Poker News

Richard Burke

Hakim stormed into our local poker room on a Wednesday afternoon in summer, spotted me and headed in my direction. I asked him why he seemed so upset. He replied that he had lost yet again in his own home game, and he wanted me to fix it. “If it weren’t for the ‘kitty,’” he said, “I’d be even farther behind.” Let’s review your progress, I suggested. First, you thought someone was manipulating the cards, because one guy had a funny grip and he always seemed to do well when he dealt. So you showed everyone the Scarne cut, and insisted that everyone cut the deck that way.

Then you bought a transparent dealing shoe and used it. That cut down on exposing cards and practically eliminated dealing seconds or bottoms. The guy with the funny grip stopped coming to the game. Next you banned sunglasses because a cheat could use them to read nearly invisible ink markings placed on the cards’ backs. There was a lot of resistance to that, Hakim said, because the players wanted to look like the poker pros on television. Reluctantly they agreed and one consistent winner dropped out after Hakim made that rule.

Anyone can buy marked cards in all the popular styles, so you refused to use any decks except the one you bought yourself from a trusted source, I recalled. That way you prevented anyone bringing a marked deck to the game. He had done that, but he was still losing!

I asked him if he still had the used decks. No, he had thrown them out. I told him to bring in his used decks. Next Wednesday afternoon, Hakim presented me with two used Bicycle? decks. We took them outside where the light was better. On the backs of the Aces and Kings, on both decks, we could see tiny nicks. The nicks were of a size and depth that could be made by a fingernail or thumbnail. For Kings, the nicks were down the sides, on both sides, more or less in the center. For Aces, the nicks were up the sides almost to the corners.

Back in the poker room, since he knew what to look for, Hakim could readily read the backs. That would give someone a tremendous advantage, he opined. Knowing even one card, if it were an Ace, would give a big advantage to a player. (Right.)

You should buy plastic playing cards, I told him; they’re much harder to mark. Plus, you should always wash the cards before each shuffle: spread them face down on the table and mix them while you inspect their backs for any crimps, nicks, daubs, dimples, pinpricks, anything that could identify one particular card from the others. Many poker rooms wash the cards that way before every shuffle to ensure that no card is marked. You should do the same.

“Weren’t plastic cards expensive?” he asked. You already pay for paper cards and beer and snacks out of the kitty, I told him, you can pay for the plastic cards out of that. Furthermore, you need to cap the kitty at a fair amount; otherwise you could be convicted of running a for-profit gambling enterprise.

Hakim needed the kitty to offset his losses, he thought. If you’re not being cheated, then you’ll stop the bleeding, I told him, and you can use the kitty just to defray your expenses as host. Go with the plastic.

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