Playing card slider

[MrMollusk]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1908466918/sliderdeck-card-dealer-for-wherever-you-go?ref=nav_search

Is taking one card off the deck really something that needs to be mechanized?

[fireshaper]

Reminds me of the dealing boxes they used in Faro back in the old west.



Maybe they are trying to sell this as an anti-cheating device since only one card is dealt at a time and you can't deal from the bottom.

[MrMollusk]

Reminds me of the dealing boxes they used in Faro back in the old west.



Maybe they are trying to sell this as an anti-cheating device since only one card is dealt at a time and you can't deal from the bottom.

The only problem with that is that the cheater would have to voluntarily use it.

And I know I'd be pretty insulted if someone asked me to use this in a card game.

[Don Boyer]

It's still a dealing shoe - just one that's designed for fewer decks.

And if he thinks that a dealing shoe can't be gimmicked, he's not very knowledgable about cheating techniques in card games.  I've seen shoes gimmicked specifically to allow the dealer to second-deal cards.

It's kind of silly, actually.  Let's take his points for using such a device.

We first got the idea back in college playing card games. We would use a casino style dealing shoe, only to realize that it was difficult to move and did not work very well with a single deck of cards.  Well, duh - unless you're playing blackjack or baccarat, a dealer's shoe is completely unnecessary.  It would need to be refilled after EVERY HAND.  That doesn't add up to convenient to me.

Playing with just a pile of cards in the middle of the table was not ideal because it would get knocked over and every once in a while a card could be seen.  First of all, no one just leaves the deck in the middle of the table!  The dealer keeps it away from the discards and the pot.  As far as flashing the bottom card - that's what cut cards are for!  Don't have one?  Use an ad card from the deck!

The reason deck shoes aren't good with a single deck is that they're used for games that require multiple decks.  The newest ones are pretty wild - they automatically reshuffle the discards with the cards already in the shoe, completely randomizing the cards every time they go in the shoe.  Totally thwarts any attempts at card counting, which relies on knowledge of the cards played and the cards remaining in the shoe.  Putting the played cards and mixing the order, done frequently, doesn't allow enough of the cards to pass through to give the card counter a base to work from to predict cards coming from the shoe.

Back to the point - I have never seen a poker game at a casino or elsewhere dealt from a shoe.  This is more like a solution that's looking for a problem that doesn't really exist.  If I had to work that hard to keep the players at my table honest, they wouldn't be playing at my table...  Shufflers make sense because not everyone can shuffle, but I've never met a person who couldn't deal.  Granted, a few of the dealers I've seen are slow and plodding, dealing the wrong cards to the wrong people, but this one-deck shoe isn't going to solve that problem at all.

[Fess]

This just makes no sense to me at all. Not even a little bit. Who would want to stuff this big rig into a backpack when you can just take a deck of cards in a tuck box? I don't think I'm the target audience for this product, which is kind of strange. I mean, I play with my cards daily and poker almost as often.

Maybe it's a display piece?

[Don Boyer]

This just makes no sense to me at all. Not even a little bit. Who would want to stuff this big rig into a backpack when you can just take a deck of cards in a tuck box? I don't think I'm the target audience for this product, which is kind of strange. I mean, I play with my cards daily and poker almost as often.

Maybe it's a display piece?

Not exactly.  You're actually supposed to use this.  A pack of cards fits in my pocket, easy-peasy.  This...THING...might fit rather uncomfortably in the cargo pocket of my BDU pants.  It's almost better to market it as a deck protector!

So far, it looks like most of the backing took place on the first day and it's been flat since.  Kicktraq is not predicting a pleasant fate for this project - it's trending to only 48% by the closing date.  Frankly, I don't see it even getting that far.

http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/1908466918/sliderdeck-card-dealer-for-wherever-you-go/

Like I said - it's the answer to a non-existent problem, rendering it pointless.  The convoluted logic that leads one to think that this is a necessity would make Rube Goldberg proud...

[Rob Wright]

Like I said - it's the answer to a non-existent problem, rendering it pointless.

Exactly.  It's just an acrylic dealer. You can get a 3 deck dealer on any poker supply site for half or less. Just cause it hold 3 decks, doesn't mean you have to put 3 decks in. Who the hell would use this for poker anyways? Nobody!

Now I can see something like fireshaper posted. Maybe someday someone will run a project with a Faro deck, board, and card dealer 

[Fess]

Maybe someday someone will run a project with a Faro deck, board, and card dealer 

I seem to remember someone trying something like that. I think the main sell was a poster or a board maybe. I don't recall 100%. I do remember it didn't go over well and wasn't what I wanted to play Faro with.

[fireshaper]

I think Faro would have to get a much larger following before a kickstarter would draw enough to pay for the project. Unless you can make it marginally historically accurate, not even the history buffs would want it. It would have to be an actual wooden board and could ter, not a poster.

[Don Boyer]

I think Faro would have to get a much larger following before a kickstarter would draw enough to pay for the project. Unless you can make it marginally historically accurate, not even the history buffs would want it. It would have to be an actual wooden board and could ter, not a poster.

...and all of that isn't necessary since we already have a Faro app online!  Furthermore, there's already a modern game that's close enough to Faro for most people.

There's a neighborhood poker game called "Hi-Lo" that has pretty much nothing to do with actual, traditional poker.  Take a shuffled and cut deck, flip a card, then guess if the next card is higher or lower in rank.  The pot is built with antes from all the players.  You bet before the guess, an amount not greater than the pot itself - win and you get a 2:1 payout, lose and your money goes in the pot.  Matching your first card's value with the second card is automatically a loss - it is neither low nor high.

Play continues until someone opts to bet "pot" on their guess and wins.  9 times out of ten, the game ends shortly after someone's first card is either very high or very low in value, preferably at the extreme end of the scale.  Aces are usually fixed at either the high or low end of the ranking scale and are not switchable - I think low is the more common.

The only major differences between Hi-Lo and Faro is that in Hi-Lo you're playing against your fellow players for the pot rather than against a dealer acting as the bank and there's no tote board to keep track of which cards have been used, forcing one to rely on their own memory.  Otherwise, they might as well be the same game.

[fireshaper]

Don,

So you're saying there's a chance! 

[Don Boyer]

Don,

So you're saying there's a chance! 

Sure - a snowball's chance on a warm day in Death Valley...  It's at less than a week remaining, funding is at 16% and trending to only 19% of goal.  I wouldn't want my life hanging on those odds...