Poker Tournament


It has been 10 day's since my last post, so I'd like to enjoy you all with a new fresh one.
I've been to a poker tournament last week and it was really nice. About 70 people came from all over the country and they all had a great time.
I was there for fun and to see if I could cheat at this game of poker. Texas Hold'em was the game we were about to play for the evening. I knew in advance that we were about to play with the Bicycle brand so that was also a good thing
There were two decks at every table. One blue and one red backed Bicycle deck. What surprised me was that every player got hold of one of the decks. If the dealer was dealing a round with the blue backed deck, another player would take the red backed deck and shuffle it in advance so that the dealer could deal the next round even faster. I found this was toTally unnessesary and risky.

I've tried different techniques while I was at that table:

Stacking:
-milk build shuffle

Because everyone could shuffle a deck at a particular time of the game it was not hard to stack the deck with the "milk build shuffle". Overhand shuffling is very common here in the Netherlands, that is why I also used that method for stacking. And to be honest, riffle shuffle stacking is still, for me, almost impossible to do unnoticed. I'd rather keep it easy while I can. The dealer did re-shuffle my deck casually after I stacked it, but I also noticed that most of the time he didn't re-shuflle the decks at all. So stacking is not 100% sure. But there is a great chance that the dealer just starts out dealing a stacked deck.

Palming / lapping
-Gambler's cop

Again, when you get hand of the deck it's a good opportunity for a card cheat to palm a card. At a particular moment, I had palmed two Queens while another one appeared at the flop with an eight of diamonds. I also had an eight spot in the pocket so a Full House was made. Palming is great for this and your chances of winning a hand are much better than that of the other players. I've also had bad luck. At another event I palmed two aces and I just couldn't make a hand better than one pair. Even after four rounds (which is a long time to keep palming aces) nothing came.

Marking:
-Daub
-Crimping

The daub I used to mark the aces. I have two different colors of daub: blue and red.
I did need to switch between those colors when the other deck came in play. At the end, I've marked three red backed aces, and two blue backed aces. The markings , I found clearly vivisble and I had no problems spotting an marked ace in the hands of another player.
I also crimped some kings, but I encoutered a little problem and that was that eventually all the cards got crimps because of the moist and dust. Cards look pretty bad after a long game of poker.


Other possibility's:
-Deckswitching
Maybe the most powerfull thing to do at the card table. If you had a marked deck to switch in, the game would became pretty easy for you to win. I must admit that doing a deckswitch at such moment, it takes some nerve. I didn't do it, simply because I didn't feel like doing it. I found it too risky to try. If someone would be playing with a partner, this becomes very interesting. One can distract the other players while the other one can switch in the marked deck.

I would advice the people who have organised this whole evenening a few things:
-Do not let the dealers drink alcohol (too much)
-Do not let the other players touch the deck. It a good thing to teach the dealers how to riffle shuffle the deck. (maybe dealing shoe's)
-Hand above the table, and don't let the cards leave the surface of the table.


I'm not a master in card cheating and it will take a long, long time before I master anything but it was not that hard to cheat at that game. Maybe the people that were there that evening are not so called "fast company" but I can imagine that if these tournaments become interesting for more people in the near future cheating will have a chance. With money prizes it is always interesing too cheat.
The winner got 500,- Euro's
2nd 300,- Euro
3the 175,- Euro
ands so on.
The last 10 players got prizes.

I just entered this tournament to see what is possible for me to do in a poker game. Sometimes I overdone it a bit, like palming more cards than usual, but I got away with it.
It concerns me a bit that someone can come to these tournaments and just win money by cheating.
I must say that when I had a good hand by cheating, I folded, or mostly I switced in cards that weren't that good. I did not rank to the top 10 of course, still, I had a vey nice evening.

I do not encourage other people to cheat in poker games by posting this. If this is a problem, I will of course remove this blog.





Tom.


.

