Something Up His Sleeve

A man who people simply new as “Hassan” may have told fellow poker players that he had nothing up his sleeve, but he would have been lying.  After two years of cheating at Hold’em and raking in thousands upon thousands of dollars, he finally got nabbed cheating.

The fact that he was able to pull off his scheme for two years is a testament to his skill.  Hassan would actually remove cards from the game (typically one or both of his hole cards) and hide them up his sleeve for later use.  When the community cards were a good match, he would swap his hidden cards for his hole cards to create monster hands.  For example, if he held Q-6 on an A-J-6 board, but had a 6 up his sleeve, he would switch that 6 for the Q to give him a flopped set.

Hassan had the tendency to “gamble” (of course, he wasn’t really gambling), often announcing that he would call anything up to €100 pre-flop.  To people’s amazement, he would make good on the promise and end up winning most of his showdowns.  One thing that helped him in his con was that he always sat in Seat 1, next to the dealer.  This way, he had better access to the muck pile, making it easier to conceal his card swapping.

Additionally, the casino only checked the deck at two regular times each day, so Hassan was always able to make the deck right before it was verified.  Unfortunately for him, the casino made an unscheduled check one day and Hassan had to scramble to replace the cards he had taken.  In his rush, he fumbled with the cards and was found out by players at the table.