Thoughts on 'Cold Culling' technique

Anyone that has seen Weapons of the Cardshark 2 knows I love me some cold culling (taking a random deck and securing a good poker hand in minimal time). In my years since putting out the DVD I’ve learned some tips that may help you along your track if you are playing with any type of cull.

In my opinion, there are three hands worth culling for any demonstration. Weak enough that you can cull them with speed, but powerful enough to leave an impression on the audience. They are: (1) a straight, (2) a flush, or (3) a full house. If I’ve learned anything in my years of doing this stuff, it’s that when spectators see one of these hands (during a culling demo) the rank doesn’t really compute. It just registers as a strong hand in their mind.

Now you may ask why I put them in that order? Well let’s take a look at the ranking of poker hands

Let’s focus on that middle row. So a straight is the weakest of the three, followed by a flush, followed by a full house.

So what am I getting at?

Well, let me ask you this. Why are these hands ranked the way they are? It all comes down to statistics. Out of 5 random cards, you are more likely to pull a straight than a full house because of the different combinations of cards that could make up the hand, therefore, a full house is harder to get and ranked higher.

So let's talk about this and how to apply it to culling:

Starting from the top, step one is to peek the top two cards. Because we are on a time crunch when we cull, we want to have as many options as possible when fishing through the cards.

Let’s say we spot a 6 and 8 of clubs.

When we cull, we should shoot for a straight. Why? Because it’s the easiest of the three hands to cull and these two cards can fit in one! It may be tempting to try and cull a flush but there are only 11 cards remaining in the deck for us to cull to make that hand. To cull a straight, there are 12 cards (5’s, 7’s, and 9’s) we can pull from. I know its close, but if it saves a second, it’s worth it!

So what if it’s a 4 and 9 of clubs?

We can’t make the straight by culling just 3 cards, so we shoot for the flush.

How about we spot a King of diamonds and a 4 of hearts?

What should we cull?

Obviously we can’t cull a straight or a flush so we would shoot for the full house. There’s only 6 cards remaining in the deck so it’s quite a gap from a straight or flush, but our next best option.

Applying this to Erdnase:

Of course it’s obvious to see how this can be used for methods of stocking, locating, and securing; but it is also can make for a great little demo when using Erdnase’ technique ”to ascertain the top cards while riffling and reserve them at bottom”. Just peak the bottom two cards and add as you can!