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Maryann Guberman has been a writer and editor with many gaming publications, including Sports Form, Card Player, Poker World, Player's Panorama and Systems and Methods. She also has written and edited numerous books on gambling.

Jan 19, 2008

It's Kind of Like Cheating But It's Not

When appropriately defined, the word cheating means to deliberately violate some rule in order to gain goods, standing or support.

If there's a rule in poker and you ignore or break it, you are cheating. If there's no rule (and presumably no one to rule on the lack of ruling), then whenever you take advantage of its absence you are not being dishonest.

Cheating -- serious cheating -- is what used to happen in Las Vegas poker a long time ago. Cheating was hiding an ace under the table or palming it for later use. Cheating was working in partnership with another person or persons at the table, using signals to rope in a sucker. Cheating was a snatch dealer who would just dip into the pot at any opportune time to rake off much more than the house rules allowed. Cheating was pocketing chips in a tournament for advantageous use later.

Yes, these things happened before poker cleaned up its act. Since there are so many poker rooms around the world now it's very possible these nefarious acts still occur since the house cameras tend to watch the dealer more than the players and since some acts of cheating aren't easily spotted. Thankfully, today's players are savvier than in the old days and the methods of cheating from that time aren't so easy to pull off anymore. Besides, so many people are downright bad players that they don't have to be cheated out of their chips.

Probably cheating still occurs but not as rampantly. Nowadays, though, it seems as if every time a player loses, he cries foul. When he is winning he pats his own back for superb play. When he starts losing he accuses the online room or the game's participants of cheating, especially at online poker.

In the beginning, everyone who talked about online poker talked about potential cheating, about the use of cell phones and multiple computers to gain an advantage. It happened. Some folks told us to deal with it. I didn't like it and said so. I confronted one young new-to-poker sit-n-go player who got into a sit-n-go with his friend across town and the two of them stayed on the phone during the game. One of them came in the money, which they agreed to split. He didn't think he was cheating; he thought it was fun. I don't know if my lecture helped. I suspect it did because this kid was fairly honest at heart. And he was na•ve enough to accept my statement that the online arena had ways of monitoring play and players and that if he tried it again he would likely be spotted.

I understand this penchant for cheating. I know there are people who prefer to go in for the kill with any weapon they can find either because they aren't very good at playing the game legitimately. There are people they are desperate for money and can't wait to earn it fairly. There are people who simply want to have a secret smug attitude about the idiots they cheat. Most of the time these cheaters, like the con men they are, seem like very agreeable and likeable folks. They can, as the clichŽ goes, charm the pants off you. And it isn't until they've taken your money that you realize you've been had.

Because of the nature of poker, cheating will occur. It will occur in the brick and mortar roomsÑspecifically those with little or no surveillance -- and in the online rooms. We can only hope the unscrupulous players will be caught and new methods of preventing cheating.

If you want to know more about old Vegas and the snatch and grab games of yore, pick up a copy of Susie Isaacs' Ms Poker: I'm Not Bluffing (Book One). If you want to read more about tournament cheating (although some of the content seems a bit odd), read Richard Marcus's Cheating at Poker.

If you don't care and just want to play poker, get into a legitimate game where the casino could lose its license if it allowed cheating to go unchecked. But don't let the allegations, rumors or hints keep you away from having fun and (we hope) winning money.