Star City's Shoes
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The poker tables at the Star City Casino employ a modified version of the traditional blackjack shoe. It's a one-deck shoe that sits in the middle of the poker table. After a dealer takes the deck of cards out of the automatic shuffler in the table, he places them in the shoe. He then slides each card off the shoe and pushes it to the receiving player, with the card never catching air, effectively eliminating the likelihood that the cards are ever exposed.
In our estimation, one thing that the shoe sacrifices for its ability to never expose a card is speed. When dealers employ the traditional "pitch" method of dealing cards, they are able to deal out a hand much faster than when using the "shoe" method. But Tournament Director Danny McDonagh told us he's never seen an exposed card during a session at Star City, having logged far more than his fair share since the shoe was invented and patented by a pair of Star City dealers a few years ago.