[Deuce]

Ok, here is the situation...

We had our weekly home ring game last tuesday night and had a HUGE hand (for our game) on the last hand of the night.


We have 4 players left at the table and the dealer deals... UTG raised to $3 (.25c/.50c blinds)... the buttuon folds and the SB just smooth calls. The BB then makes it $10 then UTG goes All-in for about $80 total. It comes around to the SB and he just calls (he has about $225 in front of him)

The BB thinks for awhile and shows me QQ (im not playing at this point)... he flips up his cards and show the other two players and folds. The SB shows AA and UTG shows KK.

What are the chances?


Anyways the flop comes A J 10.... the turn is a Q but the river is an A and gives our SB a pretty big pot in our $20 buy-in game.


Anyways, the reason Im bringing this up is because the SB and the Dealer are really good friends and this is the dealers second time at our game. The SB comes all the time and wins nearly every week.

Our concern is that maybe the dealer set-up the deck... Mainly because that was just a sick hand to end the night and the dealer said something like "Are you really going to take the money.... that sucks man... c'mon" He looked just as shocked as us but we kinda have our doubts.

So... what should I do for next week? A couple of my regular players feel like this guy may have cheated and arent comfortable with him there. Should I not let anyone deal but me? Should I just watch him and if he doesn anything funky pull a Rounders on him? HELP????

[MacGrad]

If that was the dealer's second time at the game, but the SB has been winning for longer than that, then I'd just figure "that's poker" -- it's not as if the SB suddenly went on a winning streak when the dealer showed up.

If you're concerned, then have someone else deal at the next game: just announce to the group that the "Dealer" will rotate each week, so that nobody gets stuck doing it all the time. That'll address the cheating aspect without pointing fingers...

[Jambine]

Originally Posted by Deuce

.... Our concern is that maybe the dealer set-up the deck... Mainly because that was just a sick hand to end the night and the dealer said something like "Are you really going to take the money.... that sucks man... c'mon" He looked just as shocked as us but we kinda have our doubts.

So... what should I do for next week? A couple of my regular players feel like this guy may have cheated and arent comfortable with him there. Should I not let anyone deal but me? Should I just watch him and if he doesn anything funky pull a Rounders on him? HELP????

This is a VERY tricky road you are going down. To accuse someone of cheating is such a serious thing. You need to be absolutely certain before doing that. It is truly the “kiss of death” for any poker player.

The good news is that you don't need to confront him with it. If several people in your game are uncomfortable with this guy, then simply stop inviting him. No explanation is necessary, but you can always just say “sorry, we already have a full ring”.

[_GUN_]

knowing nothing about these people, it's hard for me to judge their character.

if you think like a cheat, though, let's examine a key factor---last hand of the night.

to make the most profit, you would wait for the end of the night with all the re-buys. however, waiting to spring the trap until the very last hand of the night is incredibly stupid. if it happened 3/4th through the game or early on, it would raise a lot less suspicion.

I'm probably 70/30 on this, in favor of it just being a crazy hand. I mean I saw KKKKA board last night and a raising war happened after the river. I had never seen that before. Obviously it was a 4-way chop, but it didn't stop the two morons at my table from trying outfox everyone with raises. I had a headache after that.

[Deuce]

Originally Posted by Jambine

This is a VERY tricky road you are going down. To accuse someone of cheating is such a serious thing. You need to be absolutely certain before doing that. It is truly the “kiss of death” for any poker player.

The good news is that you don't need to confront him with it. If several people in your game are uncomfortable with this guy, then simply stop inviting him. No explanation is necessary, but you can always just say “sorry, we already have a full ring”.

I understand that and thats why my options where to just watch closely or be the all-time dealer. Im not going to accuse a guy of cheating simply because the hand was huge and he said something wierd as the guy was raking in the pot.

I cant just not invite him because they would basically mean Im accusing him of cheating anyway. Its open to whoever as long as they know a regular. If I asked my regular to not bring his friend Im sure they would figure out why.

[MeridianFC]

As above you have to be absolutely certain someone is cheating before you accuse or even hint that. It is certainly possible for such a wacky hand to occur normally and end of the night last hands often become a shove it in the middle type of affair. With all of that said, and not knowing any of the folks involved in this, this hand seems highly unusual because of the confluence of events:

Last hand
4 players with three sets of broadway pairs (what did the 4th have?)
Action flop that makes the KK a broadway straight (he was all in but if he hadn't been we would be now) and would've made the QQ trips
Quad Aces on the river

BTW how did the SB get jacked up to $225 in a $20 buy in game?

So there's a lot of conincidence there. A lot of this comes down to your relationship with the dealer. Is he the sort that would cold deck you? Is he trustworthy? I've gotten KK stomped on by AA plenty of times, I have seen multi pair ram and jams with wacky boards, and I've seen money fly in to the pot on the last hand (full disclosure, I've thrown plenty of money in on the last hand with some dicey play).

In the end I think you have to go with innocent until proven guilty, but if this guy stops coming around or too many miracles happen to him you'll need to reevaluate. You're certainly on notice.

[coyote]

Cut before dealing?

[Fins]

Sounds like PokerStars to me...

