Card cheating is one of the oldest tricks in the poker book and even though casinos have gotten better at tracking cheaters they are still coming up with new ways to mark cards and to cheat. The best way to stop a card cheat is to keep your eyes peeled and if you see anything suspicious ask for a new deck of cards.
A good rule of thumb is that if you see someone regularly squeezing cards a little too hard they might be trying to peek at the card hidden underneath. This is a technique called ‘glimmering’ and it is a very effective way for the cheater to get a peek at their own card without drawing any suspicion from other players.
Another common way that cheaters mark cards is by arranging them in a special pattern. This allows them to quickly tell what is an ace or a king by only looking at the back of the card. This is often done with a ‘stack’ of cards that have been prearranged before the game starts. These stacks can be made up of a number of different cards and they can include Jokers and other high value cards.
This type of marking usually involves putting marks on the cards that can only be seen with a magnifying glass or using invisible ink. The most common form of this is to use a round design that can be read as a clock (an ace being marked at 1 o’clock and so on). The cards are then slid into the deck in order to give the cheater an advantage.
If the cheater doesn’t have time to prepare a full deck on the spot he can simply deal himself a desired card by performing a crooked deal. The trick to doing a crooked deal is to make it look very convincing. It needs a lot of practice to do this well and many people will notice the tell tale signs of a poorly executed bottom deal such as a snapping sound or the top card sliding down into a break in the deck.
Card cheaters also use a variety of methods to manipulate the deck during a shuffle. It is very difficult to cheat with the simple overhand shuffle but it is possible with the riffle shuffle. This requires a great deal of skill and years of practise to perform undetectable false shuffles. If a player suddenly switches from the riffle shuffle to the overhand shuffle it is worth keeping an eye on them for suspicious behaviour.
Other forms of poker cheating include collusion and rigged games. The former involves two or more cheaters conspiring to play a game of poker in which they are both able to see each others’ cards. This can be done by telephone or instant messaging and is much harder to detect than an individual cheating on his own. In a rigged game the cheater can even use multiple computers to play the same game under different IP addresses and this makes it very difficult for anyone at the table to identify him.