Ivey Did Cheat, Judge Rules.

Quote: Neutrino

What you just said absolutely blew my mind. Especially the Johnny Chan part, baccarat should be the game most intuitively obvious for being a losing game. I'll take your word for it even though I am very surprised that is the case.

So can you answer this: Am I more suspicious or less suspicious for being a card counter at the blackjack table, if I'm known to play poker in the casino. What if I'm known to be a regular winner at the poker tables?

To me if I'm working for a sweaty casino I would sweat anyone who looks like they know what EV is. So obviously all winning poker players are included.

Pro Poker players and AP's can be so far apart its apples and oranges. Its rare to find someone good at both. There are a few, usually they are VERY successful.

A poker fair poker player really doesn't need to be good at Math or completely understand EV. They estimate often or just remember numbers. Most well know players can't tell you the correct odds/exact numbers they need to call certain hands like a flush draw or straight draw etc etc. IE flush draw 2 cards to come, 9 outs, 35%, need 1.86 to call.

good Poker players will oftentimes play other games with -EV. Long list of pro poker players to degen out on table games.

Good AP's oftentimes realize they have no business playing poker and stay away or tread lightly.

Quote: Wizard

I can't speak about Ivey, but a lot of professional gamblers are also compulsive gamblers and known to bet on negative games as well. .

Yes indeed. They have a self destructive nature, they're
gambling addicts. Most addicts are self destructive, it's
the nature of the beast. Booze, gambling, drugs, even
cigs and sex addiction, it's all about self image the desire
to kill yourself slowly. Humans are complicated, you never
see this in the animal kingdom.

Quote: AxelWolf

Most well know players can't tell you the correct odds/exact numbers they need to call certain hands like a flush draw or straight draw etc etc. IE flush draw 2 cards to come, 9 outs, 35%, need 1.86 to call.

I strongly disagree with this. I'm pretty sure most well known players know the odds cold. This is particularly interesting in this thread because on a fairly recent Bob Dancer podcast, someone (Ed Miller?) was discussing Ivey and his recently released instructional videos, saying that we finally found out that Ivey pretty much does go through the same thought processes as everyone else. The particular, more advanced, thought process being discussed was taking advantage of holes in opponents betting frequencies, which is several steps beyond knowing basic odds for draws.

Just ask a few expert poker players the exact odds for hitting a flush with the turn and river yet to come. Write the answers down and you will definitely be surprised. Most use approximations and that is all that is needed. REALLY Juggle in a little implied odds on what the fish will call if I hit it. my table image, villains reading skills, etc. It's humans playing, not computers. I will sometimes take bad odds for a two outer in the river. Knowing when I will hit one eventually and my opponent will go on TILT immediately.

Try player poker with a calculator is a sure formula for going broke.

http://www.thepokerbank.com/strategy/mathematics/pot-odds/4-2/

Short cut lots of really good players use :

The rule of 4 and 2 is a quick shortcut for helping you to work out the percentage odds of completing a draw in Hold’em. To get your percentage odds:

Multiply your outs by 2 when you are on the flop waiting for the turn.
Multiply your outs by 2 when you are on the turn waiting for the river.
Multiply your outs by 4 when you are on the flop waiting for the river (opponent is all-in).

When you have multiplied your outs by either 4 or 2, you will get a percentage that you can compare with your pot odds to work out whether or not it’s worth calling with a drawing hand.

I thought that Ivey had a pretty good case against cheating since, as others have mentioned, he didn't touch the cards, etc. but I guess that the casino had him all the way.

I guess now let's see what happens in New Jersey.

Players who can't be bothered with intensively studying trivial little things like knowing odds & outs cold, and are not continuously calculating hand ranges & tainted outs and probabilities & equity on the fly, because they are (and apparently always have been) far above all that annoying bothersome little stuff, are inevitably from the elite subset of 187.43% of poker players who "know" they are in the top 0.39% who are real big time winners, due to their mad skillz... 'cept for the problem of this little temporary bad run they've been on during this decade due entirely to the poor play of others, and maybe the occasional no-good dealer & floor who unfairly doesn't like them and cheats them out of their entitlement to win.

