Peeking
Ever notice when watching the World Series of Poker how zealously the players guard their cards when they look to see what they’ve been dealt? Ever wonder why? The obvious answer is that the players don’t want their opponents to see their cards. But the chances of that happening are slim. The other opponents are looking at their cards at the same time. So why do players do it? The answer is simple: They don’t want to be “peeked” by someone standing behind them. This person is called a confederate or an agent. Their job is to peek the cards, then signal their value to another player at the table. Peeking is a favorite method of cheating among professional card hustlers. Many great players (including world champions) have been scammed by peeking. Here are the card hustler’s favorite methods, and how to protect yourself against them.
The Friendly Host
There is a card hustler from New England who holds weekly games in the recreation room of his house. He’s very accommodating to his guests. During the game, his wife will enter the room, and ask if anyone would like a drink. She takes everyone’s order, then reappears five minutes later balancing a tray, and serves everyone at the table.
The wife is the confederate. She spots the cards while taking the orders, then signals them to her husband while serving the drinks. She does this twice a night. It usually generates enough money to pay their mortgage each month.
Protection Tip: You can’t stop people from coming into the room when you play (especially if you’re a guest in their home). But you can stop showing them your cards. Whenever someone enters the room, put your cards facedown on the table and leave them there. If possible, look at your hand as infrequently as possible. Most pros look at their cards once or twice during a game.
The Friendly Player
Sometimes a player sitting beside you will drop out of a hand. This player might ask you to show him what you’re holding. Most players will reveal their cards (especially in a friendly game). This is a huge mistake for two reasons. First, if the player is working with someone at the table, he can signal what you have. But even if the player isn’t a cheater, he can still inadvertently signal to the other players if your hand is weak, or strong.
Protection Tip: The smart thing to do is shake your head no. If the player puts up a beef, tell him to sit next to someone else.
The Man with the Newspaper
People play poker everywhere — airplanes, hotel lobbies, trains, and anywhere else where people gather. One of the more subtle forms of peeking used in such settings involves a man sitting reading a newspaper.
Let’s say the game is being played in the lobby of a swank hotel. There are four players. Three are cheaters, the fourth a well-oiled sucker. The cheaters position the sucker so he is sitting in a certain chair. Behind the chair sits a person reading a newspaper. This person is the cheaters’ confederate. The newspaper the confederate is reading has a razor slit in its center. By peeking through the slit, the confederate is able to peek the sucker’s cards. If the sucker were to turn around, he wouldn’t see anything wrong.
Now comes the clever part. The confederate signals the sucker’s cards to the cheaters by breathing through his nostrils. Short breaths indicate low cards, long breaths high cards. Hustlers call this The Sniff. It’s one of the most deceiving ways to signal I know of. For all the sucker knows, the guy behind him has a cold.
Protection Tip: Avoid situations where people are sitting behind you, even if you think these people can’t see your cards.
Binoculars
One of the most famous peeking scams was exposed in the James Bond movie Goldfinger (1964). Goldfinger is playing cards poolside at the Fontainbleau Hilton in Miami Beach while his girlfriend is looking at his opponent’s hand through binoculars, then signaling those cards through a transmitting device. I saw this movie as a kid, and thought it was far-fetched. Little did I know that it is a favorite method of peeking among cheaters in high-stakes games. (The Fontainbleau scam is documented in the book The Last Good Time. According to the book’s author, Jonathan van Meter, the scam inspired the scene in the film.)
A True Story
Stuey Unger was one of the greatest poker players who’s ever lived. During his relatively short life (he died in his early forties) he entered thirty poker tournaments and won twelve of them, including the World Series of Poker three times (a record). Even Tiger Woods doesn’t have a win ratio that high.
One of the most famous stories about Unger occurred at the now demolished Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. Unger was playing Texas Hold ’Em in the card room, and realized he was being cheated by a peek. Unger didn’t see the peek: he just knew that one was in use, because his opponents were dropping out whenever he had strong cards. Rather than leave the game, Unger decided to play on, believing he was a strong enough player to still beat his opponents.
When the night was over, Unger had won all the money, and his belief in himself had paid off. While this is not a strategy I would recommend, it does show that even with an edge, the cheater can still get beaten by a superior player.
Shorting the Pot
Shorting the pot is one of the most common forms of cheating in poker. Often, it is done innocently, when a player gets distracted and forgets to ante up, or places the wrong amount into the pot during a round of betting. But there are also players who do this regularly and on purpose. It is the lowest form of cheating I know of.
Protection Tips: There are several ways to prevent a player from shorting the pot. The first is for the person dealing the game to keep track of each player’s bets during each round. This is the dealer’s responsibility, and a job that should be taken seriously.
Another way is to “spoke” your bets. This was developed by a group that I play with, and is especially good in games where players ante up if no one wins the pot. The idea of the spoke is to place each bet behind the other on the table, so that your opponents can see that you’ve bet the correct amount for each round.
A third deterrent, and perhaps the most effective, is to politely reprimand any player who gets caught shorting the pot. This puts the guilty player on notice, while informing everyone else at the table what’s going on.
Holding Out
Holding out is when a player secretly takes a card (or cards) out of the deck, and switches them in later during a hand. While this might sound bold (or difficult), it’s relatively easy to accomplish. A cheater can simply drop his hands below the table, remove a high pair from his hand, and slip them under his leg. He then declares he’s dropping out of the hand, and discards his remaining cards. The high pair is later used to create an unbeatable hand.
Protection Tips: First of all, begin each game by counting the cards in the decks you’re using, even if the cards are brand-new. Cheaters who hold out often remove the cards before the game, and then patiently wait to bring them into play.
Second, make it a rule that players cannot take cards out of sight at any time. This includes during the shuffle (some players like to shuffle on their legs) and during play, when everyone is holding their hand. Cards stay on the tabletop. Period.
Third, when a player discards his hand, it is the dealer’s responsibility to make sure the proper number of cards have been discarded into the muck.