View: 1oz silver coins are the ideal card protector

Allow me to preface by saying that if you are playing exclusively stud or draw, I don’t think a card protector should be used. They are best for flop games where the hole cards you start with are the hold cards you go to showdown with. If you are dealt a seventh street hole card or draw cards, you will need to remove your card protector from your cards and replace it during the hand, which will create additional layers of complexity in your required motions. If, however, you are playing a mix that includes both flop and other variants, I think a card protector is reasonable: its utility during the flop games will more than make up for its inconvenience during other games and it would be absurd to remove or introduce it every time the game changes.

Some players oppose card protectors because they either feel it will give them a recreational image or provide other players additional methods to spot tells.

Regarding the former, it is my belief that no player who cares about money should strive for an image that is anything other than that of a recreational player. If it is more important to you to be respected by “pros” than to generate the additional action that a recreational image might generate for you, then it seems you are playing less for money than for social validation, and I believe there are better past-times for that. Poker players seem generally more reluctant than the general population to offer compassion or respect to those they encounter. If your priority is social validation, I recommend conducting a search for local activities that include judgement free zones.

Regarding poker tells, it is something you can conceal if you are aware of it. If you favor a unexploitable approach to tells, you can practice placing the card protector on your cards the same way every time and if you prefer exploitative tell strategies, the card protector will provide you additional methods of exploitation.

Players use many objects to protect their cards, most commonly a poker chip that is in play. Although I participated in this practice personally for many years, I now see it as cheap and unsanitary. Poker chips are filthy pieces of plastic or clay that have been circulated for years among some of the grubbiest fingers you can imagine. I once witnessed a drunkard drop a rack of $2 chips in a urinal.

Anyone who has played poker long enough will develop the ability to roll a round disc over their knuckles and as I sat with my silver coin that I frequently roll over my own knuckles in a tournament the other day, I was struck by the unimpressive and unsanitary performance of another player performing the trick with a filthy tournament chip. Even if his technique was perfect, the performance would not have matched even a reasonably conducted performance with a 1oz silver coin.

A silver coin can be purchased in uncirculated condition and silver has anti-bacterial properties that make it a far more sanitary and impressive option than a poker chip. You may be surprised to learn that before the days of refrigeration, people placed silver coins in their milk jugs to prolong the shelf life of the milk. Even today, silver continues to be used in various medical applications for its anti-bacterial properties. Silver is also shiny and a unique color so it will never be mistaken for a poker chip. Furthermore, you will never forget the part of your stack that is being used as a card protector when you intend to declare yourself all-in through shoving your chips in the middle.

People use a variety of other objects for card protectors but many of these are awkward sizes that cannot be used for knuckle-rolls or other chip tricks, clutter the table, and are often more fragile than a silver coin that will maintain its form even if dropped on the floor or subjected to other abuses.

The 1oz coin size is ideal and there are countless mints that produce coins or rounds of the size, which allows individuals to select a coin or round that personally speaks to them. An ounce of silver is not so expensive that it would be a great tragedy if it is lost or stolen; I have seen some people use gold coins or bars as card protectors and it would be a great tragedy to lose something so precious. People should remain aware that casinos are magnets for some of the most desperate people in society and not leave obvious temptation within view. To demonstrate the depths to which some will sink, I once had a flip phone stolen by a woman off a table in a casino food court in full view of the security cameras. She was willing to risk barring and prosecution for the sake of a phone that might have been worth $25 at the time.

Yet, silver is still precious enough that it won’t look out of place, even in the grandest of cardrooms. I’ve seen two instances of an individual using a copper 1oz round as a card protector in the past month and both times, I was struck by not only the cheapness of the player, but their foolishness to invest in a coin that likely cost them a few dollars while only containing 25 cents or so of copper value. Plastic coins sold by poker vendors as card protectors are unlikely to contain any kind of groundbreaking poker witticism and will feel light and cheap in the player's hand. Chips from other casinos will likely be in the same circulated condition as the active chips in play and may be similar enough in color or design to be mistaken for such chips.

1oz silver coins, in every respect, seem optimal for the purpose of card protection.