one saloon or another, playing faro, blackjack, or poker. She had no respect for money and spent it as quick as she got it, "Hell," she reportedly said, "there's plenty more where that come from." Meanwhile, Duffield continued toiling at the Lucky Strike Mine, refusing to touch a red cent of his wife's money, although she made more in one night than he did in a month of back breaking labor.

Alice Ivers was born in Sudbury, England, on February 17, 1851. At age 12, her attorney-father, moved his family to America, settling in Virginia. At the outbreak of the gold strike, Ivers and his family headed toward Colorado. They settled in Lake City, a rough-and-tumble mining camp and Ivers hired an hombre named Ben Fellows to teach Alice how to defend herself. He did more than that, he taught her the art of gambling. As she approached womanhood, Alice became fast and accurate with the Starr Army .44 her father bought for her. The next year, Ivers sent his flaxon-haired blue-eyed daughter back to Virginia to attend an academy which catered to daughters of elite families. Two years later, well educated by the standards of the era, she returned to Lake City, and married Frank Duffield. When Duffield was killed in a mine cave-in, his despondent wife drifted from camp to camp - Central City, Virginia City, Georgetown, Blackhawk and Creede, where she 'bucked the tiger.' She took money from Bat Masterson, Bill Tilghman, Black Jack Ketchum, Doc Holliday and other famous card sharks. In Creede, Colorado she dealt faro for Bob Ford, who had opened up a gambling parlor with the money he got for personal appearances since he became famous as the "dirty little coward" that shot Jesse James in the back. After Ford was gunned down on June 8, 1892 by Ed O’ Kelley, a gambler who accused Ford of stealing a ring from him, Alice went to South Dakota and opened a faro bank in Deadwood. That year, she married the top gambler in the community, W.G. Tubbs. Two months later Alice shot a man who accused her husband of cheating him in a poker game. Under the cover of darkness, the Tubbs' left town. They bought a small pig farm west of Sturgis, South Dakota and watched the purple haze of distance settle behind the square mesa. In the winter of 1910, Tubbs died of pneumonia in Alice's arms. After the funeral, she sold the farm and traveled to Deadwood, where she opened a gambling hall. A year later she married a drunken loudmouth named George Huckert. He died on their third wedding anniversary, and a great many people attended his funeral - to make sure he was dead. Alice never remarried.

Alice seldom drank, but she loved to smoke big cigars and did so right up until the end. When she was 78 her doctor told her she needed a cancer operation to save her life. "You're the dealer," she told him. "I'll play the hand I'm dealt." It was one of the few times Poker Alice ever went bust. She died on the operating table on February 27, 1930.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: In 1987 Comedies, English made a film called “Poker Alice,” directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman with George Hamilton, Tom Skerritt and Elizabeth Taylor in the title role. For some reason, it was pulled from the market and is unavailable on video. ***