I’ll tell you what. If you go around busting rigged, high stakes games, like Harry Houdini busting fake mediums, then I’ll call you Batman!Oh, the girl is the girl. Now just intrigued to see more high stakes games in LA and see if they’re rigged too. Probably a bad idea. But intrigued.
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What do you do when you’re ridiculously stuck in a session? (6 Viewers)
- Thread starter Windwalker
- Start date
OP
OP
The 6 marks my investigator uncovered lost a total of $760,000 over 7 games. (1 mark went back).
EDIT: I don’t drink (except for sip bourbon) when I play, but most of the others were relatively loose, boisterous players who loved the girls, the environment, and didn’t take poker too seriously. I think I was just a bad mark, because I came back and kept thinking about it. Wasn’t just the money, I’ve just never been beaten like that before. And of course, you guys triggered the actual idea.
TheDuke
Full House
Damn! Are they aware the game is rigged? Are they pursuing being reimbursed?
“This stripper has a heart of gold… and I think she’s really into me!” —Every drunk guy at a bachelor party
OP
OP
Not yet.
ekricket
Royal Flush
One of my favorite movies.
“Did you bring a horse for me?”
“Nah, looks like we’re shy one horse”
“No, you brought two too many”
Curious_zunom
Waiting List
its mentally hard to do but I usually set a stop loss.
chrismurda
Flush
Detective Comics - Private Cash Games no. 2Oh, the girl is the girl. Now just intrigued to see more high stakes games in LA and see if they’re rigged too. Probably a bad idea. But intrigued.
Wow this is just fascinating, @Windwalker just curious(logistically) how do you even pay 40k for a game like this? I assume its not cash, but would you have to wire it before hand then? Are all the players doing that?
OP
OP
I brought cash for my initial buy-in. 4 stacks of high society. They extended credit after that.
davislane
Straight Flush
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2020
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How did the dealer and the house players know when the cut happened exactly as it needed to? How did they know when a hand was going to be a setup hand? There had to be some sort of signalling / communication taking place.
Lmao thats crazy!! This thread is literally the most interesting thing I have ever read on the forum lol glad you got your money back and helping others as well, truly batman-esque
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OP
OP
The shuffler has 2 lights next to each other, both shades of green. The left one lighting up indicated it was a rigged deck. Cut was always to 26. The right one lit up when it was a normal deck.
The light existed just to make sure the mechanic paid extra attention to the cut to 26.
EDIT: this I don’t know, because it wasn’t part of the information, but i assume there was some specific way in which the dealer indicated it was a rigged hand.
Geremie
Full House
The real question is whether @Windwalker took the free cookie with the buy-in?
Wouldn’t it be a lot simpler for the dealer to always cut in the same place?
OP
OP
No offense taken, Rob. I originally even asked to get this thread deleted. But as we’ve been digging more into the seedy underground games in LA, I thought it would be fun to share what was happening. Not meant to be self-laudatory or serving, just found the whole thing fascinating and wanted to share.
And you’re absolutely right, all the credit go to the guys helping me out.
OP
OP
I don’t understand the question. I was just saying that when it was a rigged deck, the mechanism apparently has a subtle indicator for the dealer that it was one, which presumably focused him on making sure the cut was precise. But I also expect the indicator existed to allow him to signal to the house players that it was rigged.
Just spitballing, but something simple could have been just WHERE he dealt the cards (right or left of stack).
I was suggesting that rather than having a special signal for rigged hands only, which could arouse suspicion, just have the master mechanic always cut at 26. Presumably such a sharp could make that cut in his sleep.
If anyone noticed (unlikely) and complained (which would be odd), the dealer could just say “I always try to cut in half, can’t promise I always succeed.”
OP
OP
By the way, to the issue of cutting exactly, please watch this video, from 9:06 onwards. Notice at 11:17, he makes a mistake and cuts one card too little, but plays it off with some showmanship.
OP
OP
I believe (not confirmed yet) the indicator exists to make sure he could notify the house players that it’s a rigged hand, since in many cases, the winning card / bad beat would come from a later street.
I was in seat 6, and I had a decent view of the shuffler, and never really noticed the lights.
Ha I just watched that yesterday and noticed the same thing. Nice save
JFCJ
Full House
To help guard against a cheat, can't the player ask for a three pile cut of the deck?
Fascinating stuff here.
Fascinating stuff here.
OP
OP
By the way, I have no idea if he actually did (always cut to 26.). I’m getting all this after the fact. When I was in the game, I was conned, hook line and sinker. Hindsight is a wonderful and terrible thing together.
