Professional poker players can now play for several months or even years without physically dealing with a deck. The playing cards, virtual or not, are taken care of for you, no matter whether you’re playing fairly or using a marked cards reader. The professional dealer at the table is allowed to control the deck. This ensures that poker rooms and casinos are free from corruption. But this was not always the case. Although it is hard to believe that you will be a victim of cheating in your weekly penny-stakes cash game, there are private games that can make a lot of money, and you will find people who will break around the rules to reap the rewards.
False Shuffling
It seems that shuffle techniques are best learned by reading old books. It turns out that this is not the case. You can learn them, like almost anything else, from any guy on YouTube. Many of the old card deception techniques are still used by illusionists. Deception is the most common form. It gives the illusion that we are randomly changing the order of the cards, but in reality, we keep the same position the whole time.
You can fake any shuffling, even the professional table shuffling used by casino dealers. You can counter this by having the person behind you cut the cards after mixing them. This is a house rule that private games adhere to.
Fake Dealing
Fake dealing is a more complex and sophisticated form of cheating. Bad deals can be more dangerous than bad deals. It is possible to detect the agreement even if you are reasonably experienced. The most popular fake deals are the second, bottom, and middle deals. You can also look for them on YouTube. The only second hand is possible in private games that follow basic house rules. Because the piece of plastic used by players to cut the deck is small, the bottom hand is almost impossible. Also, players cannot see the bottom cards. Distributing the middle cards requires the utmost skill and preparation.
Marked Cards
Another prevalent form of cheating is marked cards. This method is favored by card shufflers, as it does not require any knowledge of card manipulation. There are many different ways to mark a deck of cards. Sometimes it doesn’t even require any preparation. Sometimes you need to fold a corner of the ace when it is dealt. You can also use paint to mark the cards (even the ones that are hard to see with special glasses) or a paste that you can read by touching the cards.
Shiner
We conclude this article with a great story about Ricky Jay. He is a well-known actor, poker enthusiast, and entertainer. A con man opened a razor blade and announced, “No cheating in this poker game! All the other players faced dire consequences. The hustler read the cards with the reflective edge of his blade, which was a surprise to everyone.
The shiner, which is the name of the device used by cheaters to read the cards as they are being dealt, can be any object that can be disguised at the poker table, such as a lighter, a card protector, or even a ring with the bottom half polished to reflect the cards. This gives you another reason to condemn poker players who wear rings, aside from their blatant idiocy.