Tournament Strategies
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
Practice Matters
Protection Against Steer Joints and Cold Decks
Protection Against Steer Joints and Cold Decks This concerns a special breed of Poker mob that operates steer joints. Such a Poker mob specializes in switching the deck in play for a prearranged deck known in the trade as a "cold deck," "cooler," or "package." These Poker mobs go out after the high-rolling Poker-playing suckers and steer them to a specially arranged Poker game setup in which the victim hasn't a ghost of a chance. These mobs usually work in teams of four. Their crooked games may be found in any big city and around famous resort areas such as Miami Beach, Las Vegas, Puerto Rico and Atlantic City. The mob usually rents a hotel suite or apartment for its cheating operation, covering its tracks with a phony hotel or apartment name registration.
Sometimes when the mob hears of an unsophisticated high-rolling
Sometimes when the mob hears of an unsophisticated high-rolling Poker player who looks like a promising victim, they travel thousands of miles to set up their joint for this lone prospect. I know of one New York Poker mob that once fleeced a number of Hollywood moguls in California of a cool one million dollars in a week's play, after which its members vanished into thin air.