I'm making this post for multiple reasons. I don't think i will ever be able to prove anything I know and that has happened in the past, and i dont know if there will ever be a way or even a method in the future to prove any of the incidents i describe here, but I'm hoping this post will at least help to set some kinda precedent. Im hoping I'll be able to give back to a world thats been the only world thats been able to afford me any kind of a content life and career, throughout my entire life. As far as i can see, the future is very bleak for the poker world, and even the rest of the card world without more awareness of the subjects in this post. I don't know if theres been other threads made on the subject that became notable, but i need to explain what happened to me to bring more attention to it.
To preface this I've been a professional poker player for over a decade, and poker has been either my sole, or only source of income for almost 100% of that time. I also first started and made a career for many years online, where i went all the way up from MTing shorthanded micro .05/.10c NL, to mid stakes $2/4$ NL to even som $5/$10 NL, and then made a successful transition to the live world after Stars/FT/UB/Etc Were shutdown and i lost money; where my main games went back and forth between 2-5$ to bigger uncapped games, depending on my activity/interest level. When i first started, poker really kinda saved my life; by helpin to bring me out of a vagrant situation where i had trouble holdin down jobs that made me unhappy and unfulfilled.
This is a long and complicated story, so i will have to divide it into multiple posts, hopefully only a couple, so that i can first get to the meat of the situation. The Later post(s) should help in explaining in more detail and providing more backdrop and reasonin to why things happened the way they did.
It should be apparent that major casinos have the money, resources, experience/power and connections, with magic shows and performers, and shows/tricks of illusion etc, to pull off cheating or manipulated results with cards in many ways if they want to. We basically put our faith and trust in them not to, and in understandin we're their customers.
But in 2015 i was lead down a hole where a large group of players who were "teaming", "soft" colluding/colluding, were not only freely allowed to play and conduct their softplay whenever as regs (with the casino employees not only knowing about it, but also assisting in the organization of these players in these games) as long as no one complained (which is not too out of reality anyway) - but that the house itself also was working with this ring, by manipulating and rigging the outcome of the cards and where the money goes in a public casino environment, via the use of high tech shufflers that could either fix the result of the cards, or set hidden decks that also had predetermined outcomes (which is the real problem).
Before accusations start I've never been a part of, nor worked for, cheated alongside anyone, or been affiliated with this, or any group(s) before. There was a point initially where some players in this "ring" clearly softplayed me and i used it to my advantage which I'll get to later, but eventually i was cheated without realising the extent of it and everything I've described here for a significant amount of my worth (initially i thought there was only softplay and some collusion; i found out about the shufflers or set-up decks later), and when i realised the extent that it was being done, it not only ultimately took my ability to sustain myself away down the road after attempting to move on, but left me with such sour grapes at the method that i simply left without saying much to anyone to try and pursue other careers (common among alot of pros; poker was meant to be a stepping stone towards them for me). There may have been an intimidating factor to come out about it in a way that deals with it properly at the time, or that i thought other opportunities were opened up for me (which seemed so, and still does) because of me being targeted - because around after the time i noticed the collusion, I'm certain i was followed into the online poker world and specificaly targeted for cheating there, again without realizing it (it seemed like i was not wanted in the scene, and was being forced out of it). At the time i didnt realise how much i owed it to poker for my ability to make a satisfying living and lifestyle. I didnt really amount the sample size online to 100% prove this, but information was leaked to me in other ways that at the time i didnt fully understand, and i will also address this later.
This happened in major casinos and cardrooms in southern CA and Vegas, like Commerce and Aria, places with big reputations both in the card and hotel world.
