Weekly RankingHero Highlights

This week RankingHero brought you several exclusive interviews: @Nicolas Levi spoke to @Sean Yu, who took our patch to the final table and all the way to 1st place in the inaugural #WPT500 $1 Million GTD; @Pedro Canali interviewed the amazing @Jon Finkel - recognized as one of the greatest players of Magic:The Gathering, but also a successful poker player, sports bettor, finance genius, and - we are so proud to say! - RankingHero member. Make sure you follow the #MTGpoker hashtag and MTG Poker page on RKH for future interviews and posts! In addition, @Bruno Fitoussi - one of the 'founding fathers' of poker in France is Dans le carré and talks about the past, present, and future of poker. Last but not least, you will find a link to an interesting 2013 interview with Mark Newhouse - the back-to-back November Niner.

Meanwhile, the Main Event played down to the #NovemberNine and #WSOP2014 players were leaving Las Vegas - find out how some of them said goodbye in the social media.

@Daniel Colman has been the talk of the poker community ever since he won $15 million in the Big One for One Drop and - after declining to talk to the media - shared his ambivalent feelings about the game in a forum post. However, this hasn't stopped him from scoring another 6-figure cash in a 100K #SuperHighRoller at the @ARIA Resort & Casino, which took him one place up - to fourth position - in the all-time US ranking.

Check out the #PokerCrimeFiles hashtag on RKH for news about Macau Millionaire Paul Phua's arrest in Vegas on illegal sports betting charges and about his famous lawyer - 'the Phil Ivey of attorneys', David Chesnoff.

We are very happy that @Flaminio Malaguti (find out more about his extraordinary live tournament record here) has officially joined RankingHero! Please also welcome and give distinctions to @Nancy Birnbaum @Marius Pospiech @James Akenhead @Jeffrey Ray @Christophe Thirion and all of the new members of our community.

Thanks to the  #M1debut participants who shared stories about their poker beginnings and to our own @Elena RKH for organizing and moderating this fun contest! We hope the winners will take the RankingHero patch to the felt and help us expand the photo gallery RankingHeroes in Action.

Wishing you another good week of poker playing & winning & learning & sharing. We'll be looking foward to your updates here on RankingHero and on our Facebook page!

Yours truly,

@Annie RKH 

#RKHweekly 

Did Phil Ivey Cheat or Outsmart the Casinos?

With the latest announcement of a Borgata lawsuit against @Phil Ivey, it looks like poker media might well have to start regular court watch columns about one of poker's greatest stars of all-time. RankingHero reviews Ivey’s court history:

Divorce 
What started out as an ordinary divorce settlement in 2009, developed into a lengthy legal battle and ended up In Nevada Supreme Court, which in April 2013 ruled in Phil Ivey’s favor (dismissing objections related to alleged connections between Ivey and the judge who heard his divorce case).

Ivey married his high-school sweetheart, Luciaetta, in 2002.

Full Tilt
In May 2011 Phil Ivey publicly shared his outrage and openly sided with the wronged players whose Full Tilt funds were frozen:
“I am deeply disappointed and embarrassed that Full Tilt players have not been paid money they are owed. I am equally embarrassed that as a result many players cannot compete in tournaments and have suffered economic harm.
I wholeheartedly refuse to accept non-action as to repayment of players’ funds and I am angered that people who have supported me throughout my career have been treated so poorly.”

Ivey filed a lawsuit against Tiltware LLC, seeking more than $150 million in damages. Tiltware immediately responded calling the lawsuit ‘frivolous and self-serving’ and accused Ivey of "putting his own narrow financial interests ahead of the players he professes to help". The exchange speeded up negotiations between the parties and the lawsuit was “voluntarily dismissed without prejudice by the plaintiff” on June 30, 2011.

Crockfords (August 2012):

In August 2012 Ivey played a lucrative three-day Baccarat session at one of London’s oldest casinos - Crockfords - accompanied by an unidentified Asian woman. He ended up winning about $12 million and while the casino immediately transferred his £1 million deposit to his bank account, they withheld payment of his winnings.

A year later, in May 2013, Ivey filed a claim against the Genting Group (a Malaysian gaming corporation and owner of Crockfords) in London's High Court. The casino promptly responded by accusing Ivey in court of cheating and claimed that his winnings were invalid since they were ‘based on illegal acts’.

