CARDSHARK Online: gambling books

CARDSHARK Online

• Ās Nās Playing Cards from The Brooklyn Museum

  2010 Aug 31

  Poker historians always mention the Persian game ās nās as one of the possible predecessors of modern poker. I guess we'll never really know if this theory is correct but that shouldn't prevent us from taking a closer look at the game if the opportunity happens to present itself. Today one such opportunity did present itself to me on my visit to The Brooklyn Museum. As it turns out The Brooklyn Museum happens to have a set of five 19th century ās nās cards on display in the Asian Arts section.
  
  
  
  The cards are hand painted and quite beautiful. The label says: Iran, mid-19th century; ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on wood or papier-mâché under lacquered varnish. Since I am not exactly an ās nās expert, by any stretch of the imagination, I think it's best if I just retype the rest of the description posted on the museum label, instead of attempting to write my own.
  
  

  The full set of cards for the game of ās nās, a gambling game similar to poker, contains twenty cards, with four each of five suits. The suite, in descending order, include the ās (ace); the shāh (king); the bībī (queen); the sarbāz (soldier), represented by one or more soldiers, noblemen, or hunters; and the lakāt, represented by a female of low rank, often a dancer or a servant. Card designs may include traditional and European costumes, floral and vegetal designs, erotic imagery, or mythological creatures. Here, the ās appears in the form of a lion and tiger entwined with a snake-dragon. Ās nās became popular under the Qajars and continued to be played until the end of World War II, when it lost favor to games such as poker, rummy, and bridge.

  
  Although the description on the museum's label states that the ās nās deck consists of 5 suits, other resources state that a full deck consists of either 20 or 25 un-suited cards that consist of 5 court cards, appearing in multiples of 4 or 5, to make up a full deck. I think that's a better description.
  
  Another ās nās deck appears in the collection of playing cards page on my sister site.

  

  

  

• World Series Of Mahjong 2010

  2010 Aug 26

  The World Series Of Mahjong 2010 just wrapped up at The Venetian Macau. The WSOM, which started in 2006, is said to be gaining in popularity and this year the event brought together 201 players from 11 countries. Since this blog is not a news outlet I don't particularly want to cover the event, but I still think it's a good idea to go over some of the highlights.
  
  
  Most of the participans came from Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China. Mahjong Australia, the official partner for the Australian qualifier, brought 27 professional players from Australia. Among them, was a 76 year-old Asian woman, Ms. Wang, who also celebrated her birthday in Macau.
  
  
  This year, the game format and rules were slightly different than those for the previous WSOM. This year, all players were able to play 6 full sessions or 96 hands before the Final. In addition, prize money was awarded according to their scores instead of rankings, which serves as a good incentive for players. The top 16 players moved on to the Final on Day Three of the Tournament (August 22nd, 2010) and competed for the World Champion title.
  
  This year's World Champion is Mr. Chan Tak-Kwan, a 34-year-old furniture salesperson from Hong Kong, who outlasted the other 200 participants and became the third World Champion from Hong Kong.
  
  
  
  Chan Tak-Kwan has been playing mahjong for over ten years. He was encouraged by his friends to participate in the qualifier organized by Blue Girl Beer in Hong Kong, then was sponsored by Blue Girl Beer to participate in the WSOM championship tournament in Macau, and fought his way to the Final Table. He did not perform very well for the first two days of the World Series, and he was originally in the fourth place at the Final Table. However, just like what happened to the 2008 World Champion, Chan fought over the other three players with confidence in the last few hands and changed his fate near the end.
  
  Chan took home a cash prize of HK$180,530 (US$23,200), a World Champion necklace, a unique Venetian mask sponsored by The Venetian Resort-Hotel, and a free seat in the 2011 World Series Of Mahjong.
  

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  Those interested in mahjong might also find my previous post Crooked Mahjong Set of some interest.

  

  

  

• Luminous Readers: How Many Cards Can I Mark?

  2010 Aug 18

  One of the most frequently asked questions is: How many cards (decks) can I mark with such and such amount of ink? Luminous inks are expensive and this seems like a reasonable question. But unfortunately, there is no short answer to that question.
  
