Monday, October 6, 2014

36 Casino Gambling Tips: Ivey's Baccarat Edge Sorting Case with Crockfords

REBLOG> 36 Casino Gambling Tips: Ivey's Baccarat Edge Sorting Case with Crockfords:
SavySeph's Original Blog

Professional Gambler's Tips

Three Tips from a Professional Gambler is base on quotes taken from Ivey versus Crockfords. Phil Ivey sued London casino Crockfords Club for denying him £7.7m which he won in 20-21 August 2012. The casino withheld the money on the grounds that Ivey cheated.

Ivey and Kelly

Edge Sorting

Ivey used a system known as edge sorting to win the money at the baccarat table. The casino claims that this method is not a legitimate strategy because it defeats the premise of the game to nullify the gaming contract.

Kelly Cheung

Cheung Yin Sun (Kelly) assisted Ivey to edge sort the cards by asking the dealer to turn the key cards for baccarat upside-down. The casino referred to Cheung as the unidentified woman.

Casino's Case Unsustainable

Justice Mitting was impressed by that professional conduct Ivey maintains that he said the casino's case was "plainly unsustainable". The case is still on going. At this juncture the case points favorably to Ivey.


My Comments

Ivey's quotes are a classic. It is creative of SavySeph to turn them into tips from a professional.

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Edge Sorters Sue Foxwoods

Foxwoods Casino Resort

Cheng Yin Sun, also know as Kelly, is suing Foxwoods Casino Resort, Connecticut for refusal to pay winnings. Kelly had worked with Phil Ivey in two edge sorting cases, Ivey versus Crockfords and Borgata versus Ivey. Kelly's name was spelled "Cheung Yin Sun," in the Foxwoods case's court documents. In the Borgata case, the name was spelled "Cheng Yin Sun". Borgata's attorney told Card Player that both referred to the same person.

Kelly worked with two other edge sorters, Long Mei Fang and Zong Yang Li, at Foxwoods. The plaintiffs are seeking more than $3 million. The amount includes $1.1 million in winnings and $1.6 million in gambling front money and other damages. The plaintiffs admitted to edge sorting which is a technique that will give gamblers a 6.765-percent edge over the house in baccarat.

The plaintiffs allege, "… If Foxwoods and Foxwoods management knew that plaintiffs were edge-sorting and let them practice their form of advantage play anyway - intending to keep their losses if they lost but not honor their winnings if they won - this would be intentional fraud," the day reported on 11 Aug 2014.

Thursday, August 7, 2014

Quantifying Momentary Happiness with a Formula

Researchers at the University College London had constructing the formula for happiness as

The formula means happiness spikes if we win when our expectations are low but that happiness gradually fades over time. The study focus on the momentary joy that comes from winning a reward.

MRI machines were used on 26 subjects who were playing a gambling game. What they found was that it wasn’t the overall amount of money won in the game that gave the participants the greatest happiness. The formula incorporates a “forgetting factor” — which predicts that the happiness obtained from a previous win dwindles over time. Ten more trials after a win, the original win “essentially has no influence on current happiness.” These researchers were then able to use that formula to predict the general pattern of happiness in more than 18,000 people playing a similar game on a smartphone.

Extracted from Brian Resnick's article on the National Journal. The source article in pdf format can be found on Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Gambling counselors could use this formula to better understand gambling behaviour. The scary part is the gambling industry using this to rake more profits.



Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Phil Ivey Countercharge Borgata

After winning his 10th WSOP bracelet, Phil Ivey filed his rebuttal against Borgata's 9.6 mil lawsuit. This case involves using edge sorting in baccarat. It is good to see finally Ivey file his countercharge and Card Player covered it 02 Jul 2014

. Phil Ivey at WSOP Tournament

For legal stuff it would be best to quote word for word. The first point was that Borgata's "complaint is…nothing more than an attempt to justify its own negligence, motivated by its subjective intent to take as much money from Phil Ivey as it could during his specially arranged and agreed visits" to the casino. Borgata blames Ivey for their negligence was so obvious and SavySeph covered it on 9 May 2014.

Borgata's claim could not hold water because "at no point did Ivey or his female companion touch the cards or any other gaming equipment, the motion to dismiss said. Lawyer's for the defendants said that any casino employee could have noticed the asymmetrical patterns in the cards that gave Ivey the 6.765-percent edge". This second point was also brought up by SavySeph. In Asia, we believe that you should not operate a casino if you are not totally familiar with all the tricks of the trade.


