Poker Card Tricks
What are the most common forms of cheating in pokern? The easiest one is to mark the deck. This can be done simply during play by making some subtle adjustment to a few chosen cards, like the aces. A player might intentionally press a fingernail in a certain spot to form a faint line hardly noticeable to anyone not looking for it. Or sometimes a corner is just slightly crimped to distinguish a card. If you suspect someone is marking the deck, then ask to examine the cards for these telltale signs.
A cheater may sometimes contribute a “cold deck” that has ostensibly been shuffled and is ready to deal. However, the poker deck has been stacked so that certain cards fall to designated seats giving those players the best, and second-best but losing hand.
False shuffling is another technique whereby the poker cheater who is dealing appears to be shuffling, but actually knows where the aces are, and distributes a fixed number of cards between them, so that a designated player gets two aces. Basically, the dealer goes through the shuffling motions, but is not mixing them up randomly at all.
There are deceptive dealing practices too that involve sleight of hand techniques where the dealer actually pitches the second card from the deck, leaving a choice one on top to be dealt to himself or a partner. Skilled card sharks can also deal from the bottom even though it appears that the cards come off the top.
All of these tricks are hard to spot since the perpetrators are pros.