  First of all, let me explain that luminous inks are usually sold as concentrates. If you get it as a concentrate you will have to mix it down. And I might as well tell you a tip. Since the ink is an expensive purchase it's always a good idea to divide it into several small vials. If you happen to spill your vial of ink, by accident, or if you drop it on the floor, you will not lose the whole amount.
  
  In the following image you can see how the concentrated ink is mixed down into a working vial. If you know how to do it right, you will only need a few drops of ink to mark up a few decks, so you should only mix down a few drops at a time. Also, you will have to work out the proportions. Those will depend on how concentrated the ink was and how strong you want the work to read. Needless to say, professionals typically like light work. But for argument's sake, let's say that your working amount consists of 5 drops of ink and 5 drops of thinner. If you can't go through at least a couple of decks with 10 drops, you are doing something wrong.
  
  
  One thing that will save you ink is how you design your code. In the following image you see three cards, lined up side by side. The first card will use up twice the amount of ink than the card in the middle. And the last card at the right will use up a fraction of the ink that's been used up to mark the first card.
  
  Now let's look at another example.
  
  
  All three cards in this example are marked with a diagonal line. However, even if they all bear the same mark, the two cards on the right both use up twice as much ink as the card on the left. The middle card basically has a wider mark, so it uses up twice as much ink as the same line drawn at half the width. And the card at the right side is twice as dark as the card on the left; so even if both bear a mark with exact same dimensions the darker mark uses up twice as much ink.
  
  
  Those are just some quick examples to help you understand that it's impossible to know how may cards one might be able to mark up with a certain amount of ink. In the above examples it all depends on the design of the code. But there are other factors that also contribute to this.
  
  The worst tool one could use to put luminous marks on the backs of playing cards is a Q-tip. Actually, a Q-tip will produce an excellent mark, so that's not why it's a "bad" tool. But if you want to be saving on ink you definitely don't want to be using a Q-tip.
  
  There are other factors that greatly contribute towards the number of decks one might be able to mark up with a limited amount of ink. However, I don't want to write up an instructional manual. I simply want to say that it's impossible to tell how many decks one might be able to mark up.

  

  

  

• The "Talking" Blackjack Shoe

  2010 Aug 03

  As technology continues to amaze us, there's very little chance that collectors of crooked gambling equipment will get bored, any time soon. Gambling gaffs have always been fascinating, but nowadays, technology makes it possible to make the kind of gaffs that would have been impossible to make as recently as 25 years ago. Who would have thought that one day someone would come up with a gaffed dealing shoe that "talks to you" and tells you which card will come out of the shoe on the next deal?
  
  The "talking shoe," as it's been dubbed by hustlers, has been around for about a couple of years. I first heard about it roughly a year ago when one of my clients asked me if I knew anything about it. It wasn't long after that I received a call from a friend that wanted to introduce me to the gentleman that developed this shoe. Small world, I thought to myself, but the world got even smaller when I realized that the maker of this shoe was someone I've been meaning to get in touch with for quite a while, for other reasons. As it turns out, the maker of this shoe is a bit of a legend in the world of crooked gambling.
  
  I am not going to expose his name on the internet, but I will say that he is a man that doesn't mess around with small stuff. Another friend of mine has had dealings with this gentleman, for several years, and I heard many good stories and anecdotes. To make a long story short, I was now speaking with the man on the phone and we were making plans to meet during his upcoming visit to New York. But it wasn't meant to be, I already had some conflicting plans that would put me in Europe at the same time he wanted to be in New York.
  
  That meeting didn't take place, but we did exchange numbers and agreed to stay in touch. More importantly, the gentleman just gave me permission to write this blog post and explain a few things about the talking casino shoe. He even agreed to let me take some pictures and include them in my post. It was my idea to blur-out parts of the images, to avoid revealing too much. So, here's a picture of the talking blackjack shoe along with all the accessories that come with it.
  
  
  The shoe doesn't look like anything spectacular. In fact, that's the idea. It's not supposed to look like there's anything special about it. Since these shoes are all custom made, there may be differences in various design elements, such as color, size of the dealing slot, trim design, and so on. But I still thought it would be better to blur-out the design elements of the shoe.
  
