According to general poker wisdom, there are eight types of poker cheating: Sleight of hand, collusion, angling, marked cards, misrepresentation of a hand, pot interaction, prepared decks and phony chips. In this article we will go over the main techniques used in sleights of hand.
1. The Mechanic’s Grip: Cheating players in charge of dealing hold the deck in a way that facilitates several types of cheating like peeking, second dealing and bottom dealing (to be explained later in this article).
Grip A: Cheating dealers have the deck on their palms, with the index and middle fingers by the short side of the deck away from themselves.
Grip B: Cheating dealers hold the deck with their thumbs on top of the deck, the index finger holding it around the front edge, the two middle fingers underneath the deck and the little finger around the rear edge. In this case, most of the deck is covered by the dealer’s hand.
2. The Peek: The dealers peek at the top card of the deck before dealing, which allows them to know who gets that card during the dealing or to deal it to themselves if wanted.
Maneuver: using the mechanic’s grip, the dealers make sure their thumb is blocking the top card from being pushed to the right; the cheats then push the card to the right slowly with their pinky finger and the ring finger if necessary, making the bottom right corner of the card curl, and the number of the card visible. This maneuver is hard to master but possible with enough practice.
3. The Second Deal: After peeking at the top card of the deck, the cheating dealer keeps the top card in place and starts dealing from the second card on.
Maneuver: using the mechanic’s grip, the cheating dealer softly pushes the top card inward from the rest of cards, leaving an inch of the second card exposed beneath it, easy to push forward with the thumb as if it was the first card. This maneuver is difficult to master, and it only works if the dealers have chosen the top card for themselves after peeking at it.
4. The Bottom Deal: After choosing a card, the dealers place it on the very bottom of the deck and deal it to themselves.
Maneuver: using the mechanic’s grip to hide the action, the dealers wait until everybody has their cards to deal themselves the known bottom card.
5. Extra Cards: As long as nobody is focusing too much on the dealing, cheat dealers deal themselves an extra card or more. These cards give dealers the advantage to choose the best card among them and get rid of the bad extra ones at some point of the game.
Maneuver: Cheating dealers push two cards with the thumb holding the deck and grab both cards with the thumb and index fingers of the other hand; if done by the end of the deal, the extra cards will fall on top of the cards already dealt, which makes it almost unnoticeable. After choosing which cards to keep, cheating dealers have to either put back the extra cards into the deck, which is difficult, or dump them on the floor.
Vigilant players should check under the table for fallen cards after each hand, which could indicate extra-card cheating.
6. False Shuffling: The following are four ways of false shuffling,
a) Keeping the bottom card at the bottom: The cheating dealers divide the deck in two halves shuffled together by interlocking them. By ensuring that the half with the chosen bottom card is brought down first, the card will remain on the bottom. This maneuver is useful for bottom-dealing.
b) Shuffling the bottom card to the top of the deck. After peeking at the bottom card, cheating dealers undercut the deck by taking portions of the deck held in one hand with the other, and piling them on the table, and leaving the last card by itself in the left hand, to be naturally placed at the top of the shuffled deck. This maneuver is used for second or extra-card dealing.
c) Keeping one or more cards at the top of the deck. This can be done with the previous way of shuffling or by interlocking the cards, making sure the half with the wanted cards is brought down last. This maneuver is used for second or extra-card dealing.
d) Stacking the deck: It involves manipulating the deck in a way that allows cheating dealers to position the card(s) at the top, separated by a number of cards corresponding to the number of players before them, thus dealing themselves the wanted cards with nobody noticing. This requires the time to choose all the wanted cards before the dealers are seen at the table dealing, which is not always possible.
7. Palming: The dealers hide individual cards in their hands and hide them into their pockets, under their legs or by dropping them on the floor and covering them with a foot. Then, at the right moment, the dealers bring the card back when their hand requires it.
8. Shifting the Cut: The cheating dealers arrange the deck in a way that benefits their hand, yet let another player cut the deck in smaller piles along the table. The dealers identify the positions of each pile and allow the other player to stack the bottom pile into the middle of the deck. To restore the original order of the deck, the dealer picks up the original top pile (now in another part of the deck) and places it back on top, then moves the original bottom pile back to the bottom, and so on with the other piles. Extensive practice is needed for a cheating dealer to master this technique.
Next: Home-Game Cheating Awareness, Part II: Other Cheating Methods