Full Tilt Pro Andrew Feldman is the highest placed Brit at the Aussie Millions finishing in 24th

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Handy and helpful hints on how to play Texas Hold'em poker for newcomers and novices

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In live poker, the top card of the deck is discarded before any cards are dealt. This is known as burning a marked card or the ‘burn card’. This is done out of courtesy and as an anti tampering measure, in the event that someone may know what the top card is or have wrongfully placed a card on top of the deck.

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Bubble

In a tournament situation it refers to when there is just one player left in the tournament before the prizes will be paid to the remaining players. The last infrared marked cards player eliminated who does not get a prize is commonly referred to as the "Bubble Boy”.

EXAMPLE "I always seem to bubble $3.30 180 man MTTs.”

Early Position

At a poker table, the first 2 people to act before the flop are called early position. These positions are directly to the left of the dealer’s button and are usually referred to as UTG and UTG+1. At a full ring 10 player table, the early positions consist of UTG, UTG+1 and UTG+2.

When playing hands in early position, most players will be raising a fairly narrow range of hands, as there are many players still left to act in the hand, and when you get called, there is a good chance that you will have to play the hand out of position, which means we will be first to act after the flop.

In the video below, Annie Duke gives early position hand selection advice.

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I have played poker on the Internet for almost 5 years. During this time I have become familiar with all the major poker rooms that operate on the Internet, and quite a lot of the lesser know ones.

There are a many guides to online poker rooms, however, most of them are written for people who already play online and are familiar with how things work. I have written this guide for new players to help you get started playing online with as little hassle as possible.

The fact is there are hundreds of different card cheating poker rooms that offer play over the internet, however, most of them offer exactly the same thing, just wrapped differently. The reason is that there are only a handful of companies who have created software clients that let you play poker on the Internet. If you’re a beginner to any game, you should first make sure you find out how to play poker well so you can beat the weaker players at your table.

Most poker rooms rent the software from those companies, and are essentially just franchises, who all offer the same thing, except offer different promotions. In many ways it is similar to McDonalds. You may see some small differences between a McDonalds in New York and one in Paris, but their BigMacs are still identical. It’s the same product, just with different packaging.

As a new player I think that you should stick to playing at the big poker rooms. They are much easier to use than the smaller ones, since they can afford to spend more money improving their poker products that you use to play in order to stay ahead of the competition. In addition they also tend to have better support, traffic, and faster payouts.

Here’s an introduction to the worlds 2 biggest online poker rooms below.

PokerStars – The Worlds Biggest Poker Room

If you’re looking for a new place to play poker online I highly recommend that you create an account and start out playing at PokerStars. I their poker software (that you use to play through) is by far the best available today. It is both easy to use, and offers an abundance of features, including the ability to choose among a lot of different cards and tables to play at. Poker Stars is widely regarded as being the best poker site for playing poker online. In fact, they soon will be celebrating the milestone of the 100 Billionth hand being dealt.

While design and easy of use are of course important the single most attractive feature that PokerStars has to offer are their support. In all my years playing poker, I have never encountered a better support department than the one at PokerStars.Full Tilt Poker – The Second Largest Poker Room

Full Tilt Poker isn’t the size of PokerStars but still features plenty of action in a wide variety of poker games. They sponsor three of the best poker lenses high stakes cash game professional poker players, so if you would like to play at the same site as people like Tom Dwan, Viktor Blom and Gus Hansen, you should go to Full Tilt Poker.

They are also known for hosting the very biggest cash games on the Internet, which can be quite entertaining to watch. It’s not uncommon to see pots approach $200-300k. So you may consider downloading Full Tilt Poker, even if you are just going to watch the games (you don’t have to create an account in order to do so).

Compared with PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker’s software are almost as good, and there are a lot of people who prefer Full Tilt’s software, simply because they like how it looks, with its cartoon like animated avatars and the relaxed atmosphere this creates at the tables.