"The fact that I have issued a lawsuit in the face of what they are alleging says everything about how comfortable I am with my conduct and the validity of my win. Any allegations of wrongdoing by Crockfords are denied by me in the very strongest of terms."

This is an Associated Press report on the case of May 15, 2013: 

"The court papers say that Ivey and his accomplice, after some trial and error, found a "shoe" that contained decks of cards with an asymmetrical design. They were then able to convince the dealer, after cards were revealed, to turn the card either sideways or end over end. The staff was not suspicious because the accomplice, who spoke Cantonese with the dealers, acted like she was superstitious and just changing the way the cards lay for good luck, court papers say.

The effect was that the dealer inadvertently sorted the cards so that 7, 8 and 9 cards were distinguishable from others. Ivey sustained his success, the court papers claimed, by asking that the cards be shuffled automatically by a machine, which meant the way the cards were arranged was not altered as the game progressed. The court papers also claim that Ivey specifically asked for an Asian dealer so his accomplice could communicate with that dealer in a language not known by the rest of the casino staff."

Full bleed Gemaco plastic cards: "Gemaco has produced a classic full bleed design with a traditional look and feel. The Weave design is intended to deliver the quality which serious card players expect at an affordable price. Gemaco Weave plastic playing cards are nicely packaged in a clear acrylic storage case. Give them a try!"

Borgata (April-October 2012)

According to the federal suit filed by Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa last week, Ivey contacted the Borgata requesting special arrangements for a baccarat game in 2012 and eventually won $9.6 million in four sessions. He asked for a private pit, dealer who spoke Mandarin Chinese, and an automatic card shuffler. And he was accompanied by a woman, Cheng Yin Sun, who spoke to the dealer and asked for specific flipping of cards. The Borgata claims that "Ivey and an associate exploited a defect in cards that enabled them to sort and arrange good cards and gave him an unfair advantage in baccarat on four occasions between April and October 2012":

Ivey reportedly won:
$2.4 million on April 11, 2012
$1.6 million on May 3, 2012
$4.8 million on July 26, 2012
$824,000 on Oct. 7, 2012

The fourth and last session coincided with reports about the withheld payment of his winnings in Crockfords.

While it is as yet unclear whether the accomplice is the same ‘superstitious’ lady who was with Ivey in London, there are striking similarities between the allegations. Ivey has already admitted to reading the cards but claims the casino should have been  aware of flawed cards and the risk of edge sorting and taken measures to prevent it. “I read the cards but I’m no cheat", Phil Ivey has been reported as saying by the Daily Mail.

So far the poker community seems inclined to side with its own star but we will have to wait for the court rulings on whether or not he actually operated an 'illegal scam'.

Glossary of terms

Punto Banco:

Punto Banco Baccarat is played with six or eight decks of cards placed in what is called a dealing "shoe." The goal in each hand, which consists of two or three cards, is to get closest to nine — the best first cards are a 7, 8 or 9 since a 10 or a picture card counts as zero. Players can bet that they will win, that the bank will win, or that the hand will be a tie.

#EdgeSorting:

Essentially, taking advantage of flawed full bleed markings to distinguish specific cards. Read on: http://apheat.net/2012/06/28/what-is-edge-sorting/

#FullBleed: 

Full bleed is printing from one edge of the paper to the other without the standard borders by which most personal printers are limited. See photo above.

Bleed is a printing term that refers to printing that goes beyond the edge of the sheet before trimming. In other words, the bleed is the area to be trimmed off. The bleed is the part on the side of a document that gives the printer a small amount of space to account for movement of the paper, and design inconsistencies. Artwork and background colors can extend into the bleed area. After trimming, the bleed ensures that no unprinted edges occur in the final trimmed document. (Wikipedia)

Gemaco:

The manufacturer of the flawed cards named in the Borgata lawsuit against Phil Ivey.

Watch Your Chips This Weekend

This year, in the space of two months we’ve had several big poker chip stories - the counterfeit chips introduced at the #BorgataWinterOpen2014 by @Christian Lusardi and later found clogging the pipes at his hotel, a couple who introduced fake chips at Maryland Live! Casino in Maryland, and the @Chan Pelton scandal at WSOP in Florida.

Unlike the occasional Las Vegas casino heists involving hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars, this time it is all about a single chip. Moreover the thief in question stole it from himself.

