Book Review: 52 Ways to Cheat at Poker

For a long time now, I’ve been a total mark for anything written about con men, tricksters, and legerdemain specialists. Whether it’s fiction, memoir, or how-to, I’ll read it. It’s not that I want to cheat other people, or that I’m paranoid about falling victim to them–it’s my sheer fascination with guys who are masters at subverting the apparent. I think it speaks to a deeper strain in American culture. I’m not about to launch into an extended essay here, but to read an entire history of the United States (until 1828) from this angle, check out Walter McDougall’s Freedom Just Around the Corner. I know that his Throes of Democracy is out, but I haven’t reviewed it yet, so I can’t comment on it(hint, hint).

Anyway, this is a protracted way of saying that when a book detailing how to cheat at poker showed up in my mail, I was eager to get to it.

Allan Zola Kronzek. 52 Ways to Cheat at Poker: How to Spot Them, Foil Them, and Defend Yourself Against Them. New York: Plume, 2008. 192 pp, paperback.

Cheating at cards has a long, inglorious history. It goes back so far that I’d be willing to bet that it’s a bout ten minutes younger than playing cards themselves. Over the roughly 600 years that playing cards have been part of Western culture, cheaters have discovered, exploited, and refined a multitude of tricks. When playing cards, it’s wise to keep in mind that if you’ve got a skilled mechanic at the table, anything is possible.

Allan Kronzek tackles the subject as a magician and treats cheating with a conjurer’s dispassion. This is a relief; if there’s one thing we don’t need, it’s another self-congratulatory, non-falsifiable “insider’s” story of how to cheat people. Instead, we get a quick but surprisingly serious volume that manages to feed the reader some history amid the tricks.

The title isn’t an attempt at misdirection: after a brief introduction, Kronzek runs through 52 short chapters, each detailing one or more methods of cheating. Generally, Kronzek explains the technique involved, offers notes on historical uses, and closes by telling the reader how he can protect himself. Miscellanea scatter throughout the text, such as reproductions of cheating house catalogs and excerpts from landmark books, enliven the story.

52 Ways is written to be accessible to a novice who doesn’t know a shiner from a holdout. But even veteran card mechanics could probably learn a thing or two from this book. Whatever your level of experience, reading 52 Ways will at least help you appreciate the ways that you can be cheated.

That’s the rub: Kronzek is honest enough to admit that no anti-cheating tactic is absolutely guaranteed. The final proof is in the pudding: if you find yourself losing one suspicious pot too many, you should suspect malfeasance.

If nothing else, incorporating some of Kronzek’s anti-cheating suggestions into your “friendly” home game will, at the very least, raise the bar for cheaters and help to keep honest players honest. You’ll also gain a deeper appreciation for the ingenuity with which cheaters have approached poker. It’s sobering to think of the technical and social advantages that might have been created had these men used their talents for good.

Kronzek is clearly writing for a wide audience, but throughout the tone remains that of a very talented professor giving an interesting seminar that combines history with card tricks. At more than one point, I lamented the lack of citations, since there was more than one historical note that I wanted to follow up on. While there is a bibliography, a more complete set of endnotes would have been quite helpful.

There’s only one class of person who I’d warn away from 52 Ways: those that combine a tendency towards paranoia with an overactive imagination. If you’re the kind of person who can’t browse WebMD because you start imagining you have symptoms for every malady you read about, perhaps this book is not for you. By lifting the veil on cheaters and the innumerable deceptions, Kronzek has made sitting at any card table a supreme act of faith–and vigilance.

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