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One poker strategy that can separate a winning player from a losing/break even player is the ability to steal blinds from others when the right situation presents itself. Sure blind stealing isn’t going to rocket you into the next Forbes billionaires list, but it can definitely give you an edge over others at the table – even if it’s just by a little bit.

The first thing that you need to know about blind stealing is that you need to be in the right type of game to pull this maneuver off. If you are playing in a micro stakes game then you’re probably not in the right place to try stealing blinds, unless you are being very observant and can be confident that the other players at the infrared contact lenses table, especially in the blinds, are capable of folding to your late position raises.

Players in micro stakes will often play just about anything so stealing blinds here is a futile act. The same thing can be said about $1/$2 live poker games, which tend to have a lot of loose-passive fish that like to see flops.

If you’re going to try and steal blinds when playing poker online then you should at least be playing limits of at least $0.10/$0.25 no-limit hold’em where there are some decent players who actually have a fear of playing a hand when they have nothing. Stealing blinds also requires you to create a table image so you need to play somewhat tight in order to create an image that you’re not raising from late position with just anything.

If your blind steals are working well then it’s highly likely the players to your left are tight and waiting for good starting hands they can call/raise with. Don’t wrongly assume that because you have attempted a few blind steals in a row, you shouldn’t try again in fear of them playing back at you or thinking you are on a bluff this time. The only time you want to make an adjustment and revert back to a tighter style of play is when stealing the blinds is no longer working for you once players have catched on what you are doing. But until then keep pounding on the players in the blinds.

Furthermore, just because players are calling you, although not ideal when attempting to steal blinds, it doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to win the hand. Some loose players are exploitable after the flop and will fold every time they miss since they’re marked cards playing fit/fold poker, which is going to happen a significant percentage of the time, and you will take down the pot with a continuation bet. This play will have a higher success rate when you have just one preflop caller.

One last thing to keep in mind when you are blind stealing is that you don’t want to do it as often when you have any loose-aggressive players to your left at the table, as they will be looking to re-steal by 3betting light, as well as looking to play pots against you as they will feel they can outplay you post flop. Sure the loose-aggressive players may not always have something when they call/raise, but you also don’t want to have them call when you’ve got absolutely nothing. Therefore, blind stealing should be done with hands that have decent equity that can flop well and make big hands, not garbage hands like Q6/J4 that never flop well unless you are lucky to hit trips once every blue moon.

Here’s an example of blind stealing in 6-max.

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In part two of this series we discussed mid-blind play and breaking out of our standard TAG mold into a more loose and aggressive style.

Now it's time to shatter that mold and get hyper-aggressive.

This is where it gets fun. By now the game will be short-handed with four or five players left.

Everyone at the table will probably be short-stacked in the classic sense of the word. The average stack will only be around 12 BBs.

This is approaching push-or-fold time for everybody.

Post-Flop Play Out the Window

Here's where you'll make your profit. Your average sit-and-go player plays this late stage so badly, it's laughable.

If you play this stage better than they do you will show a long-term positive expectation!

At this stage of the game, post-flop play is out the window - flops are rarely seen infrared marked cards.

You have two options: push or fold. And, by god, should you be pushing.

Your Goal is to Win, Not Limp Into the Money

Your goal is to win sit-and-gos. You don't want to "limp" into the money.

When you just try and limp into the money you are throwing +EV away.

You have to have the killer instinct to attack and destroy players who are happy just limping into the money or moving up the pay scale.

In poker, if a player is playing scared infrared contact lenses, he's exploitable.

Everyone wants to finish in the money; nobody is playing to get eliminated.

You're no different.

But your goal is to win. Therefore, you have to look at the long term and put the short term out of your mind.

Concentrate on making good plays at the correct time and forget about the results.

If you make the correct plays, success will eventually follow.

Get More Aggressive, Not Less

As you know, the top three players in a sit-and-go typically get paid. So when you get down to four- and five-handed play, you've reached the bubble.

