Is it cheating or just giving yourself a small edge if know how to do such things as count cards at blackjack? It all depends who you ask, it seems, and whose cash is active in the matter. World renowned poker pro Phil Ivey says a £7.8 million ($12, 420,72) win though he admits he used a technique that gave him a slight advantage over the average player, and certainly over the house as well that he never got paid for from London’s toniest Mayfair club was not cheating.

Edge Sorting for the Win

But Phil Ivey says his technique is legitimate and called ‘edge sorting.’ Apparently, permits the player to determine cards at punto banco, a sub-genre of baccarat that involves nothing but fortune. Frequently.

The venerable Mayfair club Crockfords Britain’s casino that is oldest views things just a little differently, to no one’s shock. The club maintains that Ivey ‘operated a scam’ and that he ‘acted to beat the essential premise regarding the game’; and this, they state, is reason enough him his massive win for them to not pay.

So, who has might and right on their side in this battle of the gambling behemoths? It’s no matter that is small Ivey has now sued Crockfords in Britain’s High Court while the case promises to be extremely high-profile, given who’s involved and the cash on the line.

Ivey, 37 who’s considered one of, if not the, top player in poker today doesn’t reject being what is named an ‘advantage player,’ meaning making legal usage of higher level mathematics skills to gain a slight edge over the house; and he admitted as much in their current court submission. Ivey says while playing punto banco at Crockfords in August 2012, he made use of their incredibly discerning eyes by making note of tiny flaws in the cards’ deck imprints ( the ones that will appear identical to the majority of us). These flaws are unavoidable and miniscule flaws that occur during manufacturing.

Casino’s Responsibility?

Ivey says he is not initial to work with this exceptional ability, and claims it therefore lays on any offered casino to check on their card decks carefully before putting them into use; something Crockfords clearly failed to do. That’s his story and he’s sticking to it.

Except there is really a little more to it. The story becomes a bit ‘Rainman’ish as we continue to follow its trail. With him to Crockfords to identify the specific decks of cards with these design flaws because it turns out that Ivey actually had an accomplice well, he calls her an ‘associate’ who came. Ivey then (in accordance with his own court claim) made ongoing needs for card deck modifications until his ‘associate’ Kelly spotted one by having an effectively asymmetrical enough pattern working this ‘edge sorting’ system on.

It went something like this, Ivey’s claim asserts: ‘Kelly would ask the dealer to reveal each card in turn by lifting the advantage furthest from the dealer making sure that Kelly could identify if the card was a seven, eight, or nine the key cards in punto banco. The very first time that Kelly identified an integral card, she told the dealer it was a ‘good’ card which she wanted the dealer to rotate within the opposite direction to all or any the other cards and the dealer complied with the request. This way, the long edges of the key card became distinguishable from those of the other cards.’

Tends that following a point, Kelly had was able to manipulate the deck so your ‘good’ vs. ‘bad’ cards were facing contrary directions. Heck, we’re thinking somebody in eye-in-the-sky must have seen this trick before and spotted it, no?

Obviously, however, Crockfords didn’t do that, and Ivey made use of his cap ability to acknowledge key cards with his very own bets. And even though the casino initially was set to provide Ivey their full winnings, to date, it’s only came back the £1million stake he bought in with.

Every day late and $12 million brief, Crockfords’ parent company, Genting, now has investigators security that is reviewing and questioning employees who are there that night.

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