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How to Cheat Your Friends at Poker: The Wisdom of Dickie Richard [Paperback]

Penn Jillette (Author), Mickey D. Lynn (Author)
2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Jillette (the Penn of Penn & Teller) and his pseudonymous poker-cheating guru, Dickie, begin by saying that anyone who loves playing poker should "throw this book away." Readers will find no better advice. The dubious premise is that Dickie took Penn under his wing when Penn was 18, and as a favor, he has agreed to publish the card sharp's book. But calling the wit and wisdom of Dickie Richard sophomoric is far too kind. More accurate descriptions would be amoral ("Morality is what you make of it"), , scabrous and without redeeming social value. And the book is marred by obscenities, class insults and a machismo that would be comical if it weren't so vulgar ("If you are going to cheat, whip out your prick and cheat like a man"). If this was meant to be a joke, it's not funny. And if it's meant seriously, then the book itself is a cheat: when you're done with it, you still won't really know how to cheat at poker. (Oct. 5)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description

Poker-mania is sweeping the nation, from the World Championship of Poker to internet poker and power poker. But home poker games shouldn't just be about winning: they're about stripping your opponents bare without their ever suspecting a thing. Teaming up with Mickey Lynn, Penn Jillette gives a home poker player everything he needs to know in one tidy volume. Lousy with attitude, stylish with swagger, How to Cheat Your Friends at Poker delivers a lifetime's worth of card-shark knowledge, including how to:
--pick your marks
--mark cards
--use "shiners" to keep track of other player's hands
--cut cards
--stash holdouts
This is not a book about how to play poker-the shelves are already full of those-it's about how to cheat, make money, and win big. If you're in the game, you're either a fish or a shark. How to Cheat Your Friends at Poker is the ultimate shark's playbook.
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Product Details

  • Paperback: 272 pages
  • Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (October 3, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0312360681
  • ISBN-13: 978-0312360689
  • Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #891,110 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Penn Jillette
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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nonstandard hand, widow cards, cheat your friends, overhand shuffle, real deck, community card, tough money, card cheat, hole cards, marked cards, bad beat, advantage play, cold deck, starting hand, card stud, big blind
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Limit Hold, New Hampshire, Big Mistake, Julia Roberts, Atlantic City
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Customer Reviews

17 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
2.4 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars hilarious and insightful, December 19, 2005
By Bradley Monton (Boulder, CO United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: How to Cheat Your Friends at Poker: The Wisdom of Dickie Richard (Hardcover)
This is a hilarious book. As Penn Jillette explains at the beginning, Penn (ostensibly) met Dickie Richard when Penn was hitchhiking as a teenager, and Dickie taught Penn everything Dickie knew about how to cheat at cards. Penn himself isn't a card cheat, doesn't condone card cheating, and feels bad about publishing this book. But Penn owed Dickie a favor, and Dickie wanted his memoirs published, so Penn agreed. The memoirs were horribly written so Penn and his co-author rewrote them. The bulk of the book, then, is a first-person narrative from Dickie about how he cheats at poker.

Dickie explains that you could cheat in a casino, but it's too hard. Instead Dickie shows up in a town, makes "friends", and then plays poker with them, takes their money, and skips town. Dickie cheats any way he can -- from bottom dealing to marking cards to simply walking out the door with the cash box. Dickie's descriptions of what he does are amusing yet appalling -- he is a sociopath and an egomaniac, and yet he manages to be so entertaining, you can't help liking him (a bit).

Is Dickie a real person? I highly doubt it. As Penn tells us at the beginning, Dickie is a "fictional" character -- that's a big clue that you shouldn't take the narrative veridically. Does this book teach you how to cheat at poker? Kind of. It doesn't actually teach you how to bottom deal, for example, but Dickie correctly says that you can learn that from any standard magic book. It doesn't teach you a system to follow for marking cards, but Dickie correctly says that you wouldn't want to follow a standard system, since that would make your cheating easier to detect.

As I see it, the point of this book isn't to teach you how to cheat -- though you might learn about how to detect cheaters (even though Dickie insists that's not a goal of the book). The book is a novel about a card cheater. Dickie epitomises an amoral, larger-than-life showman who lives life to its fullest. I get the sense that Dickie represents a somewhat darker side of Penn. Penn manipulates cards -- and people -- to entertain others and make money. That's what being a professional magician is all about. Dickie manipulates cards and people to make money -- the entertainment comes in being able to read about it.
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19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing and entertaining in one swoop, October 17, 2005
By Kevin Casey (Orlando, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: How to Cheat Your Friends at Poker: The Wisdom of Dickie Richard (Hardcover)
If you want to learn how to palm cards, uncut a deck, deal from the bottom, the second or any other part of the deck this book is not for you. In fact, in the first chapter the book cuts through those lessons by recommending you to purchase "Expert at the card table" by Erdnase to learn all those moves as "he can teach you better than I ever could.."
The book is basically stories about a card cheat and his experiences over thirty years and if it teaches anything its how to scam people for extra money when you are already an accomplished card cheat and how to find games and not get the life kicked out of you on a daily basis. Ok so after reading the book you aren't ready to go out and take on the world as a card cheat nor do you learn much more about poker. What you do get is a pretty entertaining read about the life of a card cheat and the situations they end up in. If you are looking for a factual "how to" guide then look elsewhere. If you are a poker fan and looking for an entertaining novel this is the book for you. Do I feel cheated ? Yes :) Its not what I paid for. Would I wipe the book from my memory for a refund? Probably not.
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17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Think before buying, March 17, 2006
By Charles Sumner (Stoneham, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: How to Cheat Your Friends at Poker: The Wisdom of Dickie Richard (Hardcover)
As a fan of Penn & Teller's other books, I was going to buy this, but in reading parts of it in a bookstore, I discovered that it's not the fun, clever, amusing book about tricks you could use to cheat at cards or even ways to have fun with your friends at a poker night.

This book is a dark and seedy account about the life of a professional (and possibly fictional) poker cheater. There's nothing wrong with that, but it wasn't the book I thought it was going to be so I wanted to post a warning to make sure you knew what you were getting.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Disturbing portrait of a sociopath
Warning - if you like Penn & Teller, or poker, or both, and you think the cutesy title sounds like fun - do not pick up this book. It's a fictional(? Read more
Published 4 months ago by Caribbeing

1.0 out of 5 stars What a waste of time
I paid $1.00 for this book off the discount rack and I'm pretty sure I overpaid. What a complete waste of time. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Jeremy H

5.0 out of 5 stars great book
This book is SO funny! One of the few books I have laughed out loud while reading.
Published on May 18, 2008 by Katherine T. Rettke

5.0 out of 5 stars Disturbing, yes. But very good to know!
It begins as I'd expect from Penn Jillette: a tongue-in-cheek romp with a dash of course language, and it's funny for those not offended. Read more
Published on September 25, 2007 by John

1.0 out of 5 stars Odiousness Cubed
It may well be that the real Penn Jillette is an admirable human being, a thoughtful, kind, generous and honorable man--honorable like Brutus and Cassius and all the rest, all,... Read more
Published on July 22, 2007 by L. E. Cantrell

1.0 out of 5 stars Repellent
You really have to wonder how a person like "Dickie Richards" could exist, or why, if he's fictional, anyone would think that a book by such a character would be funny... Read more
Published on December 29, 2006 by Mark Wilden

1.0 out of 5 stars Just Plain Stupid
Unless you are thrilled by crude language don't bother,as this book really doesn't offer anything else. i read it as i am a penn + Teller fan but it was very disappointing.
Published on July 17, 2006 by Cinders

1.0 out of 5 stars Worthless!
My advice, Go spend MUCH LESS on Expert At The Card Table and keep this Penn & Teller related JUNK on the bookstore shelf.
Published on June 19, 2006 by King of Cards

2.0 out of 5 stars not worth buying
this book is not worth buying at all. it seems that the author is cocky and stroking his own ego with some of his stories. the information in this book is not useful... Read more
Published on June 8, 2006 by Gregory C. Junge

2.0 out of 5 stars Not a Penn & Teller book
Unlike "How to play in traffic" or "how to play with your food" this book is neither funny nor a Penn & Teller book. Read more
Published on April 22, 2006 by An avid movie buff

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