Teh One Who Knocks
04-14-2014, 11:05 AM
By Joe Tacopino - The New York Post
http://i.imgur.com/RUUMCpr.jpg
An Atlantic City casino is charging that a world-famous championship poker player hauled in $9.6 million at a baccarat table after pulling off an elaborate card-cheating scheme.
The Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against World Series of Poker champion Phil Ivey Jr.
The New Jersey-bred card shark, nicknamed “The Phenom” for his mathematical skills, used a tactic known as “edge sorting,” where a defect in cards is exploited to identify them, the suit says.
The cards he played with during the edge-sorting stunt were deemed defective because the patterns on their backs were not uniform, making them partially detectable from the player’s vantage point.
The cards, made by a Kansas City manufacturer, have rows of small white circles designed to look like the tops of cut diamonds.
But the Borgata claims some of them were only half a diamond or a quarter of one.
This allegedly enabled Ivey, 38, and a cohort to sort and arrange good cards and obtain an unfair advantage while playing baccarat.
The casino says the edge-sorting technique violates casino gambling regulations.
Ivey instructed a dealer to flip cards in particular ways, depending on whether it was a desirable card in baccarat, the suit says.
The numbers 6, 7, 8 and 9 are considered good cards. Bad cards would be flipped in different directions, so that after several hands of cards, the good ones were arranged in a certain manner with the irregular side of the card facing in a specific direction. That enabled Ivey to spot the good cards when they came out of the dealer chute, the suit charges.
Ivey’s lawyer declined to comment on Friday.
This is not the first time Ivey has been ensnared in an edge-sorting controversy. A lawsuit in Britain claims he and an accomplice amassed almost $12 million by cheating.
The suit claims Ivey wanted the cards shuffled using an automatic shuffling machine, which would not alter the way each card was aligned. This would allow him to keep track of the defective cards. In that case, Ivey has denied any misconduct.
Ivey, a deliberate player, has won nine World Series of Poker bracelets. He compares himself on his Web site to Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Muhammad Ali.
The player, a Californian who grew up in New Jersey, said on his Web site that he mastered poker in his teen years by playing in *Atlantic City using a fake ID.
http://i.imgur.com/RUUMCpr.jpg
An Atlantic City casino is charging that a world-famous championship poker player hauled in $9.6 million at a baccarat table after pulling off an elaborate card-cheating scheme.
The Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against World Series of Poker champion Phil Ivey Jr.
The New Jersey-bred card shark, nicknamed “The Phenom” for his mathematical skills, used a tactic known as “edge sorting,” where a defect in cards is exploited to identify them, the suit says.
The cards he played with during the edge-sorting stunt were deemed defective because the patterns on their backs were not uniform, making them partially detectable from the player’s vantage point.
The cards, made by a Kansas City manufacturer, have rows of small white circles designed to look like the tops of cut diamonds.
But the Borgata claims some of them were only half a diamond or a quarter of one.
This allegedly enabled Ivey, 38, and a cohort to sort and arrange good cards and obtain an unfair advantage while playing baccarat.
The casino says the edge-sorting technique violates casino gambling regulations.
Ivey instructed a dealer to flip cards in particular ways, depending on whether it was a desirable card in baccarat, the suit says.
The numbers 6, 7, 8 and 9 are considered good cards. Bad cards would be flipped in different directions, so that after several hands of cards, the good ones were arranged in a certain manner with the irregular side of the card facing in a specific direction. That enabled Ivey to spot the good cards when they came out of the dealer chute, the suit charges.
Ivey’s lawyer declined to comment on Friday.
This is not the first time Ivey has been ensnared in an edge-sorting controversy. A lawsuit in Britain claims he and an accomplice amassed almost $12 million by cheating.
The suit claims Ivey wanted the cards shuffled using an automatic shuffling machine, which would not alter the way each card was aligned. This would allow him to keep track of the defective cards. In that case, Ivey has denied any misconduct.
Ivey, a deliberate player, has won nine World Series of Poker bracelets. He compares himself on his Web site to Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods and Muhammad Ali.
The player, a Californian who grew up in New Jersey, said on his Web site that he mastered poker in his teen years by playing in *Atlantic City using a fake ID.