Average Americans Think They're Smarter Than the Average American

Quote: Marina Koren @NationalJournal

The results are not surprising. Western cultures have a habit of inflating their self-worth, past research has shown. The most competent individuals also tend to underestimate their ability, while incompetent people overestimate it.

Quote: AxelWolf

Pro Poker players and AP's can be so far apart its apples and oranges. Its rare to find someone good at both. There are a few, usually they are VERY successful.

I don't know if it's just my own experience, but I disagree with this. Anyone who's 'actually' a poker pro knows a tremendous amount about odds, EV, bankroll management, not letting your emotions take over, bad runs of variance, etc. I played poker professionally (as my only source of income and bill payments) through school, but didn't see it wise to take the 'gamble' of variance over my very good career field upon graduation. However, the AP in me came out as I picked up other hobbies (such as blackjack) in which my poker career taught me a few more things I knew I needed to look for and learn when getting in to blackjack (EV, odds, bankroll management, etc).

Quote: Buzzard

Just ask a few expert poker players the exact odds for hitting a flush with the turn and river yet to come. Write the answers down and you will definitely be surprised. Most use approximations and that is all that is needed. REALLY Juggle in a little implied odds on what the fish will call if I hit it. my table image, villains reading skills, etc. It's humans playing, not computers. I will sometimes take bad odds for a two outer in the river. Knowing when I will hit one eventually and my opponent will go on TILT immediately.

Any professional can tell you within a few % of the exact odds, and does not use the 4 and 2 rule; they use extrapolation. For example, 3 outs going to the river is 7%, with the turn and river are thus 14%. Pair over pair preflop 4-1 (80-20), dominated 3-1 (75-25)...etc. I said within a few % because this isn't counting ties, in which the dominated 3-1 could be more like 71-24-5.

Another reason any professional is very close % wise is because of experience. Any professional has seen millions of hands, ran millions of hand simulations, and just have the raw memorization of the percentages. This is literally an example of my own case. When the boom came around in 2003 I played on like 10 different online poker sites multi-tabling every night. I saw millions, if not billions, of hands. Anytime I saw one I didn't know the numbers on, I alt-tabbed to my odds calculator and ran the hand in under 10 seconds. From there it's simple to add, or subtract a couple outs, etc.

Quote: socks

I strongly disagree with this. I'm pretty sure most well known players know the odds cold. This is particularly interesting in this thread because on a fairly recent Bob Dancer podcast, someone (Ed Miller?) was discussing Ivey and his recently released instructional videos, saying that we finally found out that Ivey pretty much does go through the same thought processes as everyone else. The particular, more advanced, thought process being discussed was taking advantage of holes in opponents betting frequencies, which is several steps beyond knowing basic odds for draws.

I have no doubt some do. I would say if you took the top 100 players less than half would know 7 of the the exact percentages on 1-20 outs. If you randomly picked 1 of the top 25, I would give 5 to 1 that person couldn't get 15 out of 20 exactly right.

Quote: AxelWolf

I have no doubt some do. I would say if you took the top 100 players less than half would know 7 of the the exact percentages on 1-20 outs. If you randomly picked 1 of the top 25, I would give 5 to 1 that person couldn't get 15 out of 20 exactly right.

How exact are you talking? Withing .5%? I'd be willing to take that bet... and collect.

Quote: Romes

How exact are you talking? Withing .5%? I'd be willing to take that bet... and collect.

Example 20 outs 2 cards to come both % and odds needed to call 67.5% and 0.48 odds to call.

Apart from how much one has studied the fundamentals of the game and may have internalized more precise probabilities in some common situations as second nature, as a practical matter in actual play, using the "rule of two" for outs is generally sufficient, since things like estimating opponent hand ranges and discounting for the probabilities of some tainted outs that really aren't becomes involved.

