Recently I’ve been getting into a bit of the old 7stud HiLo.

There is a LOT of dead money out there, begging to be taken on busted low draws.

I’m not sure how you’d get the usual hold’em junkies sucking at the teat of 7stud, but if you could it could be lucrative. Novice players who know a little bit seem to get obsessed with drawing to a low and taking half the pot instead of playing properly.

Keep a few kings and queens waved or trimmed and you’ve pretty much guaranteed yourself some pots off the back of a pair of sixes.

Discuss?

I know my deuces aren’t exactly gorgeous… but they fly when they need to.

Excuse the sounds of the cards hitting the microphone. I didn’t think muting would be right since its a false deal and sound is important.

VIDEO!! Click me

Cool beans.

I like them now.

Still adjusting.

VIDEO

Check it.

Just a sort of… update.

Brief video showing a top standard top stock retention gleamed from various sources. Supposed to mimic a standard dextrous shuffler (although not strictly casino procedure – no weeding.)

CLICK ON ME

Regards…

Being a filthy left handed card man, (filthy filthy left hand – hand of satan, you know), I lack the ability to use standard peeks to ascertain the values of cards ontop, or on bottom.

Imagine that, A-Players out there! No longer can you use your trusty bubble peek.

I’m sure anyone in the same position as I am has tried to establish some sort of unique way of peeking cards. You CAN shift the top card over to the right a little, and turn your hand over. But that exposes the bottom of the deck, AND you turn your hand over – hardly a championship peek.

So what to do?

Try this.

Holding the deck in the right hand, in a standard mechanics, perform a magicians pinky count of the top card. Now if you push your ring finger in, it buckles said card. Now with just a little movement of the eyes, you can see the index.

Of course this technique works with peeking the 2nd, 3rd card etc. You can even use your ring finger to spread the cards that have been clasped, so you can peek multiple cards.

I would take some pictures, you its not an entirely difficult concept to grasp.

I have used this technique to great effect at the card table, peeking the top two cards before dealing the turn and river in hold’em.

PLEASE don’t think I am claiming I have invented this peek. I’m not that mentally inept to even begin to imagine I am the first to do this. But I’ve not seen it anywhere, so I thought it worth mentioning.

And PLEASE don’t comment on this saying that some magician claims this move to be their own either, because its a sodding peek and is universal.

Good.

I was recently blessed with a private message on a particularly popular magicians board from a particularly clever chap named Mark.

He shared with me some improvements and clean ups for some of the awful tat I’ve posted in the past.

For the sake of credit, I’ll quote him directly…

“Nothing major, just a couple of small things…

Regards,
Mark”

The ambitious riser idea is a knuckle busting bastard, but I like it.

The trick is far more streamlined than I could ever dream up.

I’d like to thank Mark for these great ideas. It all adds to the wonderful bubbling pot that is paste-bored.

If anyone else has some ideas they want to share, throw me a comment! I’m more than happy to put anything in its own special post.

Regards,
Arthur

Consider this.

Your in a position where it is imperative that you know how many cards there are in the deck, but cannot count them openly. Thing is, they really need a shuffle.

Try this.

Hold the cards in position to break for the in-the-hands faro. Riffle 7 or 8 cards from the bottom. (we’ll assume 7 for this walkthrough). OutFaro these cards into the top of the deck, breaking the cards as you square them, at the last card of the weave. This is now 14 cards. Repeat the process. Now its 28. Now if you faro the cards and you were counting a full deck of 52, there would be a bigger packet faroing into a smaller one. Simply count by sight the cards that haven’t been faroed and subtract that from your last double number, it should be a smallish number.

And you have the correct number of cards in the deck in your head. And it looks like you just shuffled.

I haven’t come up with an application for this yet, but… um. There might be one.

Marlo probably published this before as well, but to be fair, he’s published everything ever.

Arthur

OK this idea relies on bad poker players, or call-machines as they are sometimes referred to. The type of players who will play ace-rag far too strongly.

This isn’t a surefire method, but it SHOULD work more often than it fails. If it DOES fail, sometimes you’ll be able to bow out of the hand and watch some fireworks.

Its relatively move-heavy, but not entirely ridiculous.

Its your deal. Fantastic. Cull 3 aces. Or 4. 4 would be great, but its unnecessary work. If you happen to be able to, then this works even better.

Either way, get your 3 aces on top. Keep them there in any way you wish. Now when you deal, the first three players will receive (hopefully) ace-rag. If they get AK, AQ or AJ etc then you aren’t screwed. But you might be. Chortle.

Now you rely on lady luck to give you a relatively playable hand such as 10J, JQ, KQ, etc. Now if you can, you can peek the flop or something, or the top card and deal a second or something which can help you on the luck thing.

At any rate, I’m babbling. The basic idea here is that it is very unlikely that any of the 3 people with ace-rag will hit their ace; impossible if you managed 4 aces instead of 3. Bad players, however, will play their hand and call your raises simply because they hold an ace. But they’re dead to a pair. So get a raise in preflop and you SHOULD get 3 callers.

