Sharps and Flats / A Complete Revelation of the Secrets of Cheating at Games of Chance and Skill

by John Nevil Maskelyne

Fig. 46.

Shears of this kind, of course, will not cut the sides of the cards concave; but a very good substitute for convex sides may be made by taking two cuts on each side, at a very slight angle one to the other, taking more off the corners than in the centre. There is no need to impress upon the reader that the defective form of the card is not made sufficiently pronounced to be noticeable. The two cuts do not meet in the middle to form a point; the apex of the angle, so to speak, is cut off, leaving the central portion of the side flat, and square with the ends of the card.

Square-cornered playing-cards of course will show no signs of having been trimmed in this way; but those with round corners are bound to do so, however slight a shaving may have been removed from the side. In trimming these for cheating, therefore, the sharp has to employ, in addition to the shears, what is called a 'round-corner cutter.' This is an instrument which restores the circular form of the corners, which otherwise would show the point at which the shears cut through them. It is simply a sort of punch, which cuts the corners, one at a time, into their original shape, and gives them their proper curve.

So much, then, for the tools. We have next to consider the various forms given to the cards, and the uses to which they are put when thus prepared.

The simplest device connected with cards which have been trimmed is that known as the 'large card.' As its name implies, it is a card which is left slightly larger than the rest of the pack. All the others are trimmed down, either slightly narrower or shorter, or smaller altogether. This is a very primitive dodge, and one seldom resorted to, in the ordinary way, nowadays. Its object is to give the sharp either a ready means of forcing the cut at a given point in the pack, or of making the pass at that point, if the cut does not happen to be made in the right place. The cards being manipulated so as to arrange them according to some particular system, the large card is placed at the bottom, and then the pack is divided at about the middle, and the top half put underneath. The pack is straightened, and laid on the table to be cut. Not suspecting any trickery, it is almost certain that the dupe, in cutting, will seize hold of the large card, which is now in the centre of the pack, and cut at that point. This brings the cards again into the positions they occupied relatively at first. If the cut, however, should not happen to be made at the 'large,' the sharp has to make the pass, and bring that card once more to the bottom. No modern sharp of any standing would use such a palpable fraud, even among the most innocent of his dupes. It is a long way behind the times, and was out of date years ago.

Another form of card which at one time was largely used, but which has become too well-known to be of much service, is the 'wedge.' Wedges are cards which have been cut narrower at one end than the other, the two long sides inclining towards each other at a slight angle. The cards when cut in this way, and packed with all the broad ends looking the same way, cannot be distinguished from those which are perfectly square; but when some are placed one way and some the other, there is no difficulty in telling 'which is which.' Before these cards became commonly known, they must have proved very useful to the sharp. If he wished to force the cut at any particular place, he had only to place the two halves of the pack in opposite directions, and the cut was pretty sure to be made at the right point. If he wished to distinguish the court cards from the others, all he had to do was to turn them round in the pack, so that their broad ends faced the other way. If he wished to be sure of making the pass at any card, by just turning the wide end of that card to the narrow ends of the others he could always feel where it was, without looking at it. In fact, the utility of such cards was immense, but it has long been among the things that were. Now, the first thing a tiro in sleight-of-hand will do, on being asked to examine a pack of cards, is to cut them and turn the halves end for end, to see if they are 'wedges.' Needless to say, they never are.

The only case in which it is at all possible to use cards of this kind at the present day is in a very, very 'soft' game of faro, where the players do not ask permission to examine the pack. The dealer has the sole right of shuffling and cutting the cards; therefore if he has the opportunity of using wedges, nothing is easier than to have all the high cards put one way, and the low ones the other. Then in shuffling he can put up the high cards to lose or win, and, in fact, arrange the pack in any manner he likes. There is very little safety, however, in the use of wedges at any time. Practical men would laugh at the idea of employing them.

The concave and convex cards cut by means of the stripper-plates, described earlier in this chapter, are still in use to a limited extent. The common English sharp employs them in connection with a game called 'Banker.' He 'readies up the broads,' as he terms it, by cutting all the high cards convex, and the low ones concave. There is also another game known as 'Black and Red,' in which the cards of one colour are convex, and the other colour concave.

The most commonly used form of cards, however, is that of the 'double-wedges' or 'strippers,' cut by means of the trimming-shears, and which have been already described. The name of 'strippers' is derived from the operation which these cards are principally intended to facilitate, and which consists of drawing off from the pack, or 'stripping,' certain cards which are required for use in putting up hands. Suppose the sharp is playing a game of poker, and, naturally, he wishes to put up the aces for himself, or for a confederate. He cuts the aces narrow at each end, and all the other cards of the same width as the ends of the aces. This leaves the sides of the aces bulging out slightly from the sides of the pack, and enables him to draw them all out with one sweep of his fingers during the shuffle. Then they are placed all together, at the bottom of the pack, and can be put up for deal or draft, or they may be held out until required.

'End-strippers' are a variety of the same kind of thing, the only difference being that they are trimmed up at the ends, instead of at the sides.