Sunday, July 20, 2014

Pathological Gamblers versus Rotten Gamblers

Pathological gamblers are destructive due to their inability to control their gambling addiction. Rotten gamblers walk on the fence of responsible gamblers and pathological gamblers. There is no telling when they could tip over to the path of the forsaken. Unfortunately we have a few of these time bombs waiting to explode on our Guerrilla Gamblers Club's (GGC) thread at the lowyat.net forum. Losing control at the crucial moment will turn a rotten gambler into a pathological gambler.

Guerrilla Gamblers Club

Grave awaits Pathological Gambler.

In 2008, people from the forum flamed our thread. By 2010 the haters died off and we became the envy of the forum because the thread had remained active for two years. People would wonder where we get so much money to keep on gambling. With our continued popularity, members of the forum were eager to be part of us. They mingled around hoping to find our secrets of survival at the casino. Here is where people would come and go but the spirit of the thread lived on. As a gambling fraternity, we inspire one another like brothers-in-arms against the casino. It is unfortunate that the thread also appealed to pathological gamblers.

The Gambling Problem

Rotten gamblers love to use the axiom "gambling is problem only if you're losing." We had successfully used this to repel haters. This is not something for us to be proud of. Pathological gamblers are rotten gamblers without control. GGC should be on guard for the potential time bomb within its ranks. It is very disheartening to lose a comrade due to pathological gambling. We need to place more emphasis on responsible gambling to keep our brotherhood alive.

Quest for Pathological Gambling Habits

Worried about losing comrades some of us had posted on the thread a crude version of the guidelines for pathological gambling habits. It was developed by psychiatrists who had little knowledge of gamblers. The version used by the American Psychiatric Association today is more relevant but it does not speak to the tone of rotten gamblers. As a gambling fraternity, GGC should attempt to come up with some guidelines that could appeal to gamblers.

SavySeph's Pathological Gamblers Test

Inspired by Ringrose's story, I came up with a demerit point system to separate the pathological gamblers from the responsible rotten gambler. If you score more than 6 points on this test you are a pathological gambler.

  • Gambling Beyond Means - 7 Points
    If you had ever borrow money, used money assign for other purposes to gamble, you scored 7 demerit points.
  • Chasing Losses - 5 Points
    If you had developed the habit of betting more to recover losses you will be scored 5 demerit points. This does not apply if betting more after a loss is part of your mechanical betting system provided you have always been disciplined to follow this system like a sacred ritual.
  • Gambling for Thrills - 4 Points
    This is a 4 demerit point habit. In the extreme case, you will find a wager in almost anything like betting how long a new colleague with stay with the company. The best test is the duration you can abstain from betting in a casino without feeling uncomfortable. When the discomfort gets unbearable, you will bet with the "do it or die" attitude. You become apathetic to losing. You betted for the sake of having a stake.
  • Gambling with a Burden - 3 Points
    This is gambling to solve financial problems. Once you see gambling as a solution to everything, you will attract the other destructive habits.
  • Gambling in Rage Mode - 2 Points
    Every gambler gets trigger into rage mode. If it happens once out of five gambling sessions you are a potential hazard. Ideally, it should not happen at all because you are supposed to leave the moment you spot its symptoms.
  • Discontented with Losses - 1 Points
    Discontented with losses is inevitable. If you want to maintain bias free for the next gamble you need to control this. For the purpose of pathological gambling test you scored a demerit point if discontentment led you to losing more than your bankroll. If this happens often enough you are at potential risk.

We will refine this pathological gambling test as we go along. Please comment on this blog, our facebook page, or the forum to make improvement to it. As all the six demerit points used for the test is based on Gambling Pitfall it would appropriate to name it after SavySeph.

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Commentary|Bizarre Gambling Stories

Gambling can be brimming with unforeseen and gambling news can be as peculiar as well as intriguing as gambling per se.

Tree with Bizarre Branches

XingCai managed to collect the 6 bizarro listed below after writing Gambling Tales for more than a year. They are something like the "x-files" of gambling.

I must admit they are no rivals for "x-files" but this is the best reality can get to fiction.

More on XingCai's Webpage.



Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Commentary|Gambling Borrowed Money

Money for Gambling

Borrowing to gamble is strictly against our Golden Rules. There are two cases of people getting into more trouble in progression due to gambling with borrowed money. There are also stories on the 3 places gamblers go to for loans.

Once in trouble with borrow money you will lose everything. Most likely relationship will be the first to go. After that it will be the job and self-esteem.

More on XingCai's Webpage.