Ace up the sleeve: Six stories of poker cheats

In every game devised by mankind, someone has figured a way to cheat and win. And perhaps in no game is the cheater such an object of fascination as in poker. From infinite variations on the dude with an ace up his sleeve blown away while sitting at the saloon poker table to wondrous stories of electronic trickery in the 21st century, pop culture loves the cajones of the poker cheat. The following represent just a half-dozen or surely thousands upon thousands of such stories…

The dude who had four aces up his sleeve

Not necessarily to suggest that a news brief from the Memphis Avalanche (that’s right) in July 1888 entitled “Killed While Playing Poker” implied that the victim was cheating, but, well, you be the judge. The item reads: “A man was killed hist night while engaged playing poker. He held four aces concealed ready for an emergency. In his pocket was found a razor, a pistol and eight Yellow Label Cigars.”

The case of Phil Ivey (or, What constitutes cheating in poker?)

In any competition involving complex strategy, competitors will use any advantage — particularly if that advantage is not explicitly ruled out in an official rulebook — available. (Just ask the New England Patriots.) Often only after such a controversial act can the underlying issue (and therefore the rules) be changed.

For example, take this incident involving high-level poker player Phil Ivey.

The protesting player certainly implies that obscuring one’s hole cards is against the rules, yet no other player mistakenly supposed Ivey had folded. In addition, shouldn’t the ranting player keep track of who’s in, especially if he’s acting as aggressor, as Ivey suggests in the video?

Was Ivey’s move cheating? Gamesmanship, perhaps, but if it’s cheating it’s of the sort that, as the poster of the YouTube clip linked above proclaims, “I guess that’s what makes him the greatest.”

To no one’s surprise, Ivey has been nailed with court judgments ordering him to repay British and Australian casinos $12 million and $14 million, respectively, for a “scam” that he and a partner had been working on for baccarat. As the trick involved the actual factory-printed back of the playing cards used, Ivey’s legal representatives (justifiably, in the opinion of many) attempted to argue that the casino allowed Ivey’s system due to extant playing conditions with no true cheating necessary.

Poker cheats: The high-tech…

A few not-quite-so-famous folks have tried their luck in cheating at poker and, since we hear about these stories, they’re obviously the fails.

Capturing the imagination of the European media in September 2013 was the court case of one Stefano Ampollini who, together with at least four associates, took some €70,000 from Les Princes Casino in Cannes, France. Ampollini’s scam involved two insiders with access to the actual cards to be used in the game, a wing man at the table, infrared contact lenses and invisible ink. Testimony suggests that if Ampollini hadn’t gotten greedy he and accomplice Gianfranco Tirrito might’ve gotten away with the haul; instead, they got sentences of 2½ and three years, respectively.

Gambling-centric websites often relate Sam Simon’s story, as told to the Las Vegas Review Journal newspaper. The Simpson co-creator (ohhhhh, that Sam Simon!) was not only scammed himself (in ways undivulged in online poker, but a million-dollar playing, ahem, friend of his lost some $4 million, regardless of website. How? As it turns out, someone had broken into his house and installed a camera to spy on his screen as he played.

Perhaps the highest profile event to fall victim to a poker cheat’s guile was the $2 Million Borgata Winter Poker Open. In January 2014, the Atlantic City tournament had to be shut down with just 27 of the original 2,143 players still remaining. Christian Lusardi, the cheater who may have sensed the metaphorical bloodhounds closing in, clearly panicked after day three and thus attempted to flush exactly 503 fake poker chips down his hotel bathroom toilet. All players were rewarded their entry fee back, the top 27 chopped the remaining prizes for $19,323 each, Lusardi got tagged with eight years in prison time and $472,995 in penalties.

…and the low-tech

Finally, from the Too Big To Fail (Not!) Department, here’s the case of US Navy Vice-Admiral Timothy Giardina who, apparently with military-like precision, used decals and paint to magically transform $1 chips into $500 chips. After discovering he may have been sneaking these into the Horseshoe Southern Indiana casino for as long as 18 months prior to their discovery in November 2014, Giardina was relieved of his command by then-President Obama.

The takeaway from these tales, then? It is highly unlikely that the average player will ever encounter or lose money due to poker cheats; even unlikelier is being the poker cheat. Though online casino gaming and poker sites are evermore sophisticated in security, the odds-on favorites for scamming potential are via website hacks, phishing and cheat codes. Know where you play online poker and protect your PC and/or device!