  On the left side of the picture you can see a couple of battery chargers. One is for the shoe and the other one is for the optional monitor. I blurred-out the part that would reveal how the charging cables get attached to the shoe.
  
  At the bottom of the picture you can see the wireless earpiece that's used by the player. This is the earpiece that whispers to the player the value of the card that is about to be dealt. The shoe doesn't transmit directly to the earpiece, however. The plastic box behind the shoe is the wireless receiver. That piece of equipment has a loop that the person must wear around the neck, to transmit the secondary wireless signal to the earpiece.
  
  The wireless monitor and the audio speaker are for demonstration purposes, although the monitor can also be used in a live situation. Basically the shoe has two modes, the “talking” mode and the camera mode. To switch the shoe between modes the operator must use a small magnet and reset an internal magnetic switch (there are more than one switch but I am not at liberty to reveal how many or where they are located). The magnet is seen at the bottom of the picture, next to the earpiece.
  
  The talking shoe is basically a more elaborate version of a camera shoe. Camera shoes have been around for quite some time, but the early models had two problems; the internal batteries substantially added to the weight of the shoe and some shoes were warming up too much. This shoe only warms up when the batteries are being charged and thanks to the latest Lithium Ion batteries the weight has been substantially reduced.
  
  When the shoe is used in camera mode the index of the top card shows up on a remote screen. There would really not be any practical way for a player to use a wireless video monitor at the table, so there would have to be another person involved. That person would somehow have to send signals to the player. The advantage of this would be to keep the player clean in the event that he is put through a body search. The picture below shows a rare view of how the camera inside the shoe sees the index of the top card.
  
  There is another reason to use the talking shoe in camera mode. Blackjack is often dealt with no-peek cards. Those are cards that have the indexes of all Tens and Aces printed lower than the rest of the cards. That's a casino security feature, to enable the dealer to peek at the hole card, when the up card is a Ten or an Ace, but without revealing to the dealer what the exact value of the hole card is. That's something I should write about in a separate blog post, but for the purposes of this post I just want to say that the operator woudl still be able to visually identify the Tens and Aces, even when they show up as blank cards.
  
  
  When the shoe is switched to talking mode the video signal will get deciphered inside the shoe, by a piece of visual recognition software. The software basically converts the visual signal into a voice prompt that gets transmitted to the earpiece. The motherboard is completely sealed-in inside the shoe, along with the batteries.
  
  The batteries will last up to 13 hours in talking mode, and less for video mode. There's no way to change the batteries, but proper maintenance should keep them healthy for many years.
  
  
  The most obvious use for this shoe is to play it against the house. Basically, if the host of a private blackjack game can be duped into using this shoe for the evening, one player can easily clean out the house (we are talking about a private joint; this scam would not work in a licensed casino). One way to do it is to occupy any seat at the blackjack table and make hit and stand decision based on perfect information of the top card of the shoe. Another, less direct, scenario would require the player to sit in first base and bet according to perfect knowledge of the first card, at the beginning of each round. Basically, if the first card is a Ten or an Ace, the player plays bigger bets (sort of like card counting in blackjack; when the player knows the shoe is rich in Tens and Aces, the player bets more). Both of these scenarios are basically the electronic equivalent of planting six decks of marked cards and letting the host use his own shoe.
  
  Another possibility is to use this shoe against the players. In this case the house would own the shoe and work with an anchor man. The anchor man is a player that sits in third base, which makes him the last to act before the dealer. So, in hole card games the anchor man would know which card the dealer has in the hole, because the shoe told him. He would also always know the value of the top card of the shoe. So, when the action comes to the player on third base the player makes hit and stand decision based on what card is good or bad for the dealer.
  
  A slightly different variation of anchor play is to target one specific player. This can be done with an anchor man but it can also be done by planting a player one position before the sucker. This way the operator makes his own hit and stand decision solely based on what hurts or helps the player seated next to him. There's a common misconception amongst gamblers that fancy themselves blackjack players, that bad hit and stand decisions of one player hurt others. Mathematicians have gone through great lengths to prove that is not the case. Ironically, this is one scenario when it definitely is the case.
  
