Could You Go into More Detail about Squeezing and Creasing Cards?

Could you go into more detail about squeezing and creasing cards? Is this only tolerated in baccarat? What about games like poker and blackjack?

[Editor's Note: This question came in off the QoD about squeezing cards at the baccarat tables. It's answered by our guy behind the curtain, Andrew Uyal, author of The Blackjack Insiders -- How Two Pit Bosses Beat the Casinos at Their Own Game.]

Let's start with poker; it's a unique situation.

In poker rooms across the country and in the tournaments we see on television, the cards are bent by the players in order to peek at them without showing them to other players. This is okay, because the cards are plastic. Plastic cards can be bent or spilled on without ruining them, so the vast majority of poker games use them.

When I say poker, I'm referring to it as a separate entity. Not everyone understands that poker and table games are (usually) two separate departments with different rules, different employees, and different revenue expectations.

Now, within the table-games department are poker-derivative games: Three Card Poker, Ultimate Texas Hold'em, pai gow poker, Mississippi Stud, Let it Ride, etc. On these games, the rules are more strict. The reason for this is another key difference between poker and table games: In poker, the players compete against each other, while in table games, players compete against the house. When the house's money is at risk, the rules are tighter.

On poker-derivative games, the cards are (usually) paper, which are far less tolerant to physical abuse, such as bending, creasing, punching, and being spilled on. If a player does try to bend or crease them, they'll be admonished by the dealer and/or the supervisor. If they're spilled on or damaged, they'll be changed for new ones.

In some of these games, like Three Card Poker and pai gow poker, there's another rule where a player can touch the cards only with one hand. This helps with game protection, preventing card manipulation and marking.

On blackjack, it's rare these days to find games where you can touch the cards at all. But if you can find a game like that, the rules will be the same: Touch them with one hand only and don't bend, crease, or punch the cards.

On baccarat though, midi-Baccarat to be specific (in the business, we call them "squeeze games"), it's a whole different set of rules. Card squeezing on baccarat is an art.

As illuminated in the other QoD, the way the players bend and squeeze the cards isn't just for fun, just because they can. They have their way of doing it, so the cards are slowly revealed to them by how they're bent, peeled, and squeezed. Usually, they start by slowly peeling open the long side of the card to reveal how many sides the card has. This might sound strange if you've never played or observed baccarat before. You'll often hear baccarat players saying things like "Two sides" or the even stranger, "No sides". This refers to how many pips (what the spots on the cards are called) are on the outside edge of the card.

Nines and tens have four sides. Sixes, sevens, and eights have three sides. Fours and fives have two sides. Aces, twos, and threes have no sides. Face cards are all referred to as "picture" or "monkey".

After the player sees how many sides the card has, there are lots of different ways to reveal the rest of the card. The most unique one that I've seen was done by a player who needed a nine. He'd peeled the edge of the card to reveal that it had four sides, either a nine or ten. He then took one of the double-sided baccarat pens provided by the casino and stabbed it through the card, making a circle to dig out the center portion. When he turned that tiny fragment of the card over, there was a spade on it, meaning that card was a nine of spades and he'd won his biggest hand of the night.

Not all casinos allow tearing, ripping, or in that case pen-digging, but the ones that do will see wild and creative ways for the cards to be revealed. Even if they don't allow that type of card destruction, they'll likely allow bending and squeezing, which is pretty fun too, especially if you're used to blackjack or the other games where you're made to be so careful with the cards.

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Kevin Lewis Dec-28-2024

For all its cachet, baccarat is a dumb game

There are no decisions. There is no strategy. There are only two possible main bets, and one (foolish) side bet. So despite the James Bond/ultra high-roller/posh "lounge" shtick, it's a game that could be played by a three-year-old. The reason that it's not played by more toddlers is that a toddler would get bored by it pretty quickly.

So in order to draaaaaaag out what is essentially a coin flip, there's the slow squeeze and the "MONKEY MONKEY MONKEY" chant and all the other associated performative art. It's a kind of desperate attempt to add some interest to what, James Bond notwithstanding, is a pretty dull game.

