How To Cheat At Cards
I'm in the midst of my crash-course on 7 Card Stud, and it's not going well. I know how to play poker, generally, but I don't have a firm understanding of how to play well enough to win. For example, I know for the most part which hands to play and which hands to fold, but beyond that I have only partial knowledge of how to bet on subsequent rounds, how to tell what other people have, how to calculate pot odds, etc.
And of course, partial knowledge makes me a dangerous player in a semi-casual game. It makes it hard for experienced players to predict what I'm going to do, and if I happen to get good cards and a nice chip lead, as I did two years ago, I can make it pretty far. But if I get poor or average cards, and combine that with poor or average play, I'll barely make it to the first table consolidation, as happened last year.
Fortunately, I have an ace up my sleeve. Literally!
However, this time-honored method of card cheating isn't for the novice. It will combine parts magician, parts charlatan, parts physicist, parts actor, and of course, large brass balls to pull it off. The ideal way to extract your Magic Bullet is to slyly pull it out while you have both hands under the table, but this is a deft move requiring the utmost sleight of hand, and many pitfalls exist. For one thing, it will look like you are masturbating, and people don't take kindly to that when everybody has to handle the same cards and chips. They'll tell you that's what the scheduled breaks are for, though there is the off chance that one of them will think you have a very peculiar tell. ("He must have a very good hand!")
The under-the-table move has additional drawbacks as well. You might drop the card on the floor, for example. Now there's a lonely ace sitting on the carpet. Your lonely ace. How to get it back? My advice is to casually knock several of your chips onto the floor, then say, "Oh, damn. I knocked several of my chips on the floor. I'll get them." Then you bend down, pick up your chips, take a few glances around the table to see if there are any skirts or if anyone else is masturbating, and slyly bring up your ace for deployment on the board. Nobody's the wiser.
But, the under-the-table move isn't for everybody. You might have concerns about how to get that card from under the table to a position on the board. Most of all, you might not have the luxury of time. Yes, that's right: time. Timing is very important in poker. You might want to strategically deploy your ace in a split-second, just as an opponent is considering their bets. You'll see them start to look around the table at all the betting hands, and you'll correctly surmise that if only you had another ace showing, you could get this chump out of the hand and the spoils will be yours. That won't leave you a lot of time for the hurly-burly of the under-the-table move. You need that ace to appear almost instantaneously!
What you need is the Hand Of God (HOG). When executed properly, the HOG gives the mere appearance of you waving your hand over your cards, perhaps as though you are blessing them. Then, voila! The HOG has given you an extra ace!
But beware! The Hand Of God is a specialized maneuver not meant for the casual cheater. Inexperienced cheaters will find that they cannot get the ace out without spilling drinks or poker chips all over the table, or without awkwardly and obviously extending their arm like a Price Is Right Showgirl to get the card to come out. And then, instead of slyly landing on top of your other cards, you might look down only to see it land on the hand of the player to your left, who already has two aces showing.
And you don't want that! Now they've got three aces, and your pair of aces isn't going to look good against that. Whenever that happens, the proper play is to bolt upwards from your chair, preferably knocking it onto the floor in the process, point at your opponent and scream, "Where'd that extra ace come from? FROM YOUR SLEEVE?!" That puts everybody at the table on the defensive, eliminates one of your opponents for good, and gives you the break you need to start getting hot cards again. And, it goes without saying that during the commotion that will ensue, you'll naturally want to "reload" your ace for play on the next hand. As an aside, this is also why I only play cards in winter, because it never looks good when everybody else is in tank tops and you're wearing a long-sleeved cardigan. If I must play in summertime, I always make sure to wear ovesized sweatbands on my wrists, as well as bringing extras to offer to other players as "comps."
Lest you think this all sounds to easy, consider this: There will be unexpected obstacles in your path. The worst is when you can't get the card out at all. This happens sometimes when perspiration makes the card stick to your wrist. The only way to get it out then is to start snapping your arm and wrist out quickly and forcefully, like you're trying to throw a curveball or are snapping a whip. This takes up a lot of room, so you'll have to stand and back away from the table. People will naturally start looking at you, but that's OK, because as any magician knows, you want them looking at you. The more they look at you, the less chance they'll see that card when it finally comes out. In my experience, it also helps to make a lot of noise as you do this. Not only does it increase the chances of the card dislodging, but it helps draw additional attention to you. And remember: attention paid to you is attention not paid to the cards on the table. As for which sounds you make, that's largely a matter of preference. I like to say "HooAW!" with every snap of my arm. The more flair you show, the better.
Obviously, this kind of card disgorgement is a last resort. The risks are real and substantial. For one thing, it's hard to get the card to land just where you need it to on the table. In fact, it's hard to get it to land on the table at all. I have seen tragic cases of a card exiting the sleeve with such force that it lodged in the neck of a bystander at a completely different table.
When something like that happens, here's my advice: Accept it. In fact, be thankful. After all, it's not like you were getting good cards in the first place, right? Otherwise, you wouldn't have needed that ace. Yes, you'll probably have to pick up your chips and leave the game, but in my experience, when you're on a losing streak sometimes leaving the game with your chips is the best thing you can do in the long run. Simply walk over to whomever or whatever your ace is stuck in, quietly remove it, and bid your fellow players adieu for the night. They might take some umbrage at the fact that you've attempted to cheat, but for all you know they've been cheating you blind all night long, and if nothing else they'll simply have to respect your candor and chutzpah. And that matters.
One final note: Try to find out if your game will be playing with red back, blue back, or naked lady cards before you load up.
12:10:07 PM 
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