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
It's even possible that you might buy a marked deck without knowing
It's even possible that you might buy a marked deck without knowing it from a retailer whom you know and trust because some cheat has slipped him a few bucks. On one occasion, some years ago, during the racing season at Saratoga, it was difficult to buy anything else. A card mob had jimmied its way into a warehouse and substituted a whole case of marked cards for a case that had been shipped in by a legitimate distributor. As soon as the cards were jobbed and retailed the mob went to work. Nearly every game in town had a marked deck in it, and the chumps were cheated with cards they had purchased themselves. The mob, naturally, made a tidy profit on this wholesale switching operation.
The average player has several misconceptions about marked cards.
The average player has several misconceptions about marked cards. He believes, for instance, that the markings show both rank and suit. This is true only of Bridge and Pinochle decks, where the suit is important. Usually only the numerical value is indicated; but that is all the cheat needs. If he can identify the value of each card as it comes off the top of the deck or always know what the values of his opponents' hole cards are in Stud Online Hold'em Poker, the chumps might just well be playing with their cards face up. That isn't a card game; it's a swindle.