[3][4] The aim of the club provoked some unwelcome opposition and, at the suggestion of Adam Smith the name was changed so as to be enigmatic to the general public.
David Hume could well find the company of The Poker a relief from a skeptical depression – "Most fortunately it happens that since reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose ...
I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends; and when after three or four hours amusement, I return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strain'd, and ridiculous, that I cannot find it in my heart to enter into them any farther.
The dinner was set soon after two o'clock, at one shilling a head, the wine to be confined to sherry and claret, and the reckoning to be called at six o’clock".
The first fifteen members were chosen by nomination, the rest by ballot, "two black balls to exclude the candidate".