I’m a guest.

A while back I read an article written on a sleight of hand blog by an acquaintance of mine. It was a concept, and it reminded me of a similar idea I had in the same vein. When I wrote to him to tell him what I thought and about my idea, he wrote back the very same day tell me he liked my idea and asked if I would write a guest article on his blog. I said yes of course. The following is the article. Ross, the owner of said blog, introduces my article if you follow the link below.

For the most part his blog will only appeal to those of you interested in the sleight of hand aspect of cheating – http://anadept.blogspot.co.uk/. I’ve been informed that it will be taken down soon and the contents are to be published in a magazine style release, so if the link still works consider yourself lucky. The following is my article.

In the gentleman host’s introductory blog post, “On Ignorance And Creation”, Ross (gentleman host) spoke about a technique that has excited me for about a year and a half, simply convincing someone they do not want to cut.

Better than nullifying the cut after it has taken place, that post describes, in detail, a pre-emptive strike against the cut. Hobbyists and delinquents alike will know the difficulty in performing shifts/hops/passes under fire. The clever post goes about explaining a method of convincing the other players that they do not want to cut when opportunity knocks.

Independently I discovered that yes, among friends it is completely possible, I’d go as far as calling it sure-fire on certain nights, when you pick the right person to sit next to. I have never played in fast,unknown company so I cannot testify to it’s usefulness there. However with friends I can vouch for it, and I am writing this guest article today, as I have brought the technique slightly further.

It is possible, that with the same offhand, casual, indifferent and sometimes slightly impatient mannerisms, you can not only get them to not feel like cutting, you can convince them not to bet. Convince them to check. Now I understand that if you are reading this blog you share my interests, and with our interests, the idea is to get suckers to bet as much as possible. However, say for instance, you are playing without sleight of hand in a game of Texas hold’em, you are not willing to bet on the flop or the turn, but you really want to see the river.You want your opponent to ‘check’ so you can see the next card for free. Only a hold’em player will understand this technique’s usefulness straight away.

This will work at it’s best, in a casual home game, and can be done more frequently when strict procedure is not adhered to. If you are head to head, playing with a friend or acquaintance, it’s late, the game has dragged on. You can pretend to be slightly irritated/impatient/growing tried of it, and with a sort of stammer, utter the word “check”, mumble it almost like it’s on the tip of your tongue but you cannot remember the word, the stall should be about one and a half – two seconds., with a slight motion of the hand and a squeezing of the face. A technique somewhat hard to describe. I wouldn’t do it with more than three players including oneself. However, If you are head to head regardless of who the dealer is, after long hours of play, this motion, expression and purposely-mumbled “check”, will a lot of them time cause them to say check in almost a unspoken agreement that they are tired too. This works.

The other approach is more like Ross’ approach when convincing them not to cut. Lightly suggest “eh, check?” possibly followed by a sigh, in a friendly but also tired atmosphere.

This is how I play poker when the game has gone on for hours, and I use these methods time and time again in the same games. Some of the time I feel it also makes me look like a weak player, as if I’m exposing that I have weak cards. But imagine this in combination with sleight of hand, a very interesting thought. To me at least.

If tired impatience seems completely unlike you and you think this will be of no benefit, go play poker and find out how you would act after 8 hours of play. If I simply did an impression of Ross convincing someone not to cut, I would attract more suspicion. Likewise if he started expressing my tired impatience at his next friendly card game, it would attract heat if he didn’t wrap it in his own personality and the situation at hand.. Make it fit you if you wish to try it, make it fit your mannerisms.

Kevin.

Is it immoral to let a sucker keep his money?

The question stems from the phrase coined by Canada Bill Jones, made popular in the Ed Norton film Rounders. Jones believed it was “immoral to let a sucker keep his money”. Not sure I agree with old Bill, Rounders may have romanticised his sentiment a tad, as he was also known to say “A Smith and Wesson beats four aces.”

Is it wrong to use methods the opponent is not aware of to take their money? The obvious answer would be yes, but maybe it’s not that obvious.

I think everyone likes to believe they are noble and trustworthy, but Walter Irving Scott once said “There isn’t a card player who wouldn’t cheat, if he knew how.” You’re here so it’s possible that your curiosity betrays you. Personally I believe cheating at cards is neither noble nor ignoble. (Ignoble being the correct form of un-noble)

Firstly, if gambling itself cannot be considered noble, then giving yourself an advantage is simply good business. A man who gambles for pleasure doesn’t strictly need the money,  a man who gambles because he needs money will seldom be tarred and crowned with noble feathers, and a man that gambles because he needs to gamble, well that man is just lost. It’s a loveless triangle that all players surely fall into and, if you play for money, you too are one of these characters. Of course you may be a gentleman in all other walks of life, but whichever of these cloaks you wear at the card table/dice corner/roulette wheel, it is surely not a noble one.

