Sketchy, or just swingy? (2 Viewers)

[JustinInMN]

The second hand was the one that sent my radar pinging at top volume (guy shoving preflop with 25o into two TAGs and one LAG for a size that is sure to get at least one call, flopping a double gutted straight, then losing to a flush. I won that one BTW.)

Again, if the dealer is trying to set up the preflop shover, why is he dealing 25o? To me, this is the least likely of the examples to be off.

My inclination is to not go back even if there is only a 15% chance of shenanigans. I don’t want to spend all my attention watching dealers etc.

This is actually really good advice, if you are find your are focusing too much on shenanigans real or imagined, you are probably conceding a mental advantage to your opposition by devoting thought to the possibility, even if there is no shenanigans, if you can't help but be suspicous for whatever reason, that's good enough to quit.

Just saw this one...

Player A was involved with another bizarre situation in a game two weeks ago.

Until this happened, the house had a bad beat jackpot that had not hit for ***three years*** and got up to more than 1200BB.

The host slowly ratchets down the qualifying hands each week to make it more possible to hit. Started at quads beat, but had gotten all the way down to KKK99 beat.

Player E has K9. Player A has AA.

Flop . Checks through turn. River .

Player A, stupidly, leads the river for 25BB.

Player E tanks. Turns over his KKK99 hand. Some murmurs go around the table but no one mentions the bad beat potential specifically. Player A is making a face but doesn’t say bad beat.

Player E ***folds***.

Player A screams as he shows his AA and berates himself for betting.

The table erupts, demanding to know why E folded. E claims he thought A had AA or AK but “forgot” about the 1200BB bad beat.

Mayhem ensues. Host tries to settle everyone down but it just keeps going. Host finally gets mad and announces he’s canceling the bad beat entirely and will put the money accumulated into future high hands.

Player D comes back to the game the next two weeks after a long absence and wins the high hand both times, settling his debts.

All could be random. Feels berserk to me.

This one is weird, but I don't see who would benefit from someone mucking a jackpot. Certainly a dealer wouldn't want this and deny potential tips for it. It sounds like it has grown so much the host would almost be relieved if it hit.

 

[4SUMERZ]

If your spidey senses are going off, and you are second guessing the legitimacy of the game action, then it's your decision whether to continue playing at this game or not. It's easy to either find another game, or just stop going to this one.

 

[Taghkanic]

Specific examples aside, the more general question remains:

Where to draw the line between what’s actually sketchy and what’s just normal swingy variance?

Then:

How much hard or inferred evidence of cheating does one need before leaving a game for good?

I’ve raised some similar scenarios before, and the answers tend to fall in three categories:

1) It’s totally normal variance, you’re paranoid/making excuses for losing

2) It’s totally abnormal, run away as fast as you can

3) There’s not enough info to say for sure.

I’ve only run into one situation where I actually caught a cheat in the act. I think such 100% certainty is very rare (and the cheat will still deny it, then try to make you feel foolish for accusing them). And really an adept mechanic could presumably fool you even when you’re staring at their every move, though I suspect these are few and far between now, compared with riverboat days.

So most of the time it has to be a calculation:

How much do I really want to remain in this game vs. what percentage chance do I estimate there is that it’s crooked?

And finally:

How much is my suspicion going to warp my play, regardless of whether I’m right or not?

In this specific case, I am tempted to return one more time specifically to observe the game mechanics more closely. Probably buying in short and playing very few hands to gather that intelligence more cheaply.

 

[JustinInMN]

Where to draw the line between what’s actually sketchy and what’s just normal swingy variance?

Just to take a stab at this. I have a personal rule that I have no interest in hearing any bad beat story that involves more than 3 outs. I have barely any interest in any bad beat story involving fewer outs. Rest assured anyone telling me a bad beat story involving 4 or more outs, I am politely nodding and humming, but I am certainly thinking about anything else. A few two-outers are a pretty normal occurrence on a given night.

So bottom line, it's okay to look at the odds, but still recognize there is a big difference between something that should NEVER happen and something that should RARELY happen. Even 1-2% chances will come in if you are playing long enough. I caught my first perfect-perfect about 2 years after serious play in college. And if you are fortunate enough to be in action over years and decades, you will see these things more than others. So always take the odds alone with at least a spoon of salt. And that's one of the limitations of this thread, I think we have only been presented with the odds and are wanting to see at least suspicious moves by a dealer, more than it just "seems" to always happen right away.

How much hard or inferred evidence of cheating does one need before leaving a game for good?

How much is my suspicion going to warp my play, regardless of whether I’m right or not?