  
  The talking shoe is definitely one of the most intriguing gaffed shoes ever made. To the best of my knowledge this shoe is the latest in the evolution of gaffed shoes. It should not come as a surprise that the price is quite high, not only because it's an elaborate gaff but also to keep the number of these shoes to a minimum.
  

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  At the present time I ma writing a book Manual for the Bustout Dealer - The Two Shoe. The book was supposed to be out a couple of months ago, but i decided to include a chapter with detailed descriptions of various kinds of gaffed shoes. One reason why the book was a bit on hold was because I really wanted to include a description of the talking shoe, with a picture. Now I finally got permission to do so and I'm glad I waited. The book is basically done, but there is still one small part that I am waiting to resolve. At the end it's all worth the wait because the book is more complete.

  

  

  

• X-Ray Vision Contact Lenses... Real or a Hoax?

  2010 Aug 01

  About two weeks ago I received an email from a very good friend of mine, asking me to have a look at some contact lenses advertised on a web site of a Chinese crooked gambling distributor. The English description was badly written, but it was still possible to understand what they were trying to say. The company claimed that they had developed revolutionary contact lenses that enable the user to see through paper playing cards. The purpose of seeing through playing cards was to be able to see the print at the face of the cards. The asking price was $6,800. The payment method was Western Union.
  
  

  
  

  
  My friend asked me to contact the company and try to get more information. First of all, I have to admit that I was very skeptical. But I was also curious to see what would happen if I called the number listed on the site. So I did. To make a story short, I never was able to have an actual conversation with anyone. All the guy ever said was to send him an email. I never had any intention to do so.
  
  Coincidentally, two weeks later I received an email from a CARDSHARK Online member, asking me to comment on some kind of X-ray vision contact lenses. I told him that I was familiar with the site that advertises them, but that I was unable to get in touch with anyone willing to talk on the phone. A few minutes later he sent me a link to a video demo of these contact lenses. I uploaded the video, and here it is.
  
  
  http://cardshark.tv/watch_video.php?v=9a56918940bc799
  This video demo is not accessible through the main page that advertises these contact lenses. So, I guess the company sends out an email with the link to anyone inquiring by email.
  
  The video was interesting and it also answered some questions. Now I could see exactly how the ink was visible through the cards. But there was only one problem. I didn't believe a thing. But the video did give me a good idea about the "physics" involved in this latest development in luminous contact lenses.
  
  After seeing the video I had a pretty good idea how these contacts possibly work. Of course, I can never be too sure that my theory is correct, but there's nothing preventing me to do a couple of test and see if I can come up with my own solution. So that's precisely what I did.
  
  It took me about 2 minutes to make my own contact lenses, virtually from scratch, and another 2 minutes to record a video. Then it took me 15 to 20 minutes to edit the video and optimize it for the web. Here's my video. Pretty good, isn't it?
  
  
  http://cardshark.tv/watch_video.php?v=746571eb94168bf
  My video also clearly shoe how my contact lenses would enable the user to see through playing cards. There's only one problem, though. My video is definitely a complete hoax.
  
  In the next part of this post I will describe exactly how I made my contact lenses and how I shot and edited my video. Please don't get me wrong. I am not saying that the Chinese distributor did the exact same thing. I am simply explaining how I did it.
  

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  First of all, my contact lenses aren't even real contact lenses. I simply took an empty soda bottle, cut out part of the curved side below the neck of the bottle and then placed a dime on top and cut-out a circular segment out around it. The small circular cutout looks more or less like a contact lens, on camera. That's good enough for a video.
  
  
  Next step was to create a couple of images of playing cards, shown in reverse, as would appear if seen through the back of the cards. I simply scanned two cards and flipped the image, then made a color print. Also, I added a special touch. As you can see I slightly blurred the faces of the cards, thinking this would be how the print would appear if seen through paper.
  
  
  All the remained was to cut-out the printouts and shoot the damn video. Here's a picture that shows all the props that were uses to produce the video demo.
  
