Magic Tricks

As a number of cardmen have commented, a poker demo should resemble the real thing. For example, you should never say a royal flush in spades is the highest possible hand because there is no suit order in poker. Psi Poker does not by any stretch of the imagination resemble a hold-em poker game, and the rules of this game are too well known for a performer to assert that it does. (1) The spectator is instructed to deal two cards to himself and two to the performer, rather than alternating cards. (2) Half the time you have to burn cards before the hand begins. (3) There are no burn cards between the flop, turn, and river, contrary to the standard rules of hold-em. (4) The patter says "I won by one point." I've played a lot of poker and I've never heard anyone use that term. In fact, in the sample hand the performer gets a King and there is a queen on the board. That hardly counts as winning by one anyway, since both players use the queen. I can't imagine anyone performing this without inducing laughter. As for the shuffled deck referred to in the writeup, it's a false shuffle by the performer before the deck is handed out.