THE WORLD'S #1 POKER MANUAL - Card Games

Poker Book, Why Professionals Cheat
fourteen up cards being exposed, the dealer would casually glance at several face-down discards
and toss them on top of the discard pile.
Although John could not actually see any blind shuffles, false riffles, or false cuts (or verify any
illogical cheating patterns[ 42 ]), he speculated that the dealer was memorizing everyone's hole
card and then signaling the best moves to one or both of the professional players ... in a way
similar to that used by the dealer who was colluding with the casino manager and his friend two
days earlier in the downtown casino. And, as in the downtown casino, John Finn concluded that
with his current knowledge and experience, he could not beat that kind of dealer-collusion
cheating. He therefore left the casino without playing in the $30-$60 game.
E. Amateurish Collusion Cheating with Sanction of House Dealer
Traveling south on the Strip, John Finn came to another major casino with a large cardroom. He
observed the various poker games for thirty minutes. After considering the higher-stake games, he
sat in a medium-stake ($10-$20) seven-card stud game because more of its players looked like
losers. All were out-of-town gamblers and tourists, except for two women players sitting together
across from John. Although their conversation revealed they were experienced local players, both
women played poorly. Nevertheless, they were winning moderately because of their collusion
cheating, which was crude and obvious. They blatantly showed their live hole cards to each other
and then coordinated their betting to produce a collective advantage. The other players either did
not notice their collusion or were too indifferent or timid to object. By quietly taking advantage of
their much more readable hands, John converted the two women from winners to losers.
John then lost a fairly large pot to the women cheaters. During the hand, they had flashed their
hole cards to each other. Then in a crude and visible manner, they actually swapped their final
hole cards during the last round of betting, allowing one woman to win with a full house. After she
turned her hole cards face-up, John Finn stuck his arm over the pot when the dealer started
pushing it toward the woman. John then silently removed all the chips he had put into the pot.
"Any objections?" he asked, looking at the two women and then the dealer. No one objected. John
had his information. He picked up his chips and left for a higher-stake game.
F. Unbeatable Collusion Cheating through Dealer-Player Partnerships
John Finn entered the casino farther south on the Strip that normally offered the highest-stake
poker games in Las Vegas. For twenty minutes, he watched six players in a $100-$200 seven-card
stud game. He detected two professional players in the game and studied them (one was
apparently losing slightly, the other was winning heavily). They were working over four out-oftown
gamblers, all of whom were losing. While the two professionals did not seem to be in direct
collusion with each other, when winning a pot neither player toked (tipped) the dealer. And while
the dealer never glanced at face-down cards when gathering cards for the next deal, he did riffle
and shuffle the cards several extra times whenever the previous hand produced fewer than twelve
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