Protection agains center deal cheating in card game?

Question

I'm writing a short article about some form of card game cheating and protectinga against it.

I'm unable to find any protection for center deal, where the dealer actually deals out card from the middle of the deck

If anyone knows, pls help me out here. Thank you

Answer 1

If you're playing against a card mechanic good enough to deal out of the center of the deck your best protection is to get out of the game.  A center deal may exist, but I'm willing to bet there are at most only 3 or 4 sharps in the world who could actually pull it off smoothly.

In the first video, Kif Chan (who's very good, I'll give him that,) is second-dealing, not center dealing.  You can see him make a move after he squares the deck that adds an extra cut.  As he pulls the cards off you can see him taking the cards from near the top, not the center, if you watch very closely.

I'll acknowledge that the second guy looks flawless, but I never entirely trust video footage.  Plus he is very hesitant when pulling the aces from the center.  A hesitation like that if he was playing in an actual poker game could prove fatal for him.  He also doesn't re-fan the deck at the end of the trick to show that the face up aces are actually gone.  (In fact he seems very careful to put the deck down very square.)  The other thing I'll note is that you don't see the entire deck face up.  There's a good chance he has another set of aces at the bottom of the deck and is bottom dealing from there.  

Remember, these guys are coming from the realm of sleight of hand and magic--NOT card mechanics.  It's just as possible they are "tricking" you into thinking they're dealing from the center.