Cheating

[gilly]

Often times people post and will allude to "the well known fact that there is cheating in a lot of poker" and that "so and so cheats".

Can someone please clarify? How do people cheat in tournaments etc.? How big of an issue is this?

I am not asking how people CAN cheat. I am asking about how people actually are cheating. Like the post that said that "it is known that Men the Master cheats"???

[Lurker]

"Teammates" playing from the same bankroll can dump chips to the biggest stack among them when their own elimination seems likely.

As to how widespread it is, I have no idea.

[Greg (FossilMan)]

It's fine with me if they do that. It will cost the team money in the long run. Now, if the biggest stack of the team were to start dumping chips to the smaller stacks to keep them in, then I'd be concerned.

In fact, the ONLY reason I would ever do anything about a team that was dumping chips from the small stack to the big stack, is because I'd be concerned that if they were doing that, that they would also be doing other things that would cost me money. The point is, chip-dumping to the big stack gives me money, rather than costing me money.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[sam h]

Gilly,

I mentioned that Daniel Negreanu stated on RGP a while ago that Men cheated in tournaments. I would not know if this allegation is true, although other people have said the same thing over the years.

From what I understand, chip dumping is not a huge problem. The bigger problem, allegedly, is people taking chips off the table in one tournament and covertly adding them to their stacks in another tournament at the same casino that uses the same chips for all its tournaments. Basically, a big stack in a small buy-in tourney could take X chips off in the later stages. These X chips are then added to someone's stack in the beginning stages of a large buy-in tournament, increasing their value exponentially.

As far as cheating in ring games, there have basically been tons and tons of allegations over the past couple years - most coming from one person with questionable motives and credibility - and very little tangible proof. Which doesn't mean its not an important question. If you're inquisitive, and somewhat of a masochist, fasten your seatbelt, go to the rec:gamblingoker Google forum, and do a search for Russ Georgiev.

[Mason Malmuth]

Hi Greg:

You wrote:

The point is, chip-dumping to the big stack gives me money, rather than costing me money.

That's not necessarily true. Suppose it's a $1,000 buy-in tournament, and let's say that an expert tournament's player's starting chips are worth $2,000. (That is I'm saying that he should finish in the money roughly twice as often as average.) Now on the very first hand, one of his partners dumps his chips to the expert. Now he has twice the starting amount of chips and the amount of chips equivalent to a $2,000 buy-in. So what's his stack worth (to him). My guess is that it is now worth approximately $3,500. So the second thousand dollar buy-in is now worth $1,500 in the hands of this player.

Best wishes,
Mason

[Greg (FossilMan)]

You're right. Of course, the original poster talked about short stacks dumping chips to a big-stacked partner, which is very different.

Like I said, if I was aware of any kind of cheating, I would try to do something about it, even if it was inept cheating. I'd hate to look the other way about the inept cheater, and find out a while later they had learned from their mistakes.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[B-Man]

Like I said, if I was aware of any kind of cheating, I would try to do something about it, even if it was inept cheating.

There is a high-stakes (75-150 and higher, usually 7-stud but sometimes mixed games) player at Foxwoods who often marks cards by making finger-nail marks in them (coincidentally, it is always low-cards that end up getting these marks). These marks are subtle, and I question whether Player X can actually see them unless they are in the hand of a player right next to him, but that is not the point... When Player X is in the game, the other players end up asking for new setups far more often then would be typical (and Foxwoods has, on occassion, warned all of the players at the table that the game would be shut down if cards continued to be damaged). Many of the other players know who is doing this... but nobody does anything about it (other than asking for a new setup when they notice a card has been damaged), and, as far as I know, nobody has caught him in the act (though I have seen one diligent dealer check this player's discards during his 30 minutes at the table). I have seen another player directly accuse him of marking cards, and Player X doesn't get defensive, he just says, "prove it."

Given that it is pretty difficult to catch him in the act (as well as a major distraction from concentrating on your own game), how would you handle this situation?

[Greg (FossilMan)]

I seldom play in the stud-only games, and wasn't aware of this person or issue.

Having said that, if I were a player in that game, and thought the person were marking cards to cheat, I wouldn't play. I would encourage the other players who were upset to go up to the floorperson, and tell them why we were quitting the game. If you can get most of the others to do this with you, then the problem will get solved, one way or another.

However, poker players being how they are, with the classic comparison of herding cats, I suspect this solution would be difficult to implement.

If I were a working pro in the game, I would have to find someway to deal with it. No need to discuss where that might go.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[TJSWAN]

[punkass]

Why don't casinos just use the same "set" of tournament chips for the same levels? For example, for a $20 limit tournament, use one set of chips. In a $100 tournament, use another set of chips that use different colors. I think the small cost of getting multiple sets pales to increasing the integrty of the tournament. The only problem you'll have then is someone taking chips off in one tournament, and adding it to the same tournament later.

But I guess you'll always have this problem.