Phil Ivey Back in Court

It's been almost four years since famed poker pro Phil Ivey has won, then lost £7.8 million at Crockfords Casino. In August of 2012, Ivey and his friend won the money playing Punto Banco, (Baccarat) at the U.K. casino. The casino then deemed Ivey and his acquaintance to be cheating and withheld his winnings. It took months to determine this initial outcome, obviously Ivey was not satisfied with the result. In May of 2013, Ivey took the casino to court in hopes of recovering his massive winnings. His claim was that he was not cheating, he was only exploiting a weakness in the casinos cards. Ivey testified that he and his friend determined the cards being used had a flaw on the outside which could be exploited to help determine what cards were being dealt. This technique, called – Edge Sorting is used to identify small variations in patterns was deemed to be cheating under civil law. Ivey claims this was not cheating, but a “legitimate strategy” that the casino failed to protect themselves against. After the verdict, a judge ruled against Ivey's attorney filing an appeal. However, in 2014, his lawyer decided to file anyway. Less than a year later, a judge decided to allow the appeal and hear his case once more. This case is a bit conflicting as both parties disagree on whether or not this tactic can be considered cheating. On one hand, a judge noted that Ivey was a truthful witness and believed that Ivey did not think he was cheating when using this Edge Sorting strategy. But, also felt that it fell under the law of cheating. It's clear Phil wants his £7.8 million returned. Perhaps more importantly, Ivey wants the word cheat removed from his name. If there is one thing Phil isn't, he's not a cheat. In fact, when Poker Hall of Famer Chip Reese passed away, Phil Ivey called his family to let them know of a “large sum” of money he owed Reese and wanted to make arrangements to “Drop it off.” This according to many sources including Doyle Brunson's personal blog. Ivey was reported as the only person who knowingly owed Reese money to make good on his debt. While we are no judge, nor jury, our verdict would surely favor on the side of the 10 time WSOP winner. If a casino fails to provide cards free of imperfections there is no reason a player can't use that to their advantage. Since the player did not make the imperfections, there is no way you can call it cheating. It's basically like a casino marking the cards for you and then telling you that you can't use those markings to your advantage. In short, it makes no sense and is ludicrous to think otherwise.