  
  It took me about 2 minutes to record the video. That was pretty straightforward. I simply dealt down three cards (as in the Chinese demo) and passed a contact lens above the cards so the camera could see through it. But once I put the lens back into the case, I didn't stop the camera. I let the camera run while I placed three additional cards right on top of the three initial ones. The additional cards were the two reversed printouts, plus another card face down. Once the additional cards were in place, exactly on top of the initial cards, I let the camera run for a few seconds, then I hit the stop button.
  
  Once I uploaded the recorded video on my hard drive I split it into two separate video files. The first one was the recording of the action shot, showing my hand passing a contact lens over the cards. There was nothing amazing about that shot, as of yet. The second shot was basically a still video recording of three cards laying flat on the table. There was also nothing spectacular about that shot, but once I'd put the two of them together the result would be... interesting, to say the least.
  
  The editing was pretty simple. I basically placed the still recording on a separate layer, under the action shot. Then I used a round mask over the top video layer and tracked the position and size of the round contact lens. I used 45% opacity to blend the two images together through the mask and I also blurred the edge a bit, to make it look more realistic. Once that was all done I used a noise filter to make the video a bit more grainy. That all took 15 to 20 minutes of my time.
  

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  Once again, I am not saying that the Chinese vendor recorded their video in the same way. Perhaps they used a different video filter, or perhaps they used a different contact lens. And perhaps their video is not a hoax, at all. But as a general rule I have to see something with my own eyes before I believe it.
  
  There are a few things that don't add up in the whole product description, including the original video demo.
  
  First of all, this is the first crooked gambling gaff that I cannot explain with physics. Any other gaff I've ever seen or heard of makes sense in the universe we live in. But this one seems to have some kind of properties that simply cannot be explained. That's the first thing that stands out and that's the main reason why I simply can't believe the gaff is real.
  
  But let's imagine the gaff is real. There are still some things that don't quite make sense.
  
  The gaff is listed for $6,800. That's not cheap. Does the original demo video look like the kind of video that would be used to advertise a prop of that price range? Why is that video a hand-held camcorder recording of another video that was originally playing on someone's computer screen? Perhaps there's a logical explanation for that.
  
  First of all, a camera recording of a computer screen will produce a lot of artifacts, such as noise, distortion and Moiré patterns. All those artifacts would be helpful if someone wanted to obfuscate some details that one would prefer not to be seen by attentive viewers.
  
  Second, for most part, the second-generation video crops out the face of the demonstrator. His face is only visible for 21 frames (at 30 frames per second). Furthermore, if you freeze-frame the video and look closely closely, you will notice that the face of the demonstrator is not really visible in those 21 frames. It actually appears as if his mouth and eyes have been blurred-out. Have a look.
  
  
  In my opinion, if someone had such an amazing product they should also be competent enough to produce a decent video that really shows what their product can do. At least that's the usual way people do business. But what this vendor is doing just happens to be the classic textbook approach how crooks that sell snake oil would traditionally do a presentation of a bogus product. They don't let you see much. instead they let your imagination fill in the blanks. Most people will not like it. But sooner or later a sucker is bound to show up and believe what he wants to believe, just because he's desperate to believe in something that doesn't exist. Smoke and mirrors.
  
  There are some details in the video that don't quite make sense, apart from the fact that there's not physical explanation for X-ray contact lenses. Speaking of, why don't these contact lenses also see through the fabric cover on top of the table?
  
  Nowadays contact lenses are soft. I tried to pick up a couple of regular contact lenses using a pair of tweezers and I was not able to do it quite as seen in the video. Soft contacts simply warp, especially when there's also contact lens solution stuck to the surface. In fact, that's the reason why I made my contact lens out of rigid plastic cut out from a soda bottle.
  
  Also, contact lenses are curved and reflective. Nowhere in the original video am I able to spot a reflection that would give the impression that the surface is curved. The contact lens looks like a round cutout window through which we can see the bottom layer, just like the special effect editing I produced (in fact my editing looks better).
  
