I'd check on the legality of making a secret recording before taking a video. Lots of states have statutes about improper photography that include getting consent from the person/people involved.

DrStrange

I can't imagine a scenario where he sees the video and offers restitution. The claim that he is struggling financially makes it even more unlikely. Dr Strange also brings up a good point about legality. Just doesn't seem worth it at all. OP needs to move on.

The villain was cheating in hero's house so I wouldn't think hero could get into too much trouble for just taping, but who knows. That is a good point that there could be legal issues if he posted it online or did anything too fun with it.

So this guy has been using you all as his personal ATM and you are too scared of confrontation. Wouldn't happen in my circles.

This is a pretty amazing story for so many reasons. I think if I found out I would be so pissed the municipal cop scene from rounders would happen.

However, I would love to see you exact revenge by giving this guy a taste of his own medicine. Work with a few other guys to cheat this guy back. Every time it's his deal, let him cheat but give him minimal action. Find a way to see his hole cards or signal the other players your hand values so you can slowly win back your money.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cnQlz0ZHG4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63jgfmgqkO0

I have some information to add, as I was the one who noticed Mr. X's shenanigans this past weekend and brought it to Movado's attention.

I have known Movado for 5+ years and have played in his game several times, but I am far from a regular. I have never played at any of the other houses in the rotation of his "crew". His description of the game as very friendly, casual and social is accurate from my vantage point. I do not know the exact specifics of how everyone knows each other, but my understanding is that all these guys know each other from work, college, etc.

I do not recall playing against Mr. X until the last few sessions at Movado's. I have only logged about 5-6 hours total playing against him before noticing the cheating last week. Frankly, I am absolutely shocked this was not caught earlier. As Movado mentioned, Mr. X hit quads early on in the night. I do not recall him hitting a hand of this strength in the time I played with him, but I do remember him getting lucky several times on the river with Ax calling down against KK only to spike an A on the river or hitting runner runner baby flush against a flopped set. After Mr. X showed his quads, others in the room started making comments like "quads again? you hit quads last week!" "Mr. X is a lucky SOB" etc. I noticed he was dealing this particular hand. I made a note to watch him very close the rest of the night.

Mr. X hit quads in the small MTT (2 tables) that kicked off the night's festivities. I busted from the tournament and ended up playing cash for a while. Once the tournament ended, the remaining players joined the cash game. Mr. X was seated at my table. On his first deal, he dealt the cards out and instead of placing the deck on the table, he held them sideways in his hand and was clearly looking at the bottom card.

Sidenote: No cut cards is an absolute fail. I actually asked "where are the cut cards?" at the beginning of the night but was told it was OK without them and we had 2 decks and cut them anyways, so no worries. I wasn't really concerned with mechanical cheating, but more so with the fact that there are few lesser experienced players who play and flash the bottom card of the deck when they deal. Whatever...back to Mr. X...

I witnessed Mr. X look at the bottom card of the deck while holding it sideways and then he used his thumb on one corner of the deck to quickly and discreetly peel through the deck and look at the order of the cards. He was clearly looking at the runout. Additionally, the bottom of the deck was originally the 3 of spades (cut card fail!)...a few seconds later, it was the Q of diamonds...then it was the 4 of clubs...Mr. X was moving cards around in the deck. The best way to describe his method is similar to how some people can pull 1 chip out from between 2 other chips, and place it back in-between. He was extremely quick with this. It almost looked like he was shuffling the cards? It was clear he was manipulating the runout to benefit his hand. I folded pre.

Why didn't I say something right then and there? First of all, I wasn't 100% sure of what I had seen and wanted another instance of proof before alerting Movado, the host. Secondly, as Movado has mentioned, this dude is not some scrawny punk. He is ex-military and looks to be built like a rock. I am not the tiniest person myself, but I had absolutely no interest in any physical altercation with this person. I do not know Mr. X outside this card game, but from his looks he seems like someone that could potentially blow a situation up into something very serious. Also, you can conceal and carry in IL...this was a friendly game, but I don't really know most of these people, and you never know...so I sat on my info for another orbit.

