Derek DelGaudio has written a book about his stint as a crooked poker dealer.
http://https://www.newyorker.com/cul...term=TNY_Daily

Interesting story... this one isn't behind a paywall:

https://www.npr.org/2021/03/01/97250...to-illusionist

So who here got scammed by “Leo” and “Max” in the Hollywood Hills?

Interesting story though, I think Scarne writes that if guys are talented enough mechanics to deal seconds as opposed to off the bottom, your SOL

when i first started grinding my roomate was brother of a magician who grew up learning all the card tricks from him

the things he could do to a deck right in front of you while telling you what he was doing and you still couldn't see it happen is just insane

he claims anyone willing to spend several hours a day practicing can eventually do it themselves

soon after i stopped playing high stakes at home and underground games

thank you for the link

He has a theatre/magic show called In and Of Itself. On Hulu iirc. I think I watched it 3x in a week, it is riveting

Alrite this is the obligated post saying, "Damn I thought this is about Antonio Esfandiari".

On a more serious note after watching this, I absolutely believe the hands are faster than the eyes (yes pun intended):

https://youtu.be/TwFIJyWKs1k

highly recommended

yeah i've always wondered if antonio got started playing in home games...

I'm surprised by the responses in this thread. Rather than lauding his talents at manipulating cards, shouldn't we be castigating him for being a cheat and a criminal fraudster? If he hasn't made reparations to the people whose money he stole, I wouldn't have any sympathy for him if the injured parties took revenge.

If I were in a room and he bragged about this, I would call him out for the lowlife scum that he is.

He acknowledged as such and got out of the racket. I at least give him credit for that.

My introduction to the abilities of card tricksters was this (NSFW):

He's got guts, and is a gambler, that's for sure.

He admits to this type of cheating and isn't afraid of the consequences?

But TBH, cardplayers aren't seen as a tough group, otherwise guys like Chino Ream, Russ Hamilton, and the Full Tilt team would have been missing by now.

I would think underground players would be more vindictive, but maybe not.

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk

I bet a lot of this is happening.

Way back around 1990, there was a brief period when private blackjack was dealt in local bars (mostly in Scottsdale as I recall). I was but a yute, barely 21 and mostly unfamiliar with the way of the gamble. Some of my friends thought they had an edge, so I would sometimes hang out with them, because, hey, it was a bar. So during one of these excursions, I was standing around shooting the **** with a dealer, and he was shuffling and manipulating the cards seemingly paying no attention (I know I wasn't). I remember seeing him cut the cards himself, then deal 4 aces off the top of the deck.

At that point I vowed never to play a hand of "private blackjack" against these mechanics.

The barrier for entry is insanely high and this is in some ways a hustle which poker players can appreciate. Yeah its cheating no question and scummy for sure but it's also interesting and not outright thievery (a lot of people would even just call it a hustle straight up)

And add to the fact he's not doing it anymore its pretty easy to see why people are more interested than outraged

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTgwAqcKm_s

Ricky Jay demonstrating some different cheats at the poker table.

The old timers used to say you can never see someone deal seconds. You have to hear it

I read the book earlier this week. I'm sceptical about how much of it is fact and how much of it is 'storytelling'. There's probably a good reason why it's subtitle is 'A true story and other lies.'

Pretending to be real card sharks has been a thing among magicians for some time now. See, for example, Daniel Madison, who likes to tell people that he took up teaching card slights when he was almost killed after he got caught cheating when he was 14 or some such nonsense.

If Delgaudio is to be believed, an ancient, black road hustler befriends an 18 year old kid because he's impressed by his slight of hand skills. They go on a road trip together and bond, and when ancient hustler gets sick with cancer, he asks Delgaudio to sit in for him, thereby saving his position (and thus his life.) So he's not *really* a cheat, he's more a cross between a social justice warrior and a saint.

Delgaudio is a skilled magician, but he's even more skilled as a storyteller. I'm sure he has the chops to cheat if he wanted to. I don't believe his story though.

+1, it's very subtle but there's a difference

Pretty sure I got swindled in that underground room in Vancouver that used to run down on E. Hastings and Jackson or Patricia, around there. Anyone know it? It wasn't a huge game but there was usually a grand or two on the table and pots ran up to high-hundreds of dollars. I got two Aces-up full houses about 30 minutes apart and lost big to quads both times. Same dealer both times (a grubby crack-head looking guy) and same winner (his scabby girlfriend.) I was otherwise running well and both times I had 3-4 BI stacks for them to take down. Pretty sure they got me that time.

I have a friend who was a top sleight of hand magician back in the day. His day-job was doing close-up magic in the bar at the Magic Castle in Los Angeles, so you can imagine how skilled he was. He's an old guy now, but he could still make a card jump out of your ear and whistle Dixie if he wanted to. It would be less than nothing for him to stack a deck right under your nose.

I'm sure there are literally thousands of guys who can bottom deal and deal seconds undetected. Let alone how simple it is to slip in a cold deck: even you or I could probably pull that off with a little practice.

If you play in underground rooms you pays your money and you takes your chances. But I think you would be foolish to believe you have never been the mark if you play in those rooms very often. Not everyone is as clumsy as my grubby crack-head friend, marking the same guy twice; most of these guys slither by with scarcely a ripple.

Speaking of magic, poker and cheating...
This is a must watch.

sounds like it to me, same dealer, same cooler, same villian

cold deck by far most common since any ape can do it though

agree there are thousands who can do it, it's still something you'd have to practice daily for hours to get to a point where you can do it irl

so I'm not worried about any rando doing it but if it's a big game where a dealer/host would have enough financial incentive to learn or hire someone who can then I just assume it's happening

it happens in big games and small ones. and if good enough there is nothing to see or hear when you are being cheated.
that is why you have procedures for the dealer to do each and every hand. but very few casinos or players demand it. so they get what happens to them.