There will almost certainly be some short stacks thinking if they play ultra-tight they may sneak into the money.

They're wrong. You want to get more aggressive, not less.

When play is short-handed the blinds will already be very high. Your average stack will be just 12 BBs, meaning you'll be losing 10% of your stack to the blinds every rotation.

When the game is short-handed, those rotations come fast and furious, decimating your stack. You're better off pushing all-in without looking at your cards than letting yourself get blinded out.

Do Not Let Yourself Get Blinded Out!

The action is frenetic now and you should be trying to steal as often as you can get away with it.

If you get a feel players are hoping to limp into the money, punish their blinds - they won't defend them.

If you notice someone is calling pushes liberally, then ease up your aggression against that player.

I won't discuss in detail the hands you should be willing to push with. I will, however, discuss the situations you should look for to get your hands all-in.

My advice would be this: Never call off your stack hoping for a coin flip.

If you think you're flipping, you're better off folding and pushing the next hand blind.

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Poker is a dynamic game, and winning players always need to adjust. The more the masses see players win with a certain style, the more they'll try and copy it.

A few years ago poker was generally a very tight-passive game. Now, with so many players taking notes from the top players, general aggression has gone up substantially.

Three years ago three-betting light online was almost unheard of. Now it's common to find people four-betting light at lower-limit infrared marked cards games.

So an accepted winning strategy just a few years ago may no longer be as useful as it once was. A good example:

The maxim explained in this article from a couple of years ago, "The fish call, the sharks raise," is no longer a wholly accurate assessment.

The majority of players will adjust their game to align with that of the top winners. As more and more players change their style of play to ape the elite, the winners will move on to a new strategy - or a new game altogether - to stay one step ahead.

Calling Shows Weakness

This was, and still is, mostly true. Unlike when the article above was written, though, showing weakness is not a bad thing in the face of aggression.

For a straightforward example, if you're holding the absolute nuts it can be more profitable to let players try to aggro you out of the pot, rather than alert them you have the hand.

The majority of poker players possess an average skill level at best. Many of these players will be trying to play the aggression game of the elite, but they lack some of the finely tuned skills and talent of the ones they imitate.

These players are quick to put you on a draw - any draw - and willing to fire three barrels on their "read" hoping to make you lay down.

You are showing them weakness to entice more frequent and larger bets than they'd make if they had their guard up. You want players with two rags putting large money up against you, and there are many of them willing to do it.

Calling Shows Strength

When playing against a very skilled player, calling can set off more alarms than raising or betting. A very good player who gives you credit for being the same will understand the state of poker, and the standard aggression levels.

They will assume you'll be protecting your vulnerable hands, and trying to take control of pots to force out players unwilling to contest you. They will also assume - correctly - that you understand pot odds and implied odds and are playing accordingly.

With this view of you in mind, calling their large bets will be very suspect. If you're heads-up, they cannot put you on having a draw by making a call. In fact, it would make more sense for you to be betting on the come with a draw, replacing your lack of pot odds with fold equity.

When you call them, they now have to think you have a hand big enough that you don't need 3-1 pot odds, and that you also don't need to protect your hand. If you have the image of being very strong and aggressive, without anything to indicate you're a calling station, cold-calling real bets will be a warning sign to other good players.

The Raiser Controls the Hand

This is, and always will be, true. The aggressor always controls the hand in play. Along with control of the hand comes a feeling of security. If you have the nuts, you want the other person to be in control, comfortable and worry free.

At the same time, without the nuts, you almost always want to be in control of the hand. He who controls the hand gains the most equity. Against all tight players, you want to be in control, raising away at them. If they're only willing to play strong hands you should be raising every chance you get.

From a tight player's point of view, the vast majority of hands you can be dealt are not strong hands. You should be exploiting their unwillingness to play anything less than the nuts.

Pot Control

On the other hand, if you're up against a very loose player who likes to see rivers, pot control poker lenses is more important than being the aggressor. If the player is not going to fold, you can't gain fold equity by raising.

