Poker 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
This is easier said than done—much easier. It takes years of practice to
This is easier said than done—much easier. It takes years of practice to become a good bottom dealer, and the chances that you will find yourself in a game with a cheater who can bottom-deal cards from a full deck noiselessly and undetectably are roughly about 100,000 to 1. There is another character, however, whom you might meet more often. Since it is easier to deal a respectable bottom from half a deck of cards, there are mechanics who have the nerve to pick up the bottom half of the deck after the cut, skip putting them on the top half, and begin dealing. When this happens, ask that the cut be completed in the usual manner; then keep your ears open. If he attempts a bottom deal with a full deck you may hear it—when badly executed, it is noisy.
There's a foolproof defense against the bottom dealer—the Scarne
There's a foolproof defense against the bottom dealer—the Scarne Cut (see page 257). This is guaranteed to lose the cheat's carefully iced cards in the deck and make him an honest man.