Cheating in Poker
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Cheating in poker is any behavior outside the
rules that is intended to give an unfair
advantage to one or more players.
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 and
casinos. Cheats may operate alone, but also may
operate in teams or small groups.
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 players' cards. However, it is very
difficult to prove because when confronted, at
least the first time, 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.
Another minimal-skill method is going south
(also known as "ratholing"), where a player
covertly removes a portion of his chips from
play while remaining in the game, normally in
order to preserve the winnings as profit, or
prevent a major loss in "big bet" games.
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. This
is called a double duke.
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 randomized). 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.
Marked cards - Card marking
Marked cards are printed or altered so that the
cheater can know the value of specific cards
while only looking at the back. 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 and "daub" are two kinds of substances
that can be used to mark cards in a subtle way
so as to avoid detection, when done properly.
While a "juice" deck is pre-marked and introduced
into play by the cheater, "daub" is applied
during play to any deck. Once trained, cheaters
can read the cards 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. The practice of burning the
top card, or cards, is to prevent a cheat from
knowing that top card and dealing "seconds" to
either give a confederate a card that helps his
hand or an opponent a card that hurts his.
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 re-raise each other to trap players in
between; dumping, where a cheater will
deliberately lose to a partner; and signaling,
or trading information between partners via
signals of some sort, like arranging their chips
in a certain manner.
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, since nobody can see 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 card rooms
keep records of every hand played, and collusion
can often be detected by finding any of several
detectable patterns (such as folding good hands
to a small bet, as it is known that another
player has a better hand).
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
communicate an agreement about checking it down,
this is not collusion.
Online News
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 normally violates the rules of online
card rooms, so using them is by definition
cheating.
In Fall 2007, a major employee cheating scandal
occurred at Absolute Poker.
An online poker room called Pokerspot came under
heavy controversy after they went out of
business, and were unable (or unwilling) to
allow their players to cash out and collect
their money.
The user agreement of the two online poker sites
owned by Tokwiro Enterprises, Absolute Poker and
UltimateBet, state they reserve the right to
cancel an account if a player plays "in a
professional sense" (and not for personal
entertainment only). However this is not a
standard prohibition. For example, it is not in
the end-user agreements of the three largest
online card rooms: PokerStars, PartyPoker, and
Full Tilt Poker.
Angle shooting
Angle shooting is engaging in actions that may
technically be within the scope of the rules of
the game, but that are considered unethical or
unfair to exploit or take advantage of another
player. For example, an angle shooter might
motion as if he were folding his hand to induce
other players to fold theirs out of turn.
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