By raising, you will have increased the total size of the pot. The larger and more attractive the pot, the less likely your loose opponent will want to fold.

In a situation where you aren't very sure that you're ahead, it's better to manage pot size and keep your variance low. Most of the time, the most useful way to control pot size is by simply calling, or check-calling.

At the hands of decent players, the size of a pot will increase exponentially. The more money in the pot, the larger-sized bets the players will make, causing each subsequent bet to increase in conjunction with the total pot size.

The exponential increasing of the pot tells us the most important times to be using pot control are pre-flop and on the flop. My standard rule of thumb is this:

When you have the most hand equity, you want large pots.

When your equity is less than that of your opponents, you want small pots.

The Big River Mistake

If you think an opponent is making a bluff on the river, raising is a horrifically bad play. Your read the whole hand was that the other player was on a flush draw. The river comes, and the flush draw has missed. For the first time in the hand, they open the betting round rather than checking.

In this situation, raising is an obvious mistake. If your read is correct, the other player has nothing and will fold. If your read is incorrect and they actually have you beat, they will come back over the top to three-bet or push on you.

You gain nothing with this raise, whereas you would benefit in the long run from simply calling here.

Loose Ends

This advice works for all versions of poker: online, live, cash and tourney. But it's most relevant for live cash games. The majority of the time in most tourneys you will be forced to play a raise or fold game - other players' stacks won't be large enough for you to take a more long-ball approach.

Online poker is much more aggressive on the whole, and I'm not saying that you shouldn't return fire in kind. But there are times, as I previously stated, where calling is a better play than raising, even in online poker.

You can't really play golf with only a driver in your bag. Aggression is an important tool, but it needs to be used along with the other plays in your arsenal.

Sometimes maximizing your profits involves slowing your game down. There's always a brake right next to the gas pedal; I recommend using them both.

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If you're playing poker, chances are you're doing it to win money. And one surefire way to win the most money is to play against bad players: what rounders like to call fish.

Unfortunately, due to overfishing and Bill Frist, the fish are less plentiful these days and you may be lucky to find yourself at a table with one fish.

The best way to maximize equity in these games is to isolate the fish as much as possible. Get him away from the other sharks and maximize the amount of time the two of you play pots heads-up.

It should be pretty obvious why you want to play pots heads-up against a fish. If you're the better player, the more you play heads-up against a bad player, the more you will make in the long run.

Your edge comes from outplaying your opponents. Meaning you will win more money if you play most of your pots against one bad opponent than if you play pots versus one bad opponent and one (or more) good opponents.

Where to Sit

If there is a seat at the table open to the fish's left when you first sit down, you should definitely take advantage of it. Sitting with position on a fish will make isolating him a simple task.

Every time he limps, you raise with the hope of folding out the rest of your opponents luminous contact lenses. Because fish love to call, this will often leave the two of you heads-up.

When you're in position against a fish you do not need premium hands to isolation-raise. Instead, your entire range of playable hands should be brought in for a raise.

Now granted, you're not going to always find a seat to the fish's left, but you can still isolate from out of position. If the fish is cold-calling a lot, you can still raise and hope he is the only one to call.

Also, you can take advantage of other players trying to isolate him. Let's say the fish limps from under the gun and the button raises. The button (if he is good) is going to be raising very light in position against the fish.

If you're in the big blind you can take advantage of this by three-betting a wider range of hands, ones like A-Js, K-Qs, TT, etc. If the poker gods are smiling on you, the fish will call your three-bet with his whole range of crappy hands and the button will get out of the way, leaving you heads-up.

Isolation-Raising: Right Even with Weak Hands

Under normal circumstances you play tight, because good players will not pay you off with bad hands. That means the quality of your hand needs to be that much better to extract value from their hands of similar quality.