Quote: Romes

I don't know if it's just my own experience, but I disagree with this. Anyone who's 'actually' a poker pro knows a tremendous amount about odds, EV, bankroll management, not letting your emotions take over, bad runs of variance, etc. I played poker professionally (as my only source of income and bill payments) through school, but didn't see it wise to take the 'gamble' of variance over my very good career field upon graduation. However, the AP in me came out as I picked up other hobbies (such as blackjack) in which my poker career taught me a few more things I knew I needed to look for and learn when getting in to blackjack (EV, odds, bankroll management, etc).


Any professional can tell you within a few % of the exact odds, and does not use the 4 and 2 rule; they use extrapolation. For example, 3 outs going to the river is 7%, with the turn and river are thus 14%. Pair over pair preflop 4-1 (80-20), dominated 3-1 (75-25)...etc. I said within a few % because this isn't counting ties, in which the dominated 3-1 could be more like 71-24-5.

Another reason any professional is very close % wise is because of experience. Any professional has seen millions of hands, ran millions of hand simulations, and just have the raw memorization of the percentages. This is literally an example of my own case. When the boom came around in 2003 I played on like 10 different online poker sites multi-tabling every night. I saw millions, if not billions, of hands. Anytime I saw one I didn't know the numbers on, I alt-tabbed to my odds calculator and ran the hand in under 10 seconds. From there it's simple to add, or subtract a couple outs, etc.

I'm going to have to agree with Romes, as an interested observer (not an expert). I watched about 100 hours of streaming WSOP with commentator feed (David Tuchmann, really interesting guy to listen to), where they had 1 or 2 other poker pros with him - constant stream of guys in and out of the booth as they busted out or wandered by, analyzing the hands moment by moment from the perspective of each player. They knew exactly and immediately on seeing the cards and evaluating the pot size and raises the percentages, not just the outs. They also knew a lot of the guys' ranges and could call blind hands surprisingly well, including reading bluffs most times.

I've watched other poker shows before and seen similar expertise, but I was concentrating on poker this summer, so thought I'd mention that as a particular example.

Quote: Romes

I don't know if it's just my own experience, but I disagree with this. Anyone who's 'actually' a poker pro knows a tremendous amount about odds, EV, bankroll management, not letting your emotions take over, bad runs of variance, etc. I played poker professionally (as my only source of income and bill payments) through school, but didn't see it wise to take the 'gamble' of variance over my very good career field upon graduation. However, the AP in me came out as I picked up other hobbies (such as blackjack) in which my poker career taught me a few more things I knew I needed to look for and learn when getting in to blackjack (EV, odds, bankroll management, etc).


Any professional can tell you within a few % of the exact odds, and does not use the 4 and 2 rule; they use extrapolation. For example, 3 outs going to the river is 7%, with the turn and river are thus 14%. Pair over pair preflop 4-1 (80-20), dominated 3-1 (75-25)...etc. I said within a few % because this isn't counting ties, in which the dominated 3-1 could be more like 71-24-5.

Another reason any professional is very close % wise is because of experience. Any professional has seen millions of hands, ran millions of hand simulations, and just have the raw memorization of the percentages. This is literally an example of my own case. When the boom came around in 2003 I played on like 10 different online poker sites multi-tabling every night. I saw millions, if not billions, of hands. Anytime I saw one I didn't know the numbers on, I alt-tabbed to my odds calculator and ran the hand in under 10 seconds. From there it's simple to add, or subtract a couple outs, etc.

You saw billions of hands? I don't think so. Not even close. At 30 seconds per hand on average (extremely unlikely) playing 10 tables at a time you'd barely see 10 million in a year even if you were playing 24hrs a day. Add in 6hrs a day for sleep and you're down to 7.5million in a entire year.

Quote: Lucky33

I thought that Ivey had a pretty good case against cheating since, as others have mentioned, he didn't touch the cards, etc. but I guess that the casino had him all the way.

Using that logic if my buddy switches in loaded dice and I bet on his rolls, I should be fine !

If What a Crockford's paid Ivey, I'm guessing they would lose suing him. Is this just a case of whoever sues loses and they benefited by not paying as promised? Man was he screwed big time. Nowhere in the rules of any game is the house guaranteed a profit over everyone and the judge really abused his power.

