Jump to content

Card sharp: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
Image:Falschspieler_Gerard_van_Honthorst.jpg
No edit summary
Line 169: Line 169:
[[Category:Cheating]]
[[Category:Cheating]]
[[Category:Card tricks]]
[[Category:Card tricks]]
[[de:Falschspiel]]

Revision as of 14:17, 2 December 2008

"Card shark" redirects here. For For the TV game show, see Card Sharks, see Card shark (disambiguation).
The Cardsharps, ca. 1594, by Caravaggio
Gerard van Honthorst: The Cardsharps

A card sharp (informally also cardsharp, card shark, cardshark) is a person who uses skill and deception to win at poker or other card games. Also known in card gaming jargon as a "mechanic", an older politically incorrect term is "greek".[citation needed]

The label is not always intended as pejorative, and is sometimes used to refer to practitioners of card tricks for entertainment purposes. In general usage, principally in American English and more commonly with the "shark" spelling, the term has also taken on the meaning of "expert card gambler who takes advantage of less-skilled players", without implication of actual cheating at cards (in much the same way that "pool shark" or "pool hustler" can (especially when used by non-players) be intended to mean "skilled player" rather than "swindler").

A card sharp (by either of the gambling-related definitions) may be a "rounder" who travels, seeking out high-stakes games in which to gamble. The 1998 film Rounders dramatically illustrates this lifestyle.

Methods

Card sharks who cheat or perform tricks use methods to keep control of the order of the cards or sometimes to control one specific card. Most, if not all, of these methods employ sleight of hand. Essential skills are false shuffles and false cuts that appear to mix the deck but actually leave the cards in the same order. More advanced techniques include culling (manipulating desired cards to the top or bottom of the deck), and stacking (putting desired cards in position to be dealt).[citation needed]

Dealing the cards can also be manipulated, by dealing either the bottom card from the deck or the second one from the top instead of the top card. These are called the bottom deal and the second deal respectively. Dealing may also be done from the middle of the deck, known as the middle deal or center deal, but this is not as common.[1] [2]

Entertainers' view

The use of these methods to actually cheat at cards is generally frowned upon by stage magicians, cardists and other card trick artists, as this associates practitioners as a class with swindling. In their card trick routines, however, they often use card sharping techniques that originated as cheating methods.

Etymology and usage

According to the prevailing etymological theory, the term "shark", originally meaning "parasite" or "one who preys upon others" (cf. loan shark), derives from German Schorke/Schurke ("rogue" or "rascal"), as did the English word "shirk[er]". "Sharp" developed in the 17th century from this meaning of "shark" (as apparently did the use of "shark" as a name for the fish), but the phrase "card sharp" prefigures the variant "card shark".[3][4][5][6][7] The original connotation was negative, meaning "swindler" or "cheat", regardless of spelling, with the more positive connotations of "expert" or "skilled player" arising later, and not supplanting the negative ones.[5][8][9][3] "Card sharp" and "card shark" are synonymous,[5][7][10][11][4] although American English is somewhat, but informally, beginning to favor "shark" as a positive term versus "sharp" as a negative one.[7][12][13] (However not even all American dictionaries agree with this,[5] and some suggest the opposite.)[14]

Film

Card sharps are common characters in caper films, since the questionable legality of their hobby also plays well with that of their occupation. Notable examples of such films are:

Television

  • Sanford and Son featured an episode where card sharps defeated Lamont at poker; while he went to get drinks, Fred was able (through a specially marked deck and one of his many pairs of reading glasses) to defeat the card sharps and win Lamont's money back.
  • Stage magician and actor Harry Anderson (of Night Court fame) made several appearances on Cheers as card sharp "Harry the Hat".
  • On Prison Break, the character Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell is an expert card sharp, to the point where "there are maybe five people in this country who can do what I do with a deck of cards"; while this may have been an exaggeration, T-Bag uses this skill successfully in the episode "Bluff".
  • On an episode of Friends, Ross was debating with his doppleganger Russ about the correctness of the term "card shark" vs. "card sharp".

