Used to be called a "shiner".
this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2026
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Pretty sure I first read that term in "Moonraker."
I read that book in 3rd Grade. Say what you want, Ian Fleming got a lot of people to read books.
edit = I changed it from 'Goldfinger.'
It was in Moonraker as well. The book opens with M using Bond to catch Hugo Drax cheating at bridge in M's club.
Thank you!
It's crazy how the mind works. I haven't read either book in years, but I remembered that Goldfinger was cheating at cards. The second I read your comment the whole thing came flooding back.
I'll have to look it up, but I'm pretty sure that Drax was using a cigarette case.
I edited my comment.
I think the cigarette case is right. Because Drax never picked it up, but took smokes from his jacket.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/matt-helm-death-of-a-citizen-donald-hamilton/30ee760873254c64
Matt Helm books by Donald Hamilton. 1960s action / espionage stories. Helm is an assassin, pure and simple. A lot rougher and more realistic than Bond. Nothing like the Dean Martin movies of the same name.
I just watched The Wrecking Crew last night. 🙄
Look up 'Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill!'
A porno with no nudity and a biker movie with no motorcycles.
Three crazy hot go-go dancers jump into sports cars and leave the locals stunned.
The movie Dean Martin wished he could be in
Love me some Russ Meyer!
How do those compare to Le Carré’s George Smiley books?
The Helm books are straight up thrillers with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
If you want something more intellectual, try Alan Furst. His books are all set in the WW2 era. What I like about Furst is that his heroes aren't clones. His French film producer has nothing in common with his Dutch sea captain or his Hungarian count.
For some reason, his publisher put numbers on the books, but they are all stand alones.
'Night Soldiers' is about a Bulgarian fisherman who gets recruited by the KGB after his kid brother is killed by a Fascist mob.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/night-soldiers-a-novel-alan-furst/950ca5867ee0f110
That sounds awesome. Thanks for the rec
The other big life lesson from Moonraker was how to check Vodka for wood alcohol:
Drop some cracked black pepper in the glass, if it floats you may proceed with caution. If it sinks use it to clean engine components or something.
I was in a former SSR with my family shortly after '91. My father bought a bottle of vodka off the street. I told him about the Bond Test, applied it, and those grains sank like fishing weights.
I said "I'm not touching that shit", my dad said "it's just a book, whatever, it tastes ok"
He spent the night vomiting and saying that his eyes hurt.
Very useful book, Moonraker.
Oh, and Blades is a real place, it's a club on Mayfair about 2km from Buckingham palace. I walked past it more than once after dark and it sure sounded like people were getting drunk and gambling in there.
For future reference, the treatment for methanol poisoning is to drink ethanol.
We had this book at home when I was in grade school. I remember thumbing through it once or twice, but I was too young and knew I'd never get to those places on my milk money.
Probably incredibly dated, but sounds like you might enjoy it.
Ooh cool thanks!
Neat! But I feel like this also wasn't as obvious about the actual cheating part, because they were just dealing into a single pile. But I assume the point of the technique is that I'd be dealing out poker hands to each player, or some other card game, and if I had a memory trained for this kind of thing I'd be able to remember what each person had. Is that right?
It wouldn't be about choosing which cards go where, because that would make my dealing look really erratic, but instead just knowing what people have, so I can bet appropriately?
If you want to educate yourself, pretty much the entire plot of Casino Royale is a poker game. Other films include Maverick, The Cincinnati Kid, and my favorite A Big Hand For The Little Lady.
Rounders
Good shout for Cincinnati Kid, the theme song is ... out of date, but it sucks any idea of romance of being a pro gambler right out.
(Ditto Rounders).
I hated the Casino Royale movie because they were like "oh Bond is really good at poker that's why he won", where in the books it's made very clear that Bond is a cheater himself. He brought a waxed, stacked deck to the game with Drax, he got invited to the game because they needed a more skilled card cheat to pinch Drax.
Also, one of the gamblers in the casino scene is named Mister Fukuda, and he wasn't smoking. Look, I've spent more time in card rooms than was sensible, and if you're at the table with a Fukuda-san, that man is a chimney.
Could not maintain suspension of disbelief.
He brought two stacked decks. One red and one blue because he didn't know which color they would play with. Then got fucked up on benzadrine and champagne because why the fuck not.
Oh yeah right!
Rounders was great until Teddy kgb (Malkovich) missed Matt Damon's character's obvious slow play of the winning hand in the climax.
Baccarat in the book.
Oui.
Maverick
So... Just never look at my cards and pray I get lucky? How is that cheating?
And what if I am not the dealer? 🤨
You probably need to be able to deal yourself the good ones, in addition to this.
Knowing what cards your opponent has is a huge enough advantage
Exactly. This way you know when one of them is bluffing or not. Leveraging an advantage like that is huge in poker.
Not really.
You don't want to win every hand, you want to win often enough that you can keep coming back.
For example, the Allies had broken the Axis codes and knew when and where they'd attack. The problem they had was that if they prevented every attack, sooner or later the Axis would figure out their messages were being intercepted and change codes.
Not needed, the recent cosa nostra poker scam used a fair shuffler in terms of arranging the cards, but gave a controller behind the scenes the hands.
He then relayed specific instructions to the NBA coaches and athletes in the games coaching them on how to bet.
In a game like bridge, just tracking aces and faces as they go out would be a HUGE advantage.