On Mr. X's next deal, I witnessed the same behavior. At this point, I texted Movado, who was at the same table, to watch Mr. X the next time he dealt to confirm if he saw what I was seeing. Unfortunately, we were combining tables and Movado had to wait a little while to see anything. About 30 min later, Mr. X was dealing and was more blatant in his actions than before. Movado and at least 1 other player noticed it this time, which we confirmed away from the table. At this point, I no longer had any interest in playing and racked up and left the game.

From my perspective, I was not hosting the game, I am not a regular, and I did not want to start ****. I alerted Movado of what I saw and once he confirmed it, I left it up to him as to what course of action he and the rest of the crew wanted to take.

Mr. X is an extreme action player. He raises at least 50% of the time preflop and rarely, if ever folds in all positions. This allowed his cheating to blend in, as he plays garbage and catches cards from everywhere. Still...I am shocked that no one watched him this closely earlier, especially after reading Movado's thread from a year ago.

I am still wondering if he had a partner in crime...I did not witness anything in this regard but naturally I am still skeptical. Mr. X seemed friendlier with some players and constantly took smoke breaks with 1-2 guys in particular...who knows.

I'm sure I am forgetting some of the details, but thought I'd jump in here and add what I can to Movado's OP.

i mean don't rule out the type of person that would perfect this skill just to deploy at homegames. probably half the reason he plays at this particular homegame is the naivety of the players. they said he's been playing there for a couple years you know how much 1000s he's conned them out of ? real class act this guy. the type that back in teh day you'd break a few of their fingers and sending them on their way (no joke) this **** wasn't taken lightly in the early days of home gambling.

anyways sounds like we have a grade A cheat on our hands.

I have to see video of this guy in action.

Maybe he is just that good.

It sounds like something that should be caught in 5 minutes, but presumably intelligent and experienced poker players didn't notice anything for 5 years.

Interesting thread. Mr. X having PTSD combined with possibly being armed, being physically intimidating, ex military etc is a hell of a combo.

Then throw in the employer/employee dynamic and it is a complete s***show.


Mr. X winning $2k in 3 sessions of $.50/1 is enough to make me never play in this game anyway. I just would call it quits after 3 sessions and assume somethings up.

I had a boat counterfeited in my first hand at a home game years ago and I immediately said something. I ended up looking like an ass because I was an outsider and they ended up being legit, but they respected me after I continued to play on a weekly basis and I admitted I was wrong. Hell, half of them said they didn't blame me for thinking that something was up on my first hand($800 pot).

Good luck op. Lot of money stolen over 5 years.

Your post called out to my dark side. I don't take disrespect kindly. If you can cool it, I can cool it.

I agree with you that the story is weird. But I can also see that it goes back years on this forum, and one of the major issues seems to be trust among "friends" leading to really lax everything.

The dealing and card-handling procedures are sloppy. Everyone's just having a good time and not watching each other at all. Even after he smokes them with a disproportionate number of big hands, they don't want to suspect him, so they don't ever tighten up or start watching him.

It's evident in the first post Movado made about this. He was absolutely certain this guy wasn't cheating, while myself and others were screaming it from the rooftops. It took a new player with a fresh pair of eyes to catch it.

It may take some skill and a dash of natural talent to cheat like this, but it's not that difficult. I know because I could do it myself. It's basic sleight of hand. It's especially easy if his entire audience refuses to consider the possibility that what he's doing isn't magic/chance.

Doing what was described in Limon's Pokersesh is NOT easy and is NOT "basic slight of hand." It takes thousands of hours of practice. That's not even debatable.

Sloppily fishing through the stub and slipping desirable cards into position at the top so they fall on the board does not take very much practice. Remember, he didn't get away with it because he was especially talented or using a good method. He got away with it because the house procedures were even sloppier than he was.

More than that, you can't know that he doesn't have that practice anyway. Playing cards is a classic military pastime. This guy has probably had far more hours with cards than you give him credit for. I wouldn't be surprised if he cut his teeth cheating his unwary army buddies.

There's seriously no way to try to not be "mean" by saying this. And I'm not a beat around the bush kinda guy, so I'll call it like I see it. If he was sloppily fishing through the deck for YEARS and took THOUSANDS from people without them noticing, then they are partly (and I'm being generous by saying partly) to blame. Of course they didn't deserve it. That's a given. But come on now....I could be drunk as a skunk and see a sloppy manipulation of the deck.

