Sleight of Hand: Palming

This is the act of secretly hiding individual cards, moving them either from the deck onto one's person or one's hand or from one's person into one's hand or back into the deck.

Basic palming involves hiding a card in the palm of one's hand. A playing card can fit perfectly into the palm of one's hand, held at one end by the last bend of each finger and at the other end by the cup of the palm.

From the deck, the cheat may palm cards into shirt pockets, under the leg, onto the floor and covered by a foot, etc. From there, the cheat may bring the palmed card into play by adding it to his hand as an extra card, palming that hand's worst card into the place where the originally palmed card was being kept.

'Holding out' is the act of palming cards from the deck in between rounds. The dealer can hide these cards under items on the table or on one's person for use in this or a future hand. Because a quick count of the deck after a round would show that there are cards missing, the palmer may be required to re-introduce held-out cards back into the deck before giving it up to the next dealer.