Cheating at Cards

So you've got those moves down. Ready to put them to action?

So, what should you do at your first game that you INTEND on all out cheating? What steps should you take to ensure that you're not caught and beaten to death by your "friends". This article will discuss such things in hopes of better preparing you, so that your first experience will be a successful one (and hopefully won't end up with broken limbs :P)


Firstly, one should first consider the conditioning/preparations BEFORE the game. Things you should do include warming up your hands. This is only really required if you plan on advantage playing the first few hands to get a remarkable lead early on, as you want your hands to be as nible as possible. If I want to do this, I normally play guitar or bass for a little while doing extremely "techniquey" stuff. I don't know about you guys, but whenever I pick up cards after playing guitar my hands feel incredibly lively and ready to perform. If you don't have or play a guitar, then I suggest just doing passes over and over again to warm up your hands, and get the joints in motion. You could also do some deals/stacks or whatever you plan on doing that night just to see how your hands are responding that day.

After your hands are sort of ready, you might want to consider, like many different sources say, some brand of hand lubrication. Normally, I just use and unscented hand lotion that doesn't leave a huge film on my hands. It is important to use unscented for two reasons: One, they'll make fun of you if your friends smell it, and two: If they are at all aware of card cheating, if they smell hand lotion, they'll suspect something's up. Being unsuspected is the most important aspect.

So by now you're all prepped and ready to take the entire game down. As I said it is best to show minimal dexterity with the cards. So don't just walk in and be like "hey guys, lets play" while openly faroing and sybling the cards. This is just plain stupid. Also don't announce that you can do card tricks of any sort. You want to take a relaxed persona, not a total naive persona, as they should assume that you know how to play the game, but try not to come off as "intense" as you want to minimize the amount of attention you recieve. Do not try to be the centre of attention.

My preference for advantage playing is base dealing, as it seems to be the easiest, and least fuss/preparation of all the different methods. Typically though, I'll throw in some faro stacks if the number of players is 4 or 8 at the time.

At any rate, don't try to win every pot. This is just a bad idea. Try to win only the pots that are worth winning. Fold the rest, or play them honestly and tightly. It's always nice to have a reassuring smile that encourages players to join in the "fun" that is throwing ridiculous amounts of money into the pot. Try to keep everybody at ease by being personable and unintimidating. However, remember that you are effectively trying to take their money, so don't get too chummy and start exchanging personal information.

The last little bit of advice that I can give the potential advantage card player is not to lose your cool. As they say in "Shade", "You have to have the stones to move under fire." Be prepared to take action under the most nerve racking situations. Given, it is plain stupid to outright false deal when everybody's attention is on the cards, and you must choose your time to cheat correctly. It is helpful (if not required) to be able to excecute all moves without looking at the cards whatsoever. This allows you to look the players directly in the eyes, thereby drawing their attention away from the cards. Be aware that probably the first time, your hands will probably shake slightly, and this is normal until you get used to it. In the learning period, don't try to deal yourself overly complex hands. What I mean by this, is if you're playing Hold 'Em (which everybody plays nowadays), and a hand ended and you see an ace, just scoop it to the bottom of the pack and deal it to yourself somehow, but play the rest of the hand clean. Don't start off dealing yourself full houses or four of a kinds, and for the love of god, don't deal yourself royal flushes. For gambling demonstrations for laypeople, this looks impressive, but most of the time a nice ace high flush will take the pot or even trips will win. No need to arouse suspicion by dealing yourself highly unlikely hands every hand.


On that note, you don't necessarily have to do any sort of bottom dealing or second dealing whatsoever to successfully cheat at a card game. I've tried this alternate method just for kicks, and it worked out quite well. Here's how it works:
Deal yourself fairly, and while everybody (you need to be playing noobs) is checking their cards, look at yours, and don't bother reading other players, and then if you have an ace, king, or queen, just gambler peek (to be later described in another topic) and pass it to the top so that it will appear in the flop or turn or river. This eliminates a lot of risk in some aspects, in that you can deal very openly, but then there is the downside of having to peek at the cards and execute 1 or 2 passes per hand. Whether or not you choose to use this is ultimatley up to you.


At any rate, that's just a few words of advice from my minimal experience in the game. For the record, I've done it quite a bit but not in extremely fast company, so I can only advise you on what I've experieced. I wish you the best of luck, and please, don't abuse this. It's extremely rewarding but you must begin to question your morals. I know I have. It's quite the unethical thing to do, but as they say on cardshark.com or whatever, everybody inheriently tries to cheat. I think it's basically all about who can do it better. If you have the talent, why not use it?


Oh yes, disclaimer: I do not adivse anybody to do this for real money. Entertainment purposes ONLY.