I found this out because i started noticing some softplay going on with these groups who reg it up at certain casinos, especially players seeming to be helping me out by soft playin me against others. So as they started doing this i caught on to the signs and signals etc., And even softplayed with them if i thought to. Like how sometimes games get when they become very social; once ina while i might make a small friendly play of sorts; its often good for the game and your bottomline/career, and also to continue "keeping them on my side" with this scene. The dynamic was more like teams of players, which interested me initially because it seemed to create some interesting tactics and a different type of game. They would also wear certain clothing, to send a signal to others on whos "team" theyre with, etc. It was a cool change of pace from the usual hunt-the-same ol fish gamewise.
After a while i stopped and just tried to play my game as well as i could. It took a long time before i realised that the signals werent just soft play strats, but it was also to give out how the cards were gonna come out and the winner. After a while this activity started following me to almost all cardrooms, and i think its because they were wary of me and what I've played through/knew of and knew how to read, and again, wanted me out of the scene. I remembered there were alota suspicious hands and situations, most i didnt even give alota thought at first, but they piece together after the fact. Another pro, a really good player i would split hotels with would tell me very wild hands and asked me what i thought of em, and I'd usually just say maybe collusion. But the truth is while they were colluders, they were more importantly actually set-up hands and outcomes. Common examples: big flop hand (say set) then turn brings bigger hand and riv connects flop, etc. Less common would be strange stuf like cold 1000bb 4bet shove with air and it gets there, 4 way chops in big pots after "errors", literally hearing my hole cards being called out from across the room, circus stuf in general. I didn't even realize this for a long time, months (it wasnt always overt, and being a pro you dont make assumptions or suspect the shufflers and the cards themselves in big public properties like these, i didnt really imagine shuffler technology reaching a point where they could sort and arrange decks yet, etc. Even if they could, its not much different of a situation than an online RNG, where you simply trust it is random), technically a year later, that these shufflers or the outcome of the cards were "rigged" (i left the US for a while, when i came back and i started getting in rougher spots and more overtly cheated is when i could tell more about the signs and signals. There were even instances where my hole cards were called out from across the room or by railers as i said, where i just chalked it up to coincidences - but given whats happened since and what i know, clearly someone was trying to clue me into what was really going on, or they were possibly even thinly-veiled threats that went over my head).
I was basically in effect told these shufflers or the outcome of the cards were going to be rigged a certain way by the signals of this ring and how they communicated it.
There are other reasons to put it together; for example Hawaiian Gardens in Socal in early 2014 had the Deckmate 2, which can literally suit the deck in 30 seconds (ie. arrange all the cards by suits in order of rank, like a new deck.)
https://www.sggaming.com/Shuffle-Mas...ts/Deck-Mate-2 ("spaded deck")
They used it in their biggest games. It was the only casino i ever saw it at. At the time i didn't think much of it, and i really jus thought "wow cool, pretty hi-tech". But now that I'm wiser, thats a big red flag to me; the technology exists to ID cards in a normal deck with 52 cards, actually differentiate them by suit and rank, and then arrange them in a pre-programmed order. Later i also realized by the time HG had them it was already old, and by now 5~ years old which can be several generations depending on the technology. If i didnt have an online background, i think that probably would have caught me as a lil sketch in and of itself.
Another thing to note about Hawaiian Gardens is that it has a shady history. Several years ago they were busted for dealer-player collusion, it made th e news and the floormen and managers there did jail time for it. I cant verify this but theres also many stories about Men "the master" Nguyen and others - whom it was their main cardroom in the past - with more collusion, cheating and chip dumping etc., among the OG regs who go way back and have been in the scene for a long time and played for a living for substantial periods of time, and are still around. Alot of the best, most successful pros i know who play regularly for a living, including 5/10 NL and up, and were also ex-online players, or still play online, have shared major skepticism about HG from their own experiences, and go so far as to avoid the place now despite being consistent winners, poker being their main income, and HG being a big, popular property.
Other reasons i thought about are places like the Wynn that used to have all uncapped games when it was the most baller casino in Vegas' big halcyon days, even at $1-$3. Players still currently sit in the 5/10 uncapped with 6-figures sometimes last time i played it. That 5/10 was my main and only game for a couple of summers where i grinded it everyday, and a decent portion outside of that throughout the year whenever I'd be in Vegas, and i remember alot of weird hands (part of the reason i made it my main game there; looked like it had crazy action sometimes). This also leaves me wondering alot about all the TV shows and climactic tourney hands.
More seriously (other than me losing my career of over 10 years, my income/livelihood, a lot of money, and struggling for a year - I've tried to move on to other plans i had been gearing up for in life, but without poker to even fall back on for even some side income I haven't been able to have any stable footing since), is that this could hav been going on for a long time to anybody else, unnoticed, as it probably was to me for some time before i caught on.
And a larger point I'm trying to bring up is whether you believe i was cheated in this manner or not, the reality of the matter is this can exist today, and is something that will become much cheaper and more accessible soon due to technology moving too fast, and a similar incident is bound to happen and blow up with poker's history of cheating and scams. It's a serious problem that the poker/card/casino world is going to hav to find a way to deal with eventually, since there's no real way to currently detect it. In the uncapped games especially as i was trying to say, even at only 5/10 (or just a deep 2/5), with this technology they can just rig the outcome of a big pot for several thousands and afford the operation. Even if the "sucker" here doesn't see it thru to the end, it can still be several hundred. And of course they can manipulate pots whenever they want. If a big one doesn't go entirely their way right off the bat, theres nothin stopping them from trying again an hour or so later, and no one would know any better. I'm sure the EV calculated is more than the fastest possible rake. What gave it away to me was a combo of keeping up with the group working in tandem, the information leaked to me later, and the blatancy i ended up being targeted by in the end.
BTW I finished this and somehow forgot to mention that a long time after i completely stopped playing i went back to some cardrooms, specifically the Bike and Commerce, and got barred/temp-banned under extremely suspicious and sketch circumstances. In each case i never brought up or complained about any of this stuff to any employee (I have briefly mentioned being cheated to a couple friends who are pros/regs before, but i didn't say much. They might have been there the same time i got temp-barred. I guess I'm possibly implicating them; this has never happened to me before, i dont even know how to describe it and I'm having trouble even as i put this paragraph together). I didn't act out, fight with anyone, or even raise my voice. I simply browsed around and met up with some old buddies and peers. I spent alota time at these specific casinos; my experience level is grinding there everyday in years past. I've taken hour long breaks or just chilled there on my laptop before, met with people, waited a long time for games and left, etc., without playing for long periods of time. I wasn't just kicked out, i was BARRED for "loitering" for an insignificant amount of time. These are casinos and cardrooms. They're supposed to be casual places. I got barred (can't remember how long the bar was) after spending no longer than maybe 40 minutes (probably less) inside, just browsing games and having snacks at The Bike. In all the years and time spent I've never had that happen or ever seen, or even heard of anyone having that problem. There are people that get into fights and pull out weapons in the restroom and are just told to go home and don't even get barred. Their business is they want you to stay as long as possible and play.
I never followed up and tried to overturn the bars themselves, which was a long time ago last year. I haven't gone back since.
TL;DR: I really tried to make this as tl;dr friendly as possible,
but if not:
A ring of players/colluders gave it away that they were working with the house, on million/billion dollar properties in Vegas and LA (ie., Aria, MGM, San Manuel, Hollywood Park, etc.), who used complex methods or technology to manipulate the cards and results in a public casino environment, probably with the shufflers. Before i realized the extent and ways, they turned on me and blatantly cheated me at an obvious rate for much of my roll and net worth, and this could have been going on for a long time to a certain extent. I've had information leaked to me confirming this, and this group would know of and follow me to every public cardroom I played in; I've basically been ostracized from playing, including from being barred by some casinos under very suspicious circumstances where i did nothing disruptive, and I've found it difficult to carry on and live a life since. Theres also still alot i haven't mentioned.