Secondly, is the person that has put the most hours into preparing themselves for the game, not the person who deserves to win? For those of you who don’t know, in the early 1900’s all gambling, including poker, was declared illegal in the state of Nevada. This was later changed when the Attorney General of California declared that draw poker was based upon skill and not solely on chance. In fact the first mention of poker in literature, comes from Jonathan H. Green in his chronicles from 1834. He wrote about a very popular game amongst gamblers on the Mississippi riverboats called the “cheating game”. It could be argued that in a game of skill, the most skilled person deserves to win. Taking myself for example, I do not cheat but if I were to decide to, over the last few years I have clocked up thousands of hours practicing, sometimes up to 12 hours a day. In a game of skill, where one player has spent thousands of hours practicing for the game, and the others have sat down hoping to use standard poker tactics (which, in general, amount to little more than psychological bullying) is it inconceivable that the cheater has put the most effort in, and is the most skilled man in an ignoble game, therefore most deserving of the money they are competing for? It seems so simple to justify when put like that. I mean, even at the Olympics, the one with the most training and skill surely deserves any gold he wins.

Andre Malraux said “Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he hides.” Professional players are money hungry, even if they hide it behind the paper thin argument that they are honourable competitors. The argument really goes both ways,  some might see the best poker players in the world as highly skilled, indeed I do if I’m to be honest. On the other hand, I know of a small number of men who could sit down with the world’s best player’s and their entire wealth of “honest” skill and knowledge, and beat them with his right hand tied behind his back.

“Cards are war, in disguise of sport” – Charles Lamb.

From my point of view, some of these cheaters are the most fantastically gifted and skilled men you could ever meet, and they can never show anyone. Take your favourite hobby for example, imagine the trade off, you can be the best in the world at it, but no one will ever know. An interesting thought.

I guess the problem is rules. That’s the difference between the highly skilled cheater and the highly skilled athlete. Which is why even though I like to think I present a good argument, I have not yet convinced myself. While I stand by my earlier statement that I believe cheating to be neither noble nor ignoble, it is certainly not fair. 

With that conclusion, I’ll leave you with a quote that aspires to say that there is actually a noble streak in the cheater.

“I could quite easily pick your pockets and be spending your money in the next city by the time you’ve even sat down to play, but that’s not the point.”

Until next time.

Kevin

The Real Work.

In my first post I’m going to dive right in and discuss what advantage seeking gamblers call “The Real Work”. Not a romantic demonstration or a description of midnight cardsharps, but a legitimate insight into how cheating is done, more specifically how I would go about rigging a game. The Real Work will be the title of on-going posts offering explanations to those interested in how one can genuinely get the money. I write these posts as an enthusiast, for entertainment and protection purposes only, but I would say that, wouldn’t I?

The real work is a kind of classification, a genre if you will, of certain sleight of hand techniques and cheating methods. Also included in this bracket are marked cards, trimmed cards and other such tools of the trade. Chip shells and gaffed dice may also stand under this umbrella. A magician will use sleight of hand to entertain, but only when a move is used to cheat at a game of chance, is it the real work. For those of you still uncertain, dealing from the bottom of the deck would be classified as the real work, the bottom deal is a notorious sleight that most of the card playing public have at least heard of.

Also note that I use the term ‘gamblers’ loosely, as I am truely referring to cheaters. In the realm of sleight of hand, magicians refer to the people who practice and perform the real work as ‘gamblers’. In reality they are the opposite of gamblers. I will be using this term throughout posts on the blog. There shouldn’t be any confusion as any time I mention the people actually gambling, I will refer to them as ‘suckers’. My blog’s first hat-tip to P.T. Barnum.

Of course I won’t be covering the entire spectrum of real work in this one blog post, as I said I intend to make this a regular article, in which I intend to offer actual feasible methods for cheating. Not just producing aces, like most magicians will if you ask them about card cheating. Please
note that, while I will be describing methods that could be used at any virtually home game in the world, unless you have been practicing the real work for years, you will find yourself falling out with friends or falling out of a moving car. Depending on your company. I will quote my favourite book, The Expert at the Card Table, from which I learned much of the real work I know.