The chip was of T25,000 denomination and the thief was the winner of a World Series of Poker No Limit Texas Hold’em event at the Palm Beach Kennel Club in South Florida. Confronted by casino staff who had checked the video surveillance, Chan returned the chip and explained he had wanted to keep it as a souvenir. Yet, he is suspected of intending to use it in the Main Event. Chan Pelton has since been stripped of his title, has forfeited the prize money, and has been banned fro Caesars properties.

Pelton is a seasoned poker player with about $250,000 in live tournament winnings. He told SouthFlorida.com, “I’m literally shell-shocked. This is my livelihood,” and is reportedly going to sue WSOP.

Chip thefts occur more often in movies than in real life. At least judging from what comes out in the media - though tweets such as this one: “Don't be naive. There's cheating in EVERY tourney!” seem to suggest otherwise.

In any case, casinos rarely take responsibility for missing chips so make sure you keep an eye on your bills and chips at all times. If you have to leave the table, count your stack before you leave and after you return. A post in a twoplustwo thread on the topic even recommends taking a picture of the stack with one’s phone. One easy precaution is to place the small denomination chips on top of the big ones (and we can only wish you lots of those :)

Borgata Event Prize Pool Still Frozen, Class Action Filed

A class action has been filed against the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in connection with the suspended event 1 in the Borgata Winter Open. Thousands may claim reimbursement for buy-ins and travel costs.

The opening event of  #BorgataWinterOpen2014  in Atlantic City had a $560 buy-in and a $2 million guarantee and had attracted more than 4,800 entries. The tournament was suspended on January 16, Day 3, by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement after counterfeit chips were found to be in circulation.

The only person charged to date is @Christian Lusardi, who introduced counterfeit chips into the tournament multiple times to increase his stack. He was eliminated on Day 2 and reportedly cashed for $6,814. A few days later he made funny criminal history as he was caught after he flushed the remaining fake chips ($ 2.7 million in tournament value) down the toilet of his hotel room. This caused plumbing problems, the chips were discovered, and the police promptly intervened.

Initially, Joe Lupo, Senior Vice President of Operations for Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, expected tournament officials and the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement to reach a resolution after a 24-hour investigation. Yet it has been more than a month and the prize money (of which more than $ 1.4 m remained on Day 3) is still frozen.

On Friday, February 21, New Jersey resident @Jacob Musterel filed a class action against the Borgata on behalf of the players who entered the opening event of the Borgata Winter Open. At the time of the suspension order only 27 players remained but it is very difficult to say how many may have been affected by the fake chips in circulation since Day 1. So far Musterel is the only one listed by name but his lawyer, Bruce LiCausi, has been publicising the claim and clearly hopes thousands will join to demand reimbursement for buy-ins and travel costs.

Little did they know that they were only in for the learning experience...

“In my 31 years in practice, I have to say this is one of the cleanest claims we’ve had,” Attorney Bruce LiCausi told The Press of Atlantic City. “Borgata holds itself as a respected provider of poker tournaments. They might say this is a learning experience for them, and while that’s laudable, it’s at the expense of the thousands who traveled to Atlantic City and entered this tournament under the expectation that it would be run properly.”

Epic Fails - Lusardi Arrest in Fake Poker Chip Case

We’ve all watched hilarious videos and read of epic fail stories of criminals getting caught in ridiculous circumstances. The poker industry recently added another page in funny criminal history.

The famously suspended opening event of the 2014 #BorgataWPO  in Atlantic City had a $560 buy-in and a $2 million guarantee and had attracted more than 4,800 entries. The tournament was suspended after counterfeit chips were found to be in circulation at which point only 27 players remained.

Exactly one week later New Jersey state police announced the arrest of @Christian Lusardi, 42, of Fayetteville, North Carolina. Lusardi, who was the chip leader on Day 1, introduced the counterfeits into the tournament multiple times to increase his stack. He was eliminated on Day 2 and reportedly cashed for $6,814.

Then, in an inspired move, Lusardi actually flushed the remaining chips ($ 2.7 million in tournament value) down the toilet of his hotel room. When the chips were discovered in the clogged - what a surprise! - sewer pipes, the hotel promptly contacted  the Borgata and the police intervened.

New Jersey state police records include at least one other ludicrous criminal arrest story. In 2010, Ronald White was arrested for shoplifting and taken to the local jail where his bail was set at $400. He paid with counterfeit money and would have gotten away with it if only he hadn’t gone back a few days later. By then, the police had realized the money was fake and were looking for him. In fact, White had shown up to complain he had been overcharged and to demand a $200 refund!..

For more epic criminal fail fun: