Home-game Cheating Awareness, Part III : Important Facts About Poker Cheats(2)

Low stakes won't discourage cheaters. Some cheaters are more driven by the challenge of tricking others than by profit. They can't play without the thrill of changing the game's course to their advantage and winning. Most home cheaters look for home games in which there is a balance between the profit stakes and the ability for the other players to catch the cheater. Therefore, keep in mind that even when playing for pennies, you might be hosting a cheater who just likes fooling everybody.
Cheaters will try to continue playing after being caught. Even after an embarrassing moment at your poker night, the cheater will continue trying to get invited to future games, especially because they will always deny their involvement, and expressing any kind of shame by not coming back would be like admitting the suspicion was accurate.
Cheaters won't get scared when warned by a knowledgeable host. If you ever thought that warning a cheater that you know what they are up to could deter him/her, you will only be daring the cheater to improve. Therefore, don't make the mistake of waking the cheating beast!
According to Richard Marcus, the cheating technique that wins the #1 prize in home games is marking cards.
Marcus claims that nowadays, the marking trend for home cheaters involves a Mission Impossible style move: buying several new decks, taking the cards out without damaging the plastic packages or the sealing blue sticker on the box openings, marking the cards, putting everything back, and ironing the plastic cellophane wrappings to seal the decks back. Then, the cheats take the decks to a store near the game's location, especially a store that stays open until late, and when the vendor is distracted, the cheaters replace the new decks with the marked ones. Then, at the game, the cheater goes on "tilt" and tears the cards in their bad hands out of apparent frustration. When all the decks available at the host's house are ruined, someone will try to go and buy a deck at the nearest store, the one that is open until late and is now selling the marked decks. And to everybody's surprise, there is no more deck tearing by the cheater for the rest of the game, only the tearing through everybody's stacks.
Therefore, it is important for game hosts to know how far cheating players are willing to expend time and energy for the thrill of fooling everyone, even close friends. Hopefully your own cheater's secrets have been exposed in this article, and you will be able to expel them from your home poker fun.