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
How to Spot a Marked-Card Poker Cheat
How to Spot a Marked-Card Poker Cheat Suspect a player who concentrates too much on the backs of the cards in your hand, the backs of the players' hole cards, the backs of the community cards resting in the center of the table, the back of the first card to be dealt on each round of play or the important card in any Poker game. There's nothing wrong with a natural healthy interest in the cards, but an undue interest in their back designs may be your tip to take a scholarly interest in the deck yourself.
The Scarne Riffle to Detect Marked Cards
The Scarne Riffle to Detect Marked Cards To detect marked cards, use the Scarne Riffle Test. It is a marked-card detection method based on the principle of the animated-cartoon books with which you may have played when you were a child. When you held such a book firmly in one hand and riffled the pages rapidly with the fingers of the other hand, the figures printed on the pages seemed to move. It's the principle on which the motion picture is based. Try it on the cards you suspect may be marked. Hold the cards in your left hand face downward. Hold your left thumb firmly over the center of the back of the top card. Now pull back the narrow edge of the deck furthermost from your body with the fingers of your right hand and riffle them rapidly, keeping your eyes on the back of the design. An honest design will stand utterly still. If the cards are marked, a shifting of lines will appear on the backs. When this occurs, note the exact spot where the shift took place and compare it with the like spot on other cards. If they vary, the cards are marked.