“In offering this book to the public the writer uses no sophistry as an excuse for its existence…It may caution the unwary who are innocent of guile, and it may inspire the crafty by enlightenment on artifice. It may demonstrate to the tyro that he cannot beat a man at his own game, and it may enable the skilled in deception to take a post-graduate course in the highest and most artistic branches of his vocation. But it will not make the innocent vicious, or transform the the pastime player into a professional; or make the fool wise, or curtail the annual crop of suckers, but whatever the result may be, if it sells it will accomplish the primary motive of its author, as he needs the money.” – S.W. Erdnase, 1902.

That said, it is possible to tip advantage in your favour, regardless of your skill level or whether or not you have ever touched a deck of cards in fact. This first method of cheating could be executed by a small child. Absolutely anyone could start a game this instant and immediately have a favourable advantage using this technique. An advanced player of any card game could use this statistical advantage to take down any and all players, even those normally his equal. The only way a knowledgeable gambler could lose his advantage in this way, would be sitting down in the presence of a better cheater.

Can you feel that? The anticipation building? You can smell the money from here! So, my eager apprentice, lets get to it. Believe me it is as easy as taking the cards out of the box.

In fact, it’s exactly like taking the cards out of the box.

When the chips are being counted out, when everyone is getting comfortable, pouring their drinks, you remove the cards from the box, all except for one. Leave one card in the box. With a small amount of practice this can be done with everyone staring at your hands, simply
by pressing your finger into the half circle cut out at the front of the opened box, or by placing your thumb on one card while turning the box over and tipping the cards out into your other hand. However, in most home game scenarios you can handle the cards like a fuckless numpty and still get away with it.

Ahem, sorry for that outburst, I spend an awful lot of money on cards and cringe at the thought of them being roughed up. First lesson in card manipulation – cards should be held in the hands like a small bird, gentle enough for comfort, firm enough that they don’t get away. That’s a Roberto Giobbi lesson.

Proceed to close the box and throw it aside, either into the chips case or into a drawer. Out of sight, out of mind. I’ll add that you must know what the card in the box is. At this point most card players will realise their advantage, for those of you who don’t, I will explain.

If the king of diamonds, (which is Julius Caesar anthropomorphised, for those of you who enjoy such snippets of information) is still in the box, you now have an edge just by knowing that. Let’s apply this to Texas Hold’em, by far the most popular version of poker played in the western world today.

After a few rounds of Hold’em, you receive the king of clubs in your hand. On the turn and the river (the last two community cards dealt face up on the table) the king of hearts and the king of spades come up. An advanced player might try to bluff in this scenario, bet big even without a
king just to bully people out of the game. A legitimate method. However, if you have the king of clubs in your hand, you know neither that player nor anyone else can have a hand equal to yours in kings, because the king of diamonds is sitting on the bench. For the more advanced practitioners, this can be used to adjust your probability of certain cards coming up. Probability is a large part of poker that not many amateurs bother to look into. Basic probability in Texas Hold’em, for example, would be that during any hand the odds of you getting a pair are 42.3%. This changes with a card removed, all this can be used to any player’s advantage.

Perhaps the best/worst part about this ruse is that, if discovered, it can be passed off as an honest mistake and you can do nothing to prove otherwise. Especially now that decks come with as many as four jokers and often advertisement cards.

Simple as that. Most of you are probably feeling the bubble burst right now. You don’t know what you were expecting, but that wasn’t it. Perhaps you thought I would describe a 007-esque high flung gadget, that would have you winning every hand with four glistening aces, bathing in the sunshine of your victory.

Well no, that’s not what cheating is. That’s not how cheating works. That’s Hollywood. I’m hoping that will make you understand, if you found this blog through a Google search on ‘how to cheat at cards’, that it takes not only years of practice, but the right attitude to be a successful gambler. If you want to impress your friends by producing four of a kind at will, I suggest you buy a trick deck from a magic shop. I may even do a future post on some, for those of you that would like to play the part of the card sharp at your poker games, for entertainment. (For the record, the term is most certainly card-sharp not the bastardised card-shark, though they seem to be interchangeable these days).

Protection tip : If you are not the person taking the cards out of the box, ask to see the box as the first dealer puts it away. If they stall and offer a silly excuse for not giving it to you, insist. Politeness will get you nowhere at a card table.

Until next time folks.

Kevin.