When you play a fish, he's liable to be playing everything, which includes bad hands. Also, he rarely knows where he stands after the flop and will often pay you off much more readily than a good player.

Since you are the better player (thanks to your extensive reading of PL.com strategy articles), you will impose your will on these loose-passive fish. You'll be putting money in when you are ahead and folding when you're behind.

The fish, however, will always just be putting money in, with little rhyme or reason.

Your strategy will derive you the most value after the flop. Fish take weak hands too far, infrared contact lenses and they pay off too lightly with any piece of the board.

When the pot grows on the turn and river, you have the ability to decide whether your hand warrants big bets or if it's time to slow down.

This is why you want to get into pots with fish: they do not make the same distinctions. They only think about their hand. If they think it needs to see a showdown, they will pay whatever it takes.

Since you are heads-up you only have to worry about the fish, and not about other good players in the hand who could be lurking in the weeds with big hands.

Try to avoid getting into hands with fish multihanded as much as possible. Look for situations where you can play heads-up against them, whether by raising, cold-calling or three-betting.

Remember: you are the better player, so impose your will on them.

It's in their nature to make mistakes. As we all know, when your opponent makes mistakes, you profit. So start profiting- isolate that fish.

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There’s no simple fix for becoming a winning poker player but there are a handful of simple, easy-to-execute poker moves that can make a world of difference to your bottom line.

By fine-tuning these tactics you’ll have more tools to put to work at the poker table. You’ll be able to better understand your opponents and how to manipulate them, and that will translate directly to money in your pocket.

We already wrote the book on the 10 Essential Texas hold'em Moves and now we’re back to bring you 10 more.

Today we’re talking about floating the flop, a move that can turn your opponent's continuation bets against him. By just calling your opponent’s bet on the flop, you’ll be in a perfect spot to take the pot away when he shows weakness on the turn.

The float is an intermediate poker move that requires a strong understanding of the players you’re up against but if you can master it you’ll be able to win more pots post-flop, regardless of the cards you’re holding.

The What: At its most basic, marked cards floating the flop refers to calling a bet on the flop with the intention of betting and taking down the pot when your opponent checks to you on the turn.

The Why: Floating the flop is a move used to defend against the continuation bet. Because players routinely continuation bet with a wide range of hands, you shouldn’t be surrendering every time someone does it. But instead of simply raising the flop, floating allows you to pick up more information on the turn before making your move.

The Who: You should only be floating the flop against tight-aggressive players who do a lot of preflop raising and continuation betting.

The When: You should only be floating the flop when you are in position.

The Where: Floating the flop is a powerful poker move that can be used in all forms of Texas Hold’em but because it requires two streets of action it lends itself more to deep-stacked games.

Floating the Flop the Right Way

Floating the flop is a bluffing technique so it’s important to understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it to avoid burning money.

To make it crystal clear, you are only technically floating when you believe your cards are worse than your opponent’s. If you believe you have the best hand then you would be calling the flop and betting the turn for value.

And because you’re bluffing, the conditions have to be just right to give yourself the biggest chance of success.

Here are the three most important factors to consider when you’re thinking about floating the flop and betting the turn.

• Only float when you’re in position.
• Only float when you’re in a heads-up pot.
• Only float against tight-aggressive players who continuation bet frequently and are able to make laydowns when shown strength.

It’s important to be in position when you float the flop because you need that extra piece of information your opponent will give you on the turn.

Because your opponent will be continuation betting with good hands as well as bad hands, when he checks to you on the turn you’ll have one more clue that he’s got air. If he does bet the turn instead of checking, you need to reevaluate your plan.

It’s also only advisable to float the flop and bet the turn when you’re in a heads-up pot. More players mean more variables and a worse chance of succeeding with a bluff.

Floating is about telling your opponent a story, one that involves you calling the flop because you have a legitimate hand. In a multi-way pot your call on the flop doesn’t mean as much and your story will be less believable when you bet the turn.