Hello to all who read my first post here,

For those who do not know me, my name is Tom and I'm form the Netherlands
(yes, that's in Europe )
My interests are gambling, magic in general and dice stacking. I will be sharing my thoughts about this, and more, with you. It is possible that I write a new "topic" (is it called "topic" ? ) everyday, but it's also very possible that I write a new one once a week. It varies from the experiences I had, and if I think it's worhty enough to share with you all. Because it will take you some precious minutes of you're wonderful life to read the stuff I have to say, so I'd better make it interesting for you to read.
Therefore, I hope you will enjoy it and comments are always more than welcome.


Regards,

Tom.

ps: If my sentences do not match the English/American grammar, please feel free to correct me.
Also, for the sake of clearity, I asume that all the made up spectators and magicians are males.
It is easier to type he instead of he/she every time.



-Flourishing-

"The art of manipulation with cards" I think this will suit the term flourishing. If you're thinking: well, what about it? you're right. This has almost nothing to do with my interests I listed above. But somehow you're interested, otherwise you wouldn't have clicked on my blog in the first place.
I like flourishes, I'm not a master in it but I like to perform a few once in a while.
Recently, at a Dutch forum, someone asked an cunning question about performing flourishes in front of an audience. Is it good to show your skills with a deck of cards by doing fancy things? Is it better to act like you have no such quallity's and make the magic more believable?
If you're thinking that I have the answer, than I have to disappoint you. It's a matter of style, and especially, personal preferences. One can peform a magic show in front of an audience and mainly show his dexterity with cards. The audience, most likely, will be stunned by the performance and by the extreme skills the peformer has. If this is what you want, than flourishes are the way to go.
They look nice, fast and sometimes almost impossible. They can leave your audience baffled, but also bored if you perfrom to many flourishes at a time. People have to watch closely and they need to keep paying attention otherwise the effect of the flourish is gone. Because most of the times it is so fast it's hard to keep track of it for a spectator who is seated in front of you, because he is there to have some relaxed evening. And relaxed is not paying attention all the time. Finding a balance is best.
As is with close up magic, a magic performance can also stun and amaze people just like flourishes can do. With magic, even a spectator can participate and "feel" tha magic that is happening in front of his eyes, or in his hands.
A flourish effect can stand alone, as can a close up magical performance. Combining flourishes with close up magic seems a good idea. In fact is ís a good idea, íf you can find that one thing...balance.
Imagine a magician who performs a wonderful magic effect let's say, "Triumph!" Imagine that he does this so clean with no fancy cuts at all. He tells the story, and makes it believable.
Imagine the same magician doing the same effect (Triumph). Instead of doing the effect clean he does one fancy cut. Just one. It is a false cut "flip-flap cut". This looks really nice when performed well, and the deck remains unchanged. I will bet that he still has amazed the specator but less than when he did the effect with no fancy cut. The specator know's not how the effect is done. How the magician got all the cards back in the order they were expect for one card: the spectators selection.
If the specator watches a fancy cut, he will think that the magician did the trick pure by sleigh of hand.
While the magician want's to make the specator believe that this all happened by magic.
Finding a perfect balance is difficult, as said before, and if you like to perform flourishes and include them in your magic routine, it's best to do this secure. Do not weaken your effects by performing flourishes if you can make them stronger without them. But if you can make your effects stronger by flourishes, please do and let me know how you did it.
The only section I use flourishes in is when I demonstrate some gambling moves. People know it is not magic what I perform for them, they know it's sleight of hand. What they don't see is when the sleight of hand is performed. At least, that is the main goal of gambling. So during the shuffle I will perfom some flourishing effects to keep them satisfied. With gambling I noticed that it is important to explain very clearly what you're doing and what is going to happen. Prevent your audience form getting bored.
This is a whole different topic, and I think I've said enough about flourising for a while.

Keep practicing and I'd love to hear your personal experiences with flourishing.


Regards,


Tom.