Phantoms of the Card Table: Confessions of a Cardsharp

Book Description
Walter Irving Scott may have been the greatest card shark ever. In 1930, Scott bamboozled a room full of New York's finest card manipulators by dealing himself winning poker hands from a shuffled deck, one of his many tricks. He liked to say that he "cheated the cheats." His skill with cards was extraordinary and he soon became known as "The Phantom of the Card Table." That's why Gazzo, a magician from England, decided to track Scott down some 60 years later. The two became friends and Scott openly discussed his work with a view to its finally being published. "I don't care what you say," said Scott, "as long as you tell the truth." This is the truth about Walter Irving Scott and other phantoms of the card table who spent years practicing a craft they rarely talk about - cheating at cards. A special chapter revealing master card tricks is also included.


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Walter Irving Scott was the sharpest man to ever deal a card. Throughout the 1930s and '40s, he dazzled and frustrated fellow players by dealing himself winning hands from shuffled decks. Sixty years later, Gazzo, an expert magician with a specialty in cons and scams, tracked down the elusive Scott in a Rhode Island retirement home. This is his amazing story. Phantoms of the Card Table takes us into the hidden world of the professional cardsharp, telling the history and methods behind such moves as "The Take," "The Key," "The Sniff Peek," and of course -- "The Scott Bottom Deal." Seventy years ago, New York's finest magicians gathered to watch Walter Scott, and later paid handsomely to learn his secrets. Now, for the rest of us, the mysteries of the card table are finally laid bare.


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