Advanced Strategy Tip

If your opponent throws a wrench into your plans by betting the turn, all may not be lost. Many aggressive players won’t give up and check/fold fourth street. They’ll fire a second barrel as a bluff to try to blow you off your hand.

If you think you’re up against a tough, very aggressive player, you should consider raising the turn. Calling the flop and raising the turn is an extremely strong line and will usually force a good player to quickly lay down marginal hands.

This is an advanced move and should only be made with a very strong understanding of your opponent and his or her behavior.

Only Float Against Tight-Aggressive Players

Making sure you have position and only one opponent are important factors, but you must also consider the type of player against whom you are going to float.

Floating does not work against a player that only raises preflop  infrared marked cards and continuation bets with premium hands, for obvious reasons.

Floating also does not work against a loose/passive calling station who will frequently call your turn bet with marginal hands.

Look for tight-aggressive players who raise a lot in position preflop and follow it up with a continuation bet a high percentage of the time. These players will be showing up with air a lot, and check-folding to you when you bet the turn.

It’s much more difficult to float successfully against tough, hyper-aggressive players, however. Try to find players who fire one continuation bet but tend to shut down on the turn when they don’t have a hand.

Floating the Flop in Action

If you’re still not convinced about the efficacy of floating the flop and betting the turn, let Phil Ivey show you how it’s done like only Phil Ivey can.

In this video Ivey breaks one of our golden rules by floating in a mutli-way pot, and he does it not once but twice.

Ivey calls two big bets with seven-high and manages to take the pot away when Patrik Antonius checks on the river. This hand doesn’t even come close to following the easy-to-execute formula we presented above so consider it something to which you can aspire.

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This is the first of two articles to point out a few of the ways players can cheat at live poker. The first step to not getting scammed is to know what the scams are.

Ever heard the expression "All is fair in love and war"? This used to characterize people's view of poker, and I appreciate and sympathize with this notion of the game.

Golfers grease up the face of their clubs, batters cork their bats, hockey players hook their blades, point guards purposely foul opponents and poker cheats keep an ace up their sleeve.

That doesn't mean, though, that you have to offer yourself up to the mercy of unethical players when you sit down at the felt.

First we have to decide what qualifies as card cheating. Simply put, cheating is doing anything against the rules to gain you an unfair advantage. Any game with stakes on the line will have cheating and cheaters.

In all sports or games, a player has to evaluate the risk versus the reward of cheating. In that context, any player may cheat within their particular comfort zone.

In what follows, we'll look at various forms of live cheating from the confirmed grifter's perspective. Once you've seen the lay of the land this way, in part two we'll get on to practical tips and techniques for insulating yourself from the wide array of chip-stealing schemes.

Cold-Decking

The most common cheat you'll see in poker movies is a cold deck. This is a cheat still used to this day in cardrooms across the world.

A cold deck simply refers to switching the deck in play with a new deck, unbeknownst to the other players. The new deck will have a setup hand ready to deal a bad beat to an unfortunate mark.

This maneuver is called a cold deck for a very simple reason. While handling, shuffling and dealing a deck of cards, it will heat up from being held in your hand. The setup deck switched in will be cold to the touch.

If you have a self-dealt game being played, where the deck is being passed around the table, a good card mechanic can switch out a deck and substitute a stacked cold deck without ever being noticed. Remember the "What's that over there?!" trick you'd play as a kid to steal your friend's french fries?

In a cardroom with a professional dealer, the only way to execute this maneuver is to have the house in on it.

You need the dealer to make the switch, or in one club I know of, the house sets up the deck and puts it into play during a routine setup change. (A setup change is when a cardroom changes the decks being used. It happens every eight hours or so, or in some cases as requested by a player.)

There really is no way to protect yourself from such a scam, other than to know your fellow players, know the venue you're playing in and keep an eye out for suspicious activity.

Holdouts (Ace up the Sleeve)

A holdout is executed by taking cards out of the deck and holding on to them. The idea in this scam is to switch a card in your hand with a holdout card to make a winning hand.

