You can't edge sort live poker. It's based on the cards being oriented in one direction and maintaining that orientation. The way players handle their cards that wouldn't happen in a live game. In hand held edge sorted games the teams have a team player playing every spot at the table.

Let me explain why the casino wasn't freerolling Ivey and why they wouldn't try to freeroll any player they believed was playing at an advantage. Casinos hate advantage players because the casino is used to having the edge and the player is the loser. The casino has all the little patter like, "Aw, you were doing good until that clown jumped in and changed the cards", "this dealer has been running hot. I should have warned you. Sorry" and all the other nonsense to divert attention away from the math of the game. The casino hates the role reversal the AP brings to the game. Casinos hate card counters and while they love nothing better to figure out a guy's a card counter when he's in a negative fluctuation and bar him, they would never let one play 'hoping he gets stuck'. Card counters play with around a 1% - 2% edge. AP edges tend to run quite a bit larger, up to 279% at the extreme. The game Ivey was playing, edge sorting baccarat under his conditions, with perfect information and play yielded a 6.75% edge. That's the same as the house offering you coin flips where they pay you $113.50 when you win and you pay $100 when you lose. The house isn't going to let someone bet 5 and 6 figures a hand hoping they lose so the house can shut the player down and make a profit. The math just isn't there.

So what you are saying is eventhough he was playing for huge money and this card sorting is seemingly well known the casino had no idea he was doing it.. I find that even less likely.

That appears to be the case here. They wanted his money from greed, knew he loses tons in casinos, gave him free reign. Then a light bulb lit up when it was too late. APs take casinos off for large sums all the time using well known methods and will continue to do so. I had a friend that went to English casinos when he was there on business. He said it's a very gentlemanly atmosphere.

Here's my theory of how this came to pass.

The problem with cards has been known for some time. (One of the articles mentioned increased demand and the lowering of quality control and other incidents in other casinos.) As tied to the gaming industry as Phil Ivey is, I can't believe he wasn't aware of this problem. I suspect that he spent some time looking for ways to exploit this manufacturing defect. I am sure he knew which games to focus on and then visited casinos to see witch used the cards and had games that might be susceptible to exploitation.

It would be interesting to know how many other times if any that Ivey tried this whether successful or not.

It's certainly well known now. It has not been a problem for all that long. Someone posted this link earlier. Crockfords was not the first casino to have this problem.

Someone posted this link earlier.

http://jacobsongaming.com/Turn_of_the_Cards.pdf

The fact that Hitch-22 appears to have an extremely strong grasp of how the British courts work would suggest that he's someone who is actually practicing in the British legal system.

Given that, I'll take his compelling arguments over your wild unfounded speculation any day of the week.

You are not deciding the case.

As I stated in my post, it is up to "the English courts to see the relevant issues in this case". Not sure how that is "unfounded speculation". The English courts will decide what is and is not relevant. And not hitch, me, you, or anyone else.

Are you aware American law was modeled after British law? There has been some divergence but it's not really that different. In an American court a law written specifically to address a certain act definitely is relevant in a case revolving around that act. Crockfords is making a claim. To say that laws written specifically to cover that act aren't relevant is a hard position to defend.

Yes. What I have said is that our "opinions" on this case are not relevant to how the English courts will decide. They are merely opinions being discussed on a BB. What is "relevant" is to be decided by the English courts. Same goes for American courts. As for my "opinion"- I disagree with Hitch on a couple of points. As others have mentioned ITT it seems very clear that Crockfords legal team is using s42 and finds it to be relevant and is using it to buttress their case that Ivey cheated. So I would agree with you.

no, no I'm quite sure the judges and attorneys will all log on to 2+2 and find out the real way to handle this case.

Actually that wasn't in response to your post.

got it...........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twNCo...ture=endscreen

He is so good at games, I could see him winning 12 million without cheating

Ivey is so money and he doesn't even know it.

Further details emerge...

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/ca...r-8626545.html

Further details= the same story that everyone has read?

seems to me that yes... Phil 'cheated' (by definition)

but that doesn't mean Crockfords doesn't owe him the 7.3

they left their fly open, and Phil exploited the edge

yes he cheated the **** out of them

yes he is still owed the cash imo

imo there are further details there (at least compared to what I've seen) including:

- The bet amounts
- Ivey asking the manager to leave
- Ivey stopping when told the cards were to be changed
- Leaving London due to the claimed death of his uncle
- The identity of the companion (Ms Cheung Sun).

Agreed. And the following statement:

This constituted "cheating for the purposes of the Gambling Act 2005 and amounted to fraud at common law."

There were several people ITT insisting that since this is a civil case and the Gambling Act of 2005 was a criminal statute, that is was "irrelevant" and would not apply. Crockfords legal team clearly feels differently and is going after Ivey as a cheat. It looks like they are being VERY aggressive with Ivey to the point where you wonder if they will even settle this thing. It seems that they aint giving him deh moniez and are waging a PR war to paint him as a cheat. Doesn't look too good for Ivey as more info comes out. It could get very interesting if Ms Sun starts to sing.

remind me to not trust you if we ever meet, sir, please. i might have my fly open otherwise.

Amazing prescience!

That was a good well referenced position when it was still just Ivey suing a casino that refused to pay a win. Once further information became available that became less and less likely. It seemed pretty obvious a casino wasn't just refusing to pay a winning player. There had to be more. Now there is.

At some point the question needs to shift from did he cheat, to WHY did he cheat? Yes, he had $7.3 million reasons. But, there would seem to be more to the story. Why does one of the winningest poker players of all time need a quick weekend score. This could make a great poker movie some day......................

Thread has jumped the shark now.

You don't think $10.9MM is enough of a motivator?