Card-hiding

Another card-hiding trick is to pick up player-losing hands without looking at them. This is most often done for busting hands with a shill in the game playing with house money. The dealer knows that the shill won't be miscounting and won't com-plain about not having his cards looked at. The dealer may also pick up player bets and cards when holding a natural and fail to expose the players' cards.

Don't be part of this card hiding when you play in a down game. I don't make a point of openly showing my cards to every-one at the table, but I am extremely careless with how I hold and turn them. Anyone who wants to know what I am holding can see if he or she want to. I feel this is just courteous play, since we're all betting against the dealer. I am only hurting the other players by keeping my cards from them. The dealer doesn't care what I have unless he's a cheat. And if he's a cheat, I won't win anyway.

If you are playing with friends, you can show your cards openly if you aren't betting at high levels. I once sat down with an unusual pair of friends, Rich and Mohammed, one Jewish stu-dent and one Arab exchange student vacationing in Las Vegas on spring break. As I sat down, Rich turned to me and said, "We're playing as a team here.

Anybody who sits with us has to join our team and show us his cards." I laughed and told them I would be happy to be on their team. Under the circumstances, I kept my betting at modest levels so as not to alarm any of the pit bosses. A fourth man sat down and received the same request. The four of us played this way for nearly an hour before the two young men left with their winnings. All in all, it was a very enjoyable session. Everyone was talking to each other, the dealer was being tipped, and the ice was broken among strangers by the two pleas-ant young students.

As they walked off, I couldn't resist asking one question: "How did you two ever get to be such good friends? In these days, you've got to be a rarity." They both laughed and Mohammed told me in his clipped English, "We actually have quite a lot in common, particularly in Las Vegas. We both love women and money." With this they turned and left laughing uproariously.

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