Posts Tagged ‘baccarat edge sorting’

Phil Ivey loses £7.7m Crockfords Case – Is Precedent set for Borgata?

Wednesday, October 8th, 2014

Phil Ivey took a bad beat in court when a UK High Court judge ruled against him in a £7.7 million baccarat edge sorting case.

Predictably, Ivey argued that edge sorting is not cheating and he wouldn’t use the technique if he thought it cheated the casino. The judge believed that Ivey didn’t think he was really cheating. However, the judge still sided with Crockfords’ argument that Ivey went above and behind the normal scope of advantage play, including asking for a bunch of favors under the guise of being superstitious (i.e. cards tilted at 180-degree angle, same deck used, Chinese-speaking dealer).

After the case was decided, a disappointed Ivey continued to profess his belief that he won fair and square. The 10-time WSOP champ said the following:

I am obviously disappointed with this judge’s decision. As I said in court, it is not my nature to cheat and I would never do anything to risk my reputation.

I am pleased that the judge acknowledged in court that I was a truthful witness by saying that ‘I am entirely convinced that Mr Ivey did not consider that what he was doing was cheating.

I believe that what we did was a legitimate strategy – we did nothing more than exploit Crockfords’ failures to take proper steps to protect themselves against a player of my ability – clearly today, the judge did not agree.

There’s also a $9.6 million lawsuit filed by the Borgata against Ivey that’s yet to be decided. Another edge sorting case, Ivey was actually paid the $9.6 million in baccarat winnings before he left the casino. However, Borgata now wants their money back and, like Crockfords, they’re taking their case to court.

Given what happened in the Crockfords judgement, there may be some precedent here. Of course, Borgata is dealing with a different country and they already gave Ivey the money. This case is supposed to be decided next year, so it’ll be interested to see if Ivey goes 0-for-2 or he gets better luck this time.

Dan Cates up $10.2m, Phil Ivey down $5.1m

Friday, August 29th, 2014

Oh what a difference a couple of years can make in high stakes online poker. Coming into the relaunched Full Tilt Poker, Phil Ivey was the game’s biggest winner with $19.2 million in online profits. However, he’s since taken a big tumble over the nearly-two years since Full Tilt reopened.

Switching to the name “Polarizing,” Ivey is now down $5.1 million. This still leaves him with about $14.1 million in career online poker winnings. And we certainly wouldn’t expect him to be in money trouble, given his multiple business endeavors and baccarat edge-sorting profits. Still, it’s strange to see the man whom many call the “world’s greatest all-around poker player” struggle so badly.

On the other end of the spectrum is Dan “jungleman12” Cates, who is dominating the cyber felt this year. Cates had the prime of his poker career interrupted by Black Friday, as he’d earned $6.8 million in just a year before April 15th, 2011. Since resuming his high stakes career at Full Tilt, Cates hasn’t experienced any drop-off, and his HighStakesDB graph just keeps going up. At the time of this writing, Jungleman has made over $2.83 million in 2014, which leads everybody entering September.

Cates also ranks third all-time with $10.23 million. He only trails Ivey and Patrik Antonius – the latter of whom is another interesting story. Like Cates, Antonius is crushing players this year and has earned $1.83 million. Overall, the Finn has collected $5.95 million in career profits through his “Finddagrind” name. Combine this with $11.2 million from his self-titled name and Antonius has over $17.1 million in career winnings.

Of course, the high stakes online poker world is a fickle place. So it’ll be interesting to see if Cates and Antonius continue dominating the big games at Full Tilt. But at this point, we have little reason to doubt their skills.