  Furthermore, when you remove a contact lens from a liquid a lot of that liquid remains stuck on the lens. When I was recording my video I was having trouble getting the liquid to slide off the lens. As a result I noticed that droplets of water were stuck to the contact lens, creating additional "lenses" that were creating distortions as I looked through it. That's not present in the original video, although I was able to preserve some of that natural effect in my video.
  
  If you watch the original video frame by frame you may be able to see that some red spots show up on the tip of the tweezers, as they pass over the center card (which appears to be the 8 of hearts). If special effects were used the red hearts may have bled through parts of the upper payer. A sloppy editor may be too lazy to fix it.
  
  I could continue this list, but the most important thing is that the whole thing doesn't really make sense. What kind of illumination goes through the card, then bounces back from the printed ink at the face of the card and then passed through the card again on its way up and makes a clear picture of an image printed with ink. If that illumination can go through paper why doesn't it also just go through the print, too? After all, it seems to be passing though the print of the back design without any trouble.
  
  Also, if illumination that can be seen with human eyes passes though cards, how come it doesn't get filtered while passing through paper? If it did get filtered the images would not show up exactly red and black.
  
  If one wanted to give these guys the benefit of a doubt one may say that they could have produced a video simulation of what these contact lenses do in real life. One may say that the company didn't want to reveal too much, so they chose to make a fake video and that the video is just fake to protect the secret. That is a theoretical possibility.
  
  However, Chinese crooked gambling distributors have some history with their web sites. Many years ago I found a Chinese site that advertised luminous contact lenses and some other gaffs. The images they used on their site, supposedly to show their own products, were images they lifted from my site, without my permission. They also used images of my prism shoes to advertise prism shoes that they supposedly sold. One should wonder, if they really sold these products, wouldn't they be able to just take their own pictures of their own products? Why lift images from the web?
  
  That site eventually disappeared and another site appeared, under a different URL. That new site bore a striking resemblance to the former site. But this one didn't use my images. Instead they used generic images of contact lenses that could easily be found through Google. And this time they used eBay images of dealing shoes to advertise prism shoes. The images were of clear shoes; meaning the faceplate was 100% clear. The idea of a prism shoe (i.e. second dealing shoe) with a clear faceplate is simply ludicrous.
  
  There were other instances with other sites that looked more or less the same, but I stopped paying attention. Every now and then someone would send me an email, letting me know that my materials were showing up on Chinese sites. I didn't care.
  
  Back to the X-ray contact lenses.
  
  We have to ask the question, what could anyone possibly stand to gain by making a hoax presentation of a product that doesn't exist? The answer to that one is very simple.
  
  One of the greatest con men of all times, Victor Lustig, made a name for himself after it became known that he had managed to sell the Eiffel Tower, not once but twice. The Eiffel Tower did exist, it just wasn't his to sell. But good old uncle Victor also managed to sell a money duplicating machine, also more than once. That machine never existed, but that didn't stop him from collecting a few payments from a few clients that really wanted to have it.
  
  If the Chinese site is a hoax the logical explanation would be that the site is very likely to disappear without a trace, as soon as too many suckers get mad and put the word out that they've been had. Whom would they complain to, anyway? Would they report the site to the Chinese authorities, explaining that they've been cheated while trying to buy cheating equipment to cheat others?
  
  I really have no proof that the Chinese site is a hoax and I am not saying that it is. But if it is a hoax they probably do sell some of the other products that they advertise. After all, I do own a Chinese crooked mahjong set that came from one of those distributors.
  
  I don't know why I'm such a skeptic, but I never believed in the impossible. So, I don't believe in this product either, especially when there are too many other explanation that are anything but impossible.
  
  I wouldn't blame you if you wanted to add a set of X-ray vision contacts to your collection of crooked gambling gaffs. But for $6,800 you might as well spend a couple of thousand dollars more and visit the Great Wall of China, and arrange for a live demo. I definitely wouldn't recommend sending that kind of cash via Western Union, to some guy that sells cheating equipment, for a product that sounds too good to be true.
  

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  PS - I also put together a video that shows my original video recording next to the doctored version, X-Ray Vision Contacts... Exposé of Hoax Video.