The low-value card you switch your holdout for is known as "dead wood." It's kind of a pun, as the town of Deadwood is historically notorious for poker cheats.

In order to play a holdout, a player first needs to remove the valued card from play. It's simply accomplished by stashing one card and folding your other into the muck. If you're playing a variation with more than two cards per player, it becomes even easier to hold on to what you like.

The average person won't notice that a deck is light until eight or more cards have gone missing from it. That's right: you can remove seven cards from a deck before most people will notice anything. Only a very skilled dealer can feel the difference between a full deck and a deck that's light by a card or two.

Cheats (or card mechanics) can have up to seven cards of dead wood on their person at anytime. Where they hide them depends on their individual preference, and the surroundings they play in.

The most common hiding place is between their leg and their chair. Lots of cheats avoid putting cards up their sleeve as they can be easily spotted, or accidently dropped at an inopportune time.

Some mechanics will put putty under the table and stick the cards to it. The drawback to this technique is the greasy mark left on the face of the card.

After the cheat plays the held-out card, they need to ditch their dead wood. It would look funny if a player folded five cards in a game of Hold'em, so they need to find inconspicuous ways to get the job done.

One way to do it is while the dealer is washing the cards on the table. Any stray cards coming near the cheat he will politely push back to the dealer, along with a handful of deadwood.

Holdout Machines

There are holdout machines available dating all the way back to the 1800s. It's rare that any high-end cheat would use such a device, as they're unreliable, easily found out and hard to explain when found on your person.

These machines range from devices involving materials as simple as elastic bands and paper clips to full-body contraptions incorporating pulleys and levers.

There are even holdout tables available on the market, allowing you to use your poker table to hold onto a card or a few. Some of these tables include a carousel feature, allowing you to transfer the cards to other players.

Marking Cards

This is the most commonly used cheat in poker. It's being used to some extent in every poker room I've ever been to. There are many ways to mark cards, become marked cards , and if you play live poker chances are you've come across of a few of them already.

Painting the Papers

Some cheats will paint the backs of the cards with an ink that can only been seen with the use of a special tinted lens. As far as I know the lenses are always red in color, making red-lensed sunglasses a poor choice if you don't want to be found out.

The cheats using this technique are most commonly found wearing a tinted contact lens. At the correct angle, you may see a red halo around one or both of the cheater's irises. The cheater can paint whatever they like on the back of the cards, everything from full letters with suits to small dots on specific cards.

Professionally Marked Decks

You can buy professionally marked decks in most magic stores. I had one as a kid. My deck had the back of the cards covered in small circles. The top left corners had a collection of 13 circles, with a small line over one of them to denote value.

Direction of the line accounted for suits. Other marks use the idea of a clock, with the hour position for cards, no mark for an ace and so on.

These kinds of decks are rarely used. A rigged deck that can be found out so simply is too much of a risk to put into play.

Nicks, Dents and Scratches

The best way to mark cards is to do so in a way that looks natural. You can't get caught if your marks can plausibly be attributed to natural wear and tear.

Cheats most commonly mark cards by using a chip or a fingernail to make a dent in the corner of a card. Because it's not possible to distinguish between the marks, this technique is only used to mark the four aces (and sometimes kings).

Professional cheats have been known to make nicks with their nail on the edge of the card. These are hard to see, but easy to feel as you deal. A well-trained cheat can feel the location of their marks as they deal, to keep track of what they deal to which players.

To keep marked cards out of play, you want to pay attention to your cards. Look for identifiable marks; watch for any suspicious activity. And finally, take the deck "to the movies."

Taking the deck to the movies means rifling through the deck and watching for any cards that move or "jump," just like those little flip-book animations we all made in grade school.

But Wait - There's More!

The second half this article will explore a couple more ways players cheat in live poker games, and will include a list of suggestions on how to help reduce your chances of being cheated.

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