Gambling Guide

Contents 1 Minimal-skill methods 1.1 Marked cards 2 Skilled methods 3 Collusion 4 See also 5 Notes

Cheating in poker is any behavior outside the rules intended to give an unfair advantage to one or more players.

Since poker has a wide variety of rules and procedures, hands are played fairly quickly, and numerous people are involved in games, the occurrence of cheating is common. Cheating can be done many ways, including collusion, sleight-of-hand such as bottom dealing or stacking the deck, or the use of physical objects such as marked cards or holdout devices.

Cheating occurs in both friendly games or casinos. Cheats may operate alone, but also may operate in teams or small groups.

Following is a list of terms used to categorize specific card cheats:

• card mechanic -- A card cheat who specializes in sleight-of-hand manipulation of cards, a card sharp.
• base dealer/second dealer -- Also called bottom dealer/second dealer is a cheat that specializes in bottom/second dealing.
• paper player -- A card cheat that exploits the use of marked cards.
• hand mucker -- A card cheat that specializes in switching cards.
• machine player -- A card cheat that uses mechanical holdouts.

Minimal-skill methods

The easiest and most common types of cheating require no ability of manipulation, but rather merely the nerve. Such methods include shorting the pot, avoiding house fees and peeking at other player's cards. However, it is very difficult to prove because when confronted, the first time at least, the cheat often calls the cheating an honest mistake.

One minimal skill method that occurs in non-casino games happens when a player who has folded appoints himself the tender of the pot, stacking chips, counting them, and delivering them to the winning player. Check-chopping is when such a "helpful" player palms a chip. Odorless adhesive can be used for this purpose.

Marked cards

Marked cards are printed or altered so that the cheater can know their value while only looking at the back. The ways of marking are too numerous to mention, but there are certain broad types. A common way of marking cards involves marks on a round design on the card so as to be read like a clock (an ace is marked at one o'clock and so on until the king which is not marked). Shading a card by putting it in the sun or scratching the surface with a razor are ways to mark an already printed deck.

Juice is a substance used to mark cards in a subtle way so as to avoid detection. Once trained, cheaters can read them from across the table.

Decks can be marked while playing using fingernails or by bending or crimping the cards in a position that the cheat can read from across the table.

Skilled methods

A cheat may hand-muck, that is, switch their hand with one they have secretly hidden. This may also be done with a confederate.

A skilled cheat can deal the second card, the bottom card, the second from bottom card, and the middle card. The idea is to cull, or to find the cards one needs, place them at the bottom, top, or any other place the cheat wants, then false deal them to oneself or one's confederate.

One sign of false dealing could be when a dealer grips the deck with the index finger in front of it. This is referred to as the mechanic's grip. It not only allows better control of the cards, but provides cover as, showing the back of the top card, and without moving the hand holding the deck.

Even if a cheat deals himself a powerful hand, he may not win much money if every other player has nothing, so often the cheat will stack two hands, with one player getting a strong hand and the cheater getting an even stronger one.

One method of cheating that involves both great risk and great potential pay-off is the cold deck – so called because it has not been "warmed up" by play (and thus randomised). Such decks are usually pre-stacked, and are introduced either at the deal, after the real deck has been shuffled, or before the deal, where a card sharp will make a false shuffle using sleight of hand. The latter method may require collusion if the style of play or house rules call for a cut. The skill lies both in convincing other players that the shuffle is legitimate and in ensuring that other players receive hands that are good enough to entice them into play, but not too good to arouse suspicion.

Collusion

A common form of cheating is with a partner or many partners, this is called collusion. Collusion is two or more players acting with a secret, common strategy. Some common forms of collusion are soft play, that is, failing to bet or raise in a situation that would normally merit it because you don't want to cost your partner money; whipsawing, where partners raise and reraise each other to trap players in between; dumping, where a cheater will deliberately lose to a partner; and signalling that is, trading information between partners via signals of some sort.

Simple collusion in online poker is relatively easy and much more difficult to immediately spot if executed well. Cheaters can engage in telephone calls or instant messaging discussing their cards with no one looking at them. Sometimes one person can be using two or more computers and playing under different aliases. This gives him an advantage that's difficult to work against. However, online poker cardrooms keep records of every hand played, and collusion can often be detected by finding any of several detectable patterns.

Another concern in online poker is the use of bots. These are programs that play instead of a real human. Though their accuracy and their ability to actually win are in dispute, their use does violate the rules of the cardrooms so using them is by definition cheating.

In a poker tournament, when one player is all in and two other players are active in the pot, it is common for the two players with chips left to "check it down". Unless they explicitly agree to communicate an agreement about checking it down, this is not collusion.^[1]

See also

• Card counting
• Cheating in casinos

Notes

1. ^ Is "checking it down" in a tournament implicit collusion?