BTW, I have to grudgingly congratulate Phil Ivey. Realizing that his poker skills were waning, he took advantage of the indulgences granted to baccarat high-rollers to brazenly cheat his way to what was it, eight million dollars? I hope he split it 50-50 with that Asian eye candy he brought with him--she was vital to his scam's success.

Randall Ward Dec-28-2024

squeezing

I asked the original question because I was so surprised, now I get more info and now I think it's silly. I suspect and hope I wouldn't be a good high roller

Kevin Rough Dec-28-2024

Two Hands vs One Hand

In pitch blackjack, only holding the cards with one hand is a universal rule.  However in pai gow poker, I've never met anyone who can set their hand without using both hands.

Stewart Ethier Dec-28-2024

In defense of baccarat

Baccarat wasn't always a dumb game, requiring no decisions or strategy.  Before the modern game was established in 1959, players could stand or draw at 5 and the banker's strategy depended on which variant of the game was played.  In baccara à deux tableaux, the banker's strategy was unrestricted and required exceptional skill.  In the game Bond played in Casino Royale (the novel, not the film), the banker's strategy was unrestricted, and we find the explanation, "Holding a three and giving nine is one of the moot situations at the game. The odds are so nearly divided between to draw or not to draw."  These older forms of baccarat can still be found in some European casinos.

As for Phil Ivey, his edge-sorting scheme should not be characterized as cheating.  See the law review article at https://journals.law.harvard.edu/jsel/wp-content/uploads/sites/78/2021/02/Carr.pdf

Robert Dec-28-2024

@Kevin Lewis

Ivey and Kelly Sun took the Borgata for $9.6M and then Crockfords for £7.3M, but were later sued for cheating (card sorting) and had to give it all back. But along the way they had gotten away with it in Singapore, Monaco and Toronto. Quite the act they perfected!

Stewart Ethier Dec-28-2024

Ivey-Sun saga

The post by Robert is inaccurate, as can be see by reading the article I cited.  The lawsuit by Borgata was not for cheating (the statute of limitations had run out) but for breach of contract.  It was settled by mediation, the terms of which were not disclosed.  But it is widely understood that Ivey didn't have to give it all back.

sunny78 Dec-28-2024

games

So we've devolved into what casino games are "dumb"? 

How about let's be honest here and get off the high horse. If one was truly responsible with their money and the goal is to make money, would one be gambling on anything in the first place?

AL Dec-29-2024

Pai Gow Poker

As Kevin Rough intimated, and I'm stating declaratively, in Pai Gow Poker, you most certainly ARE allowed to use both hands to touch your cards, because you have to pick up your stack, fan it out to see what 7 cards you have, and then apportion them into the 5-card hand and the 2-card hand. It would be between ridiculous and impossible to try to do that with 1 hand, so the touch-with-1-hand-only rule simply does not exist in Pai Gow Poker.  It's precisely the ability to hold your cards and decide the split that makes me like Pai Gow Poker a lot. Note: There is a version of Pai Gow Poker in which "your" 7 cards are placed face-up on the table, and the dealer decides (by house rules) how they'll be split into the 5-card & 2-card hands; that version leaves no place for players to touch the cards at all. But that version is a total dud, and is either on the way out or already gone.

AL Dec-29-2024

"Squeezing"??

I can't believe that I'm the first person posting this, but I have no idea what is being talked about by "squeezing" or the alternate definition of "sides". In what way are cards being squeezed in this usage? There are multiple possible candidates. You can place your thumb on the front face of a card, and your index finger on the back face of the card, and squeeze them against each other, but what would that accomplish? You could place your thumb on one edge of a card, and your index finger on the opposite edge, and move them towards each other, causing the card to bend; but I don't see what that would accomplish. And the talk about "sides" is gobbledygook. A playing card has 2 sides, PERIOD (front and back), and 4 edges, PERIOD (top, bottom, left, right). It is impossible for a card to have 4, 3, or 0 sides. So the usage of the word "sides" for whatever mysterious concept is being referred to is simply improper and confounding to the reader. Can anyone use accurate terms & explain it?

Question of the Day - 28 December 2024

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