Now if you hit a pair, it is likely you will have the best hand because none of the suckers will hit their ace. If they hit their rag then they are in more trouble because that ace will keep them fishing with their single crappy pair.

You don’t want much aggressive betting, but you do need to keep putting money in the pot. You’ll get more callers than you deserve and you SHOULD win the hand with a pair or queens or something. The reason why the win will be good is because you can count on getting lots more callers than you usually would, so your small bets get paid off massively. Lots of small amounts add up quite quickly.

It seemed a pretty subtle method for building a stack, and so I thought I’d post it.

Of course, there ARE pitfalls. But as long as you UNDERSTAND that, it shouldn’t be a massive problem. If someone who you know to have an ace is betting out pre-flop, you can assume he’s got a nice kicker attached and you may just want to fold. If an ace does indeed hit the flop, just fold and watch all 3 players defend their pair of aces. If the board pairs, there’s a chance someone has trip rags, so fold. If you don’t hit a pair, folding could be wise. If 2,3,4,5 hits the board, just make sure you have a 6.

The beauty of this is that you don’t put much in the pot for the possibility of a large gain, so folding isn’t too painful. Nor is losing for the suckers.

That way, it won’t bring much heat, if any.

Clever, ey?

Perhaps partially.

Don’t cheat, guys and gals, just educate yourself.

–Arthur–

Should that title read “where does one muck his discards?” or is that a different thing?

All this mechanic slang about slugs and mucks and stacks and lights and pegs and shade and juice and culls and overhand shuffles (the most complex of all) gets me both aroused and enraged. As with any language, new words are simply created from derivations or suitable syllables, and then repeated enough times for others to start using it. Thus, the infection spreads. We have Shakespeare to thank for many of the gorgeous intricacies the English language presents for us, so who do we thank for the interesting slang that emerges from the world of the card table? Somewhere in history, did a Jacobean fop learn to muck cards? I, for one, certainly hope so.

Anyway, from now on, I think I’ll make up words occasionally. Why not? (because.) Could be interesting to read (it won’t). They might stick (They won’t).

Main body of this post is a simple lesson.

Whilst playing a swift game of cards, I noticed one particular pesky player was playing heavy and holding out. The held out cards were stashed in the pocket of the jeans, crumpled and painfully obvious. When it came to his deal, he elevated the held out card onto the bottom of the deck for the shuffle. INGENIOUS!… wait… wait… no. Not ingenious. Bloody stupid.

I hear this fella is quite the poker champion on his pub circuit, and now we know why. Intoxicated people don’t notice someone holding their cards underneath the table and two pairs happening practically every single hand.

The irony is, if he had left the card palmed in his hand, I doubt I would have noticed. The added “security” of the pocket was ultimately a counter-productive measure.

So, kids, never hold out cards in your pockets. It will get you in hot water, as it got this fella in. A simple deck count is enough to get you sweating amusingly. And when you do miraculously find the card on the floor, six feet from the table, its crumpled state will be a precursor for your health.

–Arthur—

Play safe

Something I have been fiddling with for ages on the magic side of things is this little ditty.

Effect: A card is chosen and returned to the deck. Instantly, the card shoots out of the deck face up. But alas, it is not the correct card. With just a shake, the out jogged face up card visually changes to the correct selection.

Schpeeeel: Explaining effects is always a silly process. It never really gives a very realistic idea of what the trick is like, now does it. I don’t think I’ll go into marketing…

At any rate, the sleights used are Marlo’s Automatic Reverse, Aaron Fisher’s pop out move and yes, Fred Robinson’s ambitious riser.

Now, this effect is a real bitch, and I still haven’t been able to perform it smoothly thanks to the constant maintenance of a break at the selection. But its a nice challenge. In theory, this effect, if smoothly performed would take about 10 seconds and be short, sweet and direct. That seems to be the fashion these days. Short and sweet. None of this spelling card names or laboriously counting down a deck. But then I suppose thats progress isn’t it.

Anyway.

Get a selection returned and reversed in the centre of the deck SECRETLY (mystery arouses me) and hold a break below the reversed card. Now, this bit is a bit tricky, you are going to do Aaron FishyFishes’ Pop out move, whilst maintaining the break below the selection with the thumb. This is surprisingly achievable. The bottom card needs to be popped out underneath the selection somewhere in the deck. A few cards down or something.

Now you transfer the deck back to mechanics and ambitiously rise (chortle) the selection over the top of the dud.

If this isn’t a miracle. What is?

Hope. That’s what.

Hmm…

I realise this isn’t the most polished idea, but I felt I should note it down so when I grow old and forget stuff this one doesn’t elude me. We wouldn’t want that.

–Arthur–

Sexy Post Script: Has anyone else noticed how the ambitious riser and the DB spin change (in that order) juxtapose rather well. Consider the patter: If I shake the card changes… hmmm… I’ll just wipe that away and we can start again.