OP
OP
If I noticed it, sure. I wasn’t even thinking anything was up. But what’s that thing George Bush Jr. once tried to say? “fool me once… “
megarises
Flush
Can’t get fooled again!
I’d like to know how your guy found all of these details out. Did he beat them to a pulp so they confessed to everything??
OP
OP
Probably for the better. But I’m loving this detective stuff. This for real needs to be made into a movie
Playing devil’s advocate here… Is it possible you just had a bad night at the table?
Looking at it this way, you only lost two (400 BB) buyins. Relatively speaking, -2 buyins is completely normal variance. It’s to be expected over the long haul. World-class players lose 2+ buyins all the time.
It’s the stakes which make the losses seem like an exceptionally huge amount. But for someone bankrolled for 50/100 — let alone a room prepared to extend credit to multiple players at that level, along with the vast overhead of the venue described — well, it’s honestly pretty trivial.
Sure, at a normal casino which limits mere mortals to 150-250 BB buyins at lower stakes, that’s more like 3-5 buyins. It’s a bad night by any measure. But it’s not uncommon in poker.
I can remember losing 1K on an ugly day playing 1/2 with a $300 max buyin… 3.333 buyins. There was no fraud involved. I was running bad, and playing tilted.
You might say: Well, the Armenians returned the money, so that proves they were cheating.
But if they did return it, mightn’t that just demonstrate that they decided you are a pain in their ass, siccing private eyes on their illegal game — so they decided it was well worth two buy-ins at their nosebleed stakes to be rid of you? The type of operation you describe would not want anyone prying into them even if the dealing were 100% legit.
I’ve certainly had situations (only a very few) in professional life where a client was such a PITA that I preferred to “fire” the client and refund their money completely than to continue dealing with them. I’m talking here about someone who you know is never going to stop being impossible, making the income not worth the headaches. But then, I’m kind of like that. (TBH the look on their faces when you walk away is well worth it…)
Ditto in my nonprofit work. As the director of a large membership organization, there was always 1% of members who drove me and the Board crazy. It only happened a few times over almost a decade, but there were instances where things reached a point where we expelled certain members, despite other assets they brought to the org, because they spent so much time sowing division that their contributions were not worth the hassles. (In one instance, I suspected the problem member was a plant of the multinational company we were challenging in a regulatory review. But she might have just been a meddlesome idiot. Either way, we were better off without her in our group.)
So whether your pushback was 100% justified or 100% imagined, I could see the operators deciding to “cut this guy loose” either way.
Just sayin’— no offense. I think every possibility should be considered.
Looking at it this way, you only lost two (400 BB) buyins. Relatively speaking, -2 buyins is completely normal variance. It’s to be expected over the long haul. World-class players lose 2+ buyins all the time.
It’s the stakes which make the losses seem like an exceptionally huge amount. But for someone bankrolled for 50/100 — let alone a room prepared to extend credit to multiple players at that level, along with the vast overhead of the venue described — well, it’s honestly pretty trivial.
Sure, at a normal casino which limits mere mortals to 150-250 BB buyins at lower stakes, that’s more like 3-5 buyins. It’s a bad night by any measure. But it’s not uncommon in poker.
I can remember losing 1K on an ugly day playing 1/2 with a $300 max buyin… 3.333 buyins. There was no fraud involved. I was running bad, and playing tilted.
You might say: Well, the Armenians returned the money, so that proves they were cheating.
But if they did return it, mightn’t that just demonstrate that they decided you are a pain in their ass, siccing private eyes on their illegal game — so they decided it was well worth two buy-ins at their nosebleed stakes to be rid of you? The type of operation you describe would not want anyone prying into them even if the dealing were 100% legit.
I’ve certainly had situations (only a very few) in professional life where a client was such a PITA that I preferred to “fire” the client and refund their money completely than to continue dealing with them. I’m talking here about someone who you know is never going to stop being impossible, making the income not worth the headaches. But then, I’m kind of like that. (TBH the look on their faces when you walk away is well worth it…)
Ditto in my nonprofit work. As the director of a large membership organization, there was always 1% of members who drove me and the Board crazy. It only happened a few times over almost a decade, but there were instances where things reached a point where we expelled certain members, despite other assets they brought to the org, because they spent so much time sowing division that their contributions were not worth the hassles. (In one instance, I suspected the problem member was a plant of the multinational company we were challenging in a regulatory review. But she might have just been a meddlesome idiot. Either way, we were better off without her in our group.)
So whether your pushback was 100% justified or 100% imagined, I could see the operators deciding to “cut this guy loose” either way.
Just sayin’— no offense. I think every possibility should be considered.
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