CHEATERS NEVER WIN !

In the news article: "Judge Mitting turned down Ivey’s permission to appeal his verdict."

WTF?

What kind of jurisprudence is THAT?

Quote: Buzzard

Using that logic if my buddy switches in loaded dice and I bet on his rolls, I should be fine !

I think you should be fine if the casino provided your buddy with the loaded dice. Crockfords provided the flawed cards and you should be good if the casino puts loaded dice on their tables.

Crockford's agreed to every part of Ivey's baccarat game parameters up front......they just weren't that smart and now are claiming they were cheated.

Do you think Don Johnson owes back the money he made when the casino's unknowingly set up a loss rebate program for his BJ play that gave him a player advantage?

Both stories are the same. One casino used flawed equipment to spread a baccarat game and the other casino used flawed math to set up a rebate program. Embarrassing for sure, but no one was cheated. Every party got exactly what they bargained for up front.

" While he might not have realized it was cheating, Mitting said Ivey and a companion influenced a croupier to deal the cards in certain ways. "

Sorta like the boys in the pit let me slide the dice.

Quote: MrV

In the news article: "Judge Mitting turned down Ivey’s permission to appeal his verdict."

WTF?

What kind of jurisprudence is THAT?

I will look for it again but from what I read; Ivey requested it to go to automatic appeal and the judge said no. However, Ivey can file a motion to appeal on his own instead of it coming from the court.

Quote: Buzzard

" While he might not have realized it was cheating, Mitting said Ivey and a companion influenced a croupier to deal the cards in certain ways. "

Sorta like the boys in the pit let me slide the dice.

No this wasn't like the boys in the pit this was like the casino manager and the ceo let him slide the dice.

WOW! What a joke. Hopefully it gets overturned. Crazy that some judge can have that sort of thought process.

Quote: Wizard

I can't speak about Ivey, but a lot of professional gamblers are also compulsive gamblers and known to bet on negative games as well. Stu Ungar is a good example. I've known skilled advantage players who, when there wasn't anything positive to bet on, would resort to something negative. I can say that when I played at the Mandalay Bay a lot Johnny Chan was often seen in the high limit room playing baccarat. Why, I have no idea.

This goes back to the early nineties. Johnny Chan was beaten out of a large amount of money, seven figures at Commerce Casino. And I believe the game was player banked baccarat. I talked to the lawyer that represented Chan. Cardplayer Magazine wouldn't cover the incident because they sold a lot of advertising to the Commerce. The City of Commerce wouldn't do anything because they were knocking down a lot of tax dough from the Commerce. And the guys who cheated him were known as some pretty rough characters. Chan let the whole thing drop.

Quote: Hunterhill

No this wasn't like the boys in the pit this was like the casino manager and the ceo let him slide the dice.

" Ivey and a companion unfairly influenced a croupier to move and deal the cards in certain ways without her knowing what she was doing, the judge said.

Ivey cheated “by using the croupier as his innocent agent or tool,” Mitting said.

I think croupier is a title below that of casino manager or CEO, is it not ?

Another cheater, just more famous than most.

I'm sure that isn't the first time a casino employee has been called a "tool" but probably not quite that way.

Yes croupier is below ceo but upper management gave approval to the dealer to do what Ivey requested. Do you really think the dealer was rotating cards and surveillance and casino manager and pit boss and floor person wasn't aware of it.I think not.

For those of you that haven't seen it yet, Richard Munchkin has given out a link to the actual judgement.

Ivey.pdf

Quote: DRich

For those of you that haven't seen it yet, Richard Munchkin has given out a link to the actual judgement.

Ivey.pdf

Thanks for sharing that. Very cool to hear first hand what thought process the Judge used !

Thanks - it made very interesting reading, esepcially when he referred to such old laws to clarify "ill practice" when considering whether what happened was "cheating". The other is that a casino can be cheated even if it did not take steps, obvious or not, to detect or prevent it. A very well-thought out document.