As a poker player, watching Houston Curtis handle a deck of cards gives you the feeling you really don’t want to be sat in a game with this guy. But as soon as he starts telling stories, you’ll change your mind.
Curtis’ day job as a TV executive has seen him create, produce, and even host numerous poker shows, as well as programs for the likes of MTV, CBS, and Warner. But it’s his experience as a poker player, card mechanic, author, and game protection specialist that is most fascinating.
One of the co-founders - alongside his friend Tobey Maguire - of the legendary private games behind the story of ‘Molly’s Game’, Curtis is a treasure trove not only of great poker stories but also useful tips on what to look out for to protect yourself from being cheated in private games.
Our exclusive in-depth video interview with Curtis drops this weekend, where he’ll be demonstrating some of the tricks and sleight-of-hand maneuvers card mechanics have at their disposal and how you can guard against them.
Ahead of that, and to whet your appetite, here’s a story from the type of poker game where it pays to have your wits about you.
Over to Houston Curtis…
I played in a lot of seedy games throughout the valley and throughout LA. I was playing with some very colorful, mobbed-up Russian guys and Armenian guys, and I learned a lot about cheating in those games.
I was a lone wolf and I had this skill set, but they didn't know that I had it, and I was witnessing deck-switches happening right in front of my eyes. I was witnessing bottom-dealing, second-dealing, false shuffles, and I figured out how to basically defend myself against it while still getting the benefit of a super big-action game. A lot of them couldn't figure out how they weren't cracking me.
There was a game in Glendale once that I'll never forget. It was a good game but I had to bring someone to get in it. I'd been hearing about this game, I wasn't sure if it was crooked or not, but I knew one of the guys who was playing in it and I definitely knew he was crooked, but he knew nothing about what I could do with a deck of cards.
I brought this doctor who was a young guy, just out of med school, he had some money and he was a little bit of a gambler. The first time we played, they fleeced him for a lot of dough, I could really tell that it stung him, and I felt bad about it, but they kept begging me to bring him back, so I brought him back the next time and I just knew they were going to bury this guy, they were going to take everything from him.
I decided to do what's called a ‘hold-out’, and I held out a couple of aces, and my goal was, I was going to win a bunch of this guy's money back for him.
Once you do a hold out then you have to do a ‘switch-out’ - you have to switch the aces with whatever cards you’re dealt. Well, I see the waitress coming in and they do a deck-switch. Nobody else notices it, but they were bringing in a cooler, and I knew that that cooler was meant to bust the rest of this guy's bankroll. And now I can't play these cards, because it would double up the cards in the deck, as I was holding out from the deck that they just switched out.
Well, one of the aces that I was holding hits the flop and I just made a decision to do an instant switch-out. I said, “What the f**k is going on?!?” and I threw my cards on the table, showing there were two ace of spades in the game.
One guy jumps up, you could see he had a gun and it was, like, a whole thing, but the doctor got out of the game without going dead broke.
A few days later I am driving home, and I'm being followed. I turn left, this car turns left, I turn right, he turns right. Finally, I just pull up to my driveway and I get out. It was one of the Russian guys from the game; I immediately recognized him.
I said, “Can I help you?” He said, “You forgot something when you left.” I said, “What's that?” and he hands me $10,000, the buy-in for the game. I said “Well, thank you.” He said, “You also forget everything else you saw.”
I said, “I don't remember a thing.”
Stay tuned for our exclusive video interview with Houston Curtis, available at PokerOrg this weekend. For more on the man himself, check out his website and YouTube channel, and follow him on X.
