Cold Decks in Cheating
Written February 18, 2008 by Jack Jones
Cold Decks in cheating means a lot more than just getting a bad run of cards. You can get a “cold deck” in a fair game in that you are having a real bad streak at the tables. What cold decks are for those involved in cheating however, means something quite different. Some cheaters use physical objects to get an edge over the other players in the game, and one of these tricks can be a “cold deck.” A cold deck is one that is pre-stacked, and is introduced either at the deal, after the real deal has been shuffled, or before the deal by a card mechanic using sleight of hand.A cold deck is most commonly used in poker or blackjack, but can be employed in any game that contains cards. The term itself actually comes from the fact that a new deck is typically a little bit cooler than one that has been handled by the players. The decks in use tend to absorb a little bit of body heat from the players and warm up with the friction of being slid across the table.
Secretly slipping a stacked deck into the game can provide a great potential payoff for the card cheat. The card charlatan’s goal is to introduce a new deck, stacked so as to give him or her a great hand, but it may also give all the other players great hands, too — great enough to entice them (those lovely sheep} to bet a decent chunk of change, but not quite great enough to beat the sharper or arouse suspicion of his move.
Cold deck can also be used as a verb to define the practice of using one. As in, “I was cold-decked and lost a $1,000 pot,” or ” I pulled a cold deck on that group and won a bundle.” In recent years the term cold decked has been used when getting a bad beat with a monster hand. If you have four-of-a-kind and get beat out by a straight flush, since both hands are so rare to hold the loser might say he was cold-decked without specifically meaning he was being cheated by anyone at the table.