I think the second question answers the first. Once you are aware the suspicion could be warping your play, that is as good a reason to quit as any other, regardless of what is true. The question is where do put this bar to avoid excluding yourself from all games.

I’ve only run into one situation where I actually caught a cheat in the act. I think such 100% certainty is very rare (and the cheat will still deny it, then try to make you feel foolish for accusing them).

I’ve only run into one situation where I actually caught a cheat in the act. I think such 100% certainty is very rare (and the cheat will still deny it, then try to make you feel foolish for accusing them).

So most of the time it has to be a calculation:

How much do I really want to remain in this game vs. what percentage chance do I estimate there is that it’s crooked?

Exactly the right question to ask. You sound blessed with several options for games so letting one go probably doesn't hurt you that much. If you didn't have as many options, you should probably be more sure before deciding to quit.

 

[doublebooyah85]

With how nice your home set up is @Taghkanic dont you find it hard to go to other games lol

 

[jquizo]

When there's smoke, they may be fire.

Just trust your gut and walk away. Don't have to call anyone cheats or crooks because that can blow up.

 

[WedgeRock]

Just to be clear, you're not playing on Poker Stars, right?

 

[Taghkanic]

Just to be clear, you're not playing on Poker Stars, right?

Nevah

 

[JustinInMN]

Just to be clear, you're not playing on Poker Stars, right?

MOAR rake is better!

 

[ekricket]

I think there’s something to specific dealers, not necessarily shady or cheating, but recently we went on a poker cruise, and they had about 20 dealers. They would rotate thru 20 minute sessions, and you would play with most of them several times a day over the course of a week. There was one named Rose, and anytime she was dealing action hands abounded. I’m talking pocket aces over pocket royalty three times in a 20 minute session. Once back to back. So I watched her sessions more carefully, and once someone got pocket aces then they started coming every 2-3 hands in her sessions. Not the same person over and over, moving around, but it was like once she got an “action packet” of cards she kinda kept them together, intentionally or not, and mayhem ensued. Manual shuffling.

 

[Budha]

Who TF is shoving with 2/5 offsuit with a large raise and a call from two tight players ahead of them?

^^Yeah, I’m still trying to get my head around that and I can’t - lol.

 

[Taghkanic]

Again, if the dealer is trying to set up the preflop shover, why is he dealing 25o?

I suspect this hand (if it were a set up at all, which it might not be) was not supposed to go down this way.

The game is usually quite limpy in my limited experience. So (if set up, still an if) the 25o guy who always straddles was more likely to get a few flat callers then hit the miracle flop.

The flush coming in on the river to reverse his fortune could just be a mistake… but my concern was more about a dealer creating action at random to build pots, less than helping one player.

I spoke with the player who got me into the game and he said he thought the 25o guy went all-in blind. If so, he didn’t announce it that I heard. And not sure how that is much better as a strategy, though almost any random hand is going to be better than 25o.

 

[Taghkanic]

So bottom line, it's okay to look at the odds, but still recognize there is a big difference between something that should NEVER happen and something that should RARELY happen. Even 1-2% chances will come in if you are playing long enough.

I think I’ve seen it all too… Red AA vs black AA where one guy makes a one-card flush. Trip aces vs trip tens where the river is a T. And so on.

The hands cited are less about outs than improbable gameplay and the appearance of set-up runouts.

(And while on 888 vs 789TJ the set has multiple outs, a parlay of making a boat on all three boards is about 1%, less than that of a one-outer.)

 

[JustinInMN]

I spoke with the player who got me into the game and he said he thought the 25o guy went all-in blind. If so, he didn’t announce it that I heard. And not sure how that is much better as a strategy, though almost any random hand is going to be better than 25o.

Well to me, there isn't much difference between making a conscious decision to go all in with 52o and just going all in with ATC blind . This player clearly is not picky no matter what.

I guess what I can't truck is if the dealer is crooked in the sense he wants to deal more action boards, why give the patsy 52o? If he's a selective player this will be folded. If not, he's going to get in no matter what you deal, so why bother dealing anything crooked at all?

For what little I know about mechanics, it seems to be a different thing to just control a single helpful card versus trying to set up "strings" of cards that make up a flop turn and river. (Which is made even more complicated by having to burn cards in between, a secondary benefit to this procedure other than disguising the back of a card.) And that's what a flopped straight would require.

 

[JustinInMN]

(And while on 888 vs 789TJ the set has multiple outs, a parlay of making a boat on all three boards is about 1%, less than that of a one-outer.)

Check the math on that again, it's less than a two outer (4.6%), but more than a one-outer (2.3%). Remember two cards to come was my understanding.