No doubt. That's not mean; it's an honest criticism. Sloppy procedures and inattention are what allowed this low-rent thief to get away with his cheating n the first place. Misplaced trust is what allowed him to thrive for so long. It's a harsh and expensive lesson, but a lesson just the same.

what was limons sesh?

i mean i laughed pretty hard at the quads 3-4 in one session. then the comment 'he had quads last week' 'ya he's pretty lucky' etc

i mean i understand this is a plight for op but it's quite comical in a sense.

I agree with you on this. It does almost seem too much to totally believe. This had to be a very unaware and oblivious crew to not spot this and take action sooner. The lack of basic shuffling and dealing controls are also a big reason this Mr X prospered for so long. He did not have to be that good (just basic skills) to avoid detection and action under those circumstances.

A lesson for certain. Actually a lesson for all hosts/players who post here. I really don't see how this would not wreck this home game or at least change it so drastically that many will move on. I know I would feel really bad for being so used as a "mark" , and being responsible for letting it go on month after month as a host.Guess we will see.

Anyway of either turning the sting back on him to get your money back, or just get it on camera and go to the police (no idea what your laws are so mb this isnt an option)? Just suxks that if this was anything but a poker game he'd be getting jail time, but poker cheats seem to just get sternly asked to leave.

I reckon you should let everyone in on it, double the game stakes, and start cheating the cheater for as much as you can.

You accused them of cheating after one hand??? Even more shocking is that you were invited back to the game.

I had to swing the hammer a bit in this thread - I removed a post that was out of line and edited/deleted some of the responses to it. I left the posts in place that contributed to the conversation.

Take it easy, everyone. You can tell OP what you think he did wrong without being a jerk about it.

It's wrong to cheat a cheater, you would be just s bad as him. Boot him from the game, make sure others hear what he did. If a guy is going to cheat in cards then he is just aswell going to steal money from your house. You want no part of him, both in games and socially. You can't go to the police for cheating in cards

I don't agree that it's wrong to cheat a cheater. In fact, that's perhaps one of the only appropriate forms of retribution. By violating the sanctity of a person's home and property, he forfeits the sanctity of his own. Given how much he's stolen, I wouldn't judge someone for stealing his car or draining his bank account at this point.

But that said, I don't think it would be a good or productive thing for the group to do, especially if Mr. X has a family or other people who rely on him. (I don't recall off the top of my head.) He's either a troubled person with some serious deficiencies that he needs to deal with, or he's a total sociopath who ought to be left in the desert without a horse.

Either way, they'd do best to simply cut him out and never interact with him again.

I'm actually surprised at how nice most posters have been to OP. Let's be honest, this is an absurd thread discussing an absurd group of "players" who really only have themselves to blame. Not to mention seem clueless about how to play poker for real money.

I almost chimed in earlier myself. It is pretty shocking to me that several people suspected cheating after the thread from a year or so ago and OP didn't figure this out and take action sooner.

Honestly I would have waited for any more "proof" than that the guy got an unusual number of big hands, especially when he was dealing. Once I got suspicious that he even might be cheating, he would be uninvited any games I hosted. This should not be an "innocent until proven guilty" situation - no one has a civil right to play poker in your home.

You said it best in your last line, cut him loose and don't interact with him.

You do have a point about cheating a cheater, a good case can be made I think. But I would take the low road and cutem him loose.

I remember in the pre holdem days of dealers choice limit poker. Someone who always lost week after week ( call him Tom) , all of a sudden started to win one night. I watched more closely and found when the bet went around to him, he would look down and stare at his cards. To my horror, the next person (b called Dick) would act and Tom would continue to be in the hand without putting chips in the pot. I confrimmed this once by watching more closely, then the next time he did it , I stopped Dick from acting out of turn

well op. mr x streak is done. he's like some ai that was programmed to decimate you guys and leave you in a state of perpetual money loss. now that the storm has cleared it can be like in one of the horror movies when the lone survivors ride off into the sunset bloody and worn but in your case broke and pissed.

tough luck but at least you caught the son of bitch.