See also

References

  1. ^ Maskelyne, John Nevil (1983). Sharps and Flats. Casino Press. ISBN 0-87019-049-0.
  2. ^ Johnson, Karl (2005). The Magician and the Cardsharp: The Search for America's Greatest Sleight-of-Hand Artist. Henry Holt and Co. ISBN 0805074066.
  3. ^ a b Harper, Douglas (2001). "Online Etymology Dictionary search results". EtymOnline.com. pp. entries "shark" &amp, "sharp". Retrieved 2007-07-08. – gives the negative meaning only, for both
  4. ^ a b Hawkins, Joyce M. (ed.) (1991). The Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary (hardback ed. ed.). New York: Clarendon Press. pp. p. 1334. ISBN 0-19-861248-6. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); |first= has generic name (help); |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) – gives only the negative meaning for both; labels negative verb "to sharp" archaic.
  5. ^ a b c d Chapman, Robert L. (ed.) (1983). New Dictionary of American Slang. New York: Harper & Row. pp. p. 380. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); |pages= has extra text (help) – gives both positive and negative meanings for both "shark" and "sharp", labels them synonymous in this context, and indicates that positive sense of "shark" arose much later than the negative meaning, and later than it did for "sharp"
  6. ^ Partridge, Eric (1983). Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English. New York. pp. p. 614. ISBN 0-517-414252. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |Publisher= ignored (|publisher= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) – gives only negative meaning for "shark", and gives "sharper" as synonymous, without addressing the shorter form "sharp"
  7. ^ a b c McKechnie, Jean L. (ed.) (1971). Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. pp. 274, 1668. ISBN 0-671-41819-X. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); |pages= has extra text (help) – gives both meanings for both terms and even for the obsolete "sharker", but provides only the swindler definition for "card sharp" and both definitions for the "card shark" version, thus contradicting itself at the "sharp" entry
  8. ^ Onions, C.T. (ed.) (1994). The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (hardback ed. ed.). New York: Oxford at the Clarendon Press. pp. p. 817. ISBN 0-19-861112-9. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); |first= has generic name (help); |pages= has extra text (help) – gives only the negative meaning for both "shark" and "sharp"
  9. ^ Weekley, Ernest (ed.) (1911). New Gem Dictionary of the English Language. London: Collins. pp. p.418. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) – current around time that "shark" gained a positive sense, gives only negative meaning for both
  10. ^ Kipfer, Barabara Ann (ed.) (1999). Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus in Dictionary Form (Second Ed. (paperback ver.) ed.). New York: Dell Publishing. pp. pp. 306, 786. ISBN 0-440-23513-8. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); |pages= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) – gives both meanings for both
  11. ^ "Dictionary.Reference.com search results". Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Lexico Publishing Group. 2007. pp. "sharp" dfn. 36 &amp, 37, "shark" dfn. 2-1 &amp, 2–2. Retrieved 2007-07-08. – gives both meanings for both, with negative meaning being primary for both, positive meanings informal
  12. ^ Soukhanov, Anne H. (sr. ed.) (1994). Webster's II: New Riverside Dictionary (hardback ed. ed.). Boston: Riverside Pub. Co. pp. p. 1072. ISBN 0-395-33957-X. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); |pages= has extra text (help) – gives both for "shark", only negative for "sharp" and "sharper"
  13. ^ Guralnik, David B. (ed.) (1982). Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language (Revised) (Revised Ed. (paperback ver.) ed.). New York: Warner Books. pp. p. 547. ISBN 0-446-31450-1. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help); |pages= has extra text (help) – gives both for "shark", only negative for "sharp"
  14. ^ "American Heritage Dictionary of the English language (online Fourth Ed.)". Bartleby.com. Houghton Mifflin. 2000–2006. pp. "sharp" dfn. noun 3 &amp, "shark" dfn. noun 2. Retrieved 2007-07-08. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link) – gives both meanings for both, with positive being primary for "sharp" but negative for "shark"
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Card_sharp&oldid=255419303"