In the grand old days of Thayer Magic, the company sold a Gambling Demonstration Act, a special table that supported a felt-covered board. You would show various gimmicks, including a fake Holdout, explain about the art of second dealing, and then a servante in the back of the table allowed you to switch the deck so your “deals” were perfect. The whole thing was a con game... about con games.
This routine was inspired by Norberto Jansenson’s marketed effect, Poison Poker, a poker deal that was arranged—with his typical panache—around the story. It suggested this almost impromptu variation, and I discussed it with Jansenson, working out details over a Zoom call during the pandemic. It’s very satisfying to an audience in the spirit of Thayer’s table: a con game about cheating.
Sketch Poker is a very simple routine that “demonstrates” card cheating, but unlike a lot of gambling demonstrations, you’re not actually pretending to do moves, you’re explaining why you don’t do them. And then, by the end, you’ve managed to set up a perfect hand in an unexpected way. The title is an acknowledgment that the game is “sketch,” but also that the entire effect is a pretty loose sketch—fuzzy details—of cheating techniques.