POKERSTARS GAME #2586434152: TOURNAMENT #12361573, HOLD'EM NO LIMIT - LEVEL XI (600/1200) - 2005/09/16 - 00:20:15 (ET)
Table '12361573 5' Seat #2 is the button
Seat 2: Craiture (23369 in chips)
Seat 3: mwfeldman (12010 in chips)
Seat 4: lilil (1855 in chips)
Seat 5: bigwarm (5142 in chips)
Seat 6: pokerdwarf (6498 in chips)
Seat 7: rubca1 (20399 in chips)
Seat 8: Seitz333 (4199 in chips)
Seat 9: Gaming Ore (6028 in chips)
Craiture: posts the ante 75
mwfeldman: posts the ante 75
lilil: posts the ante 75
bigwarm: posts the ante 75
pokerdwarf: posts the ante 75
rubca1: posts the ante 75
Seitz333: posts the ante 75
Gaming Ore: posts the ante 75
mwfeldman: posts small blind 600
lilil: posts big blind 1200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to mwfeldman [8c 8h]
Craiture said, "n sng"
bigwarm: folds
pokerdwarf: raises 1200 to 2400
rubca1: folds
Seitz333: folds
Gaming Ore: raises 1200 to 3600
Craiture: raises 19694 to 23294 and is all-in
mwfeldman: folds
lilil: calls 580 and is all-in
pokerdwarf: calls 4023 and is all-in
Gaming Ore: calls 2353 and is all-in
lilil said, "lol"
*** FLOP *** [7h 8s 3c]
Craiture said, "lol"
mwfeldman said, "you ran for poker tournaments for advanced players, didn't you?"
*** TURN *** [7h 8s 3c] [5h]
*** RIVER *** [7h 8s 3c 5h] [Kh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
pokerdwarf: shows [Ac Ad] (a pair of Aces)
Craiture: shows [Qs Qc] (a pair of Queens)
Craiture said, "wow"
pokerdwarf collected 940 from side pot-2
Gaming Ore: shows [Ks Kc] (three of a kind, Kings)
Gaming Ore collected 12519 from side pot-1
lilil: shows [7d Jd] (a pair of Sevens)
lilil said, "that's unreal"
Craiture said, "rrriiigggeeedddd"
Gaming Ore said, "WOWWWWWWWWWWWWWW"
Gaming Ore collected 8320 from main pot
pokerdwarf said, "nh"
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 21779 Main pot 8320. Side pot-1 12519. Side pot-2 940. | Rake 0
Board [7h 8s 3c 5h Kh]
Seat 2: Craiture (button) showed [Qs Qc] and lost with a pair of Queens
Seat 3: mwfeldman (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 4: lilil (big blind) showed [7d Jd] and lost with a pair of Sevens
Seat 5: bigwarm folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: pokerdwarf showed [Ac Ad] and won (940) with a pair of Aces
Seat 7: rubca1 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: Seitz333 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: Gaming Ore showed [Ks Kc] and won (20839) with three of a kind, Kings



I'd definitely want alot more to go off of then an odd hand... you can't view it as a "What are the odds scenario?"

[2_hotty]

How do you handle the dealing at your game? Does it rotate? Was this just his turn? Accusing someone of cheating is a very touchy area.


On a side note, I recently was accused of cheating. I was invited to a buddies home game. He even asked me ahead of time to take it easy on his buddies, because they're not very good and he didn't want me to scare them off. I just kind of brushed it off. Well, with JTo I limped in a pot with a limper behind me, and the SB raised pot. It was .50/1 pot limit, so the raise was small. I called, limper called. Flop was 7c8h9c. SB bets $5. I raise pot, 2nd limper re-raises pot, SB goes all in, and I end up putting 2nd limper all in. Cards are turned over and I show the nut straight. 2nd limper shows 6cTc for the sucker straight and a str flush draw, and SB show AcKc for A high flush draw. Turn and river are blanks and I bust both of them. I ended up busting the original SB within an hour later, flopping top two and having him bet into me the whole way.

Not one word was said at the table, but a day or two later the SB guy was telling his buddies (that were there) that I was a cheater. The way the game worked was one guy always shuffled, and one dealt. During the TJ hand, I was dealing (but I didn't shuffle the deck!) At first I laughed about it, but the more I thought about it, the more it pissed me off that he would accuse me of that.

[Magus 23]

This is a really tough call. I'm always reluctant to call "cheater" unless I've really got hard proof. But this particular situation seems like something out of a (bad) Hollywood screenplay. Seems like it went a little off-script with BB folding (they probably hadn't counted on UTG's all-in before the flop), but otherwise, it looks like a classic cheating setup.

On the other hand, it seems too obvious. Weird s--- happens. This weird...? I don't know. But I find it hard to imagine that someone who was going to cheat would be this blatant about it (although the dealer's comment does make it seem like it might have been a "joke" gone bad).

Even if you do decide to rule that the dealer was cheating, you've still got the open question of whether or not your regular (SB) was in on it. Or if not the specifics, then knew that his "friend" could be a little shady. It's gonna be awkward no matter what.

I'd probably lean toward coming up with a political excuse for not bringing the "friend" back, but probably avoid any overt accusations without something more.

If you do get more...