Check specs for a real bluff

Casper Greeff: Back in the day, comic books carried mail-order adverts for a range of incredible products, one of them was X-Ray Specs. The illustration for the ad was the face of a teenage boy wearing a huge grin and a pair of X-Ray Specs, from which shot black lightning bolts - clearly X-Rays. In front of the kid was the silhouette of a woman whose body he was apparently viewing through her clothes.

"Scientific optical principle really works," read the copy. "Imagine," the spiel continued, "you put on the 'X-Ray' specs and hold your hand in front of you. You seem to be able to look right through the flesh and see the bones underneath. Look at your friend. Is that really his body you 'see' under his clothes? Loads of laughs and fun at parties. Send only $1 and 25c shipping fee."

X-Ray Specs were, of course, hokum. The lenses consisted of two layers of cardboard with a small hole punched through both layers. A feather was embedded between the layers of each lens, and the vanes of the feathers were so close together that light was diffracted, causing the user to receive two slightly offset images, one darker than the other. The darker image was meant to be the one revealed by the "X-Rays".

X-Ray Specs were invented by an American, Harold von Braunhut, who held 195 patents for various products, including Amazing Sea Monkeys and Invisible Goldfish - non-existent goldfish that remained truly invisible.

In addition to being a mail-order mogul and inventor extraordinaire, Braunhut raced motorcycles under the name "The Green Hornet" and managed a showman who dived 12minto a wading pool filled with water less than 300cm deep.

Despite being Jewish, Braunhut was a white supremacist who bought weapons for the Ku Klux Klan, and in an interview referred to the "inscrutable, slanty eyes" of Korean shop-owners. He died on November 28 2003 at the age of 77.

You don't see X-Ray Specs advertised any more, but nowadays you can buy products that allow you to look into the minds of others, that enable you to see clearly through their attempts at deception - if you're an online poker player, that is.

We're talking about poker analytics tools, also known as data tracking software. The two acknowledged kings in this field are Hold'Em Manager and PockerTracker, and if you are serious about online poker you need to install one of them on your PC, otherwise you just won't have the edge.

All online poker sites record every hand played by every player, and poker analytics tools mine this information, import it to your screen in real time, and analyse it for you. Which means that you can click on an opponent, and your software will tell you how often and with what range of cards (s)he cold-calls, folds, 3-bets, 4-bets, squeezes, steals blinds, limps, bullies, check-raises, and so on. Information of this kind is invaluable.

So remember, when playing online, always keep it real because I can see right through you.