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Michael’s run on PYL is often called a “scandal” as if he cheated. The only scandal was that CBS tried like hell to figure out a way to deny him his winnings.

• msla 7y ago
  Had he done the same thing in Jeopardy!, by studying the most common categories, figuring out common clue patterns and how they lead into responses, and practicing with a buzzer, he'd be considered a smart player, as opposed to a power-gaming asshole who munchkined his way into money.
• gmueckl 7y ago
  In a way, this is very much a story of a classic hack: the victims build a system that they belive to be foolproof without proper proof. The hacker manages to find a weakness through careful analysis and then goes on to exploit it in a spectacular and kind of fun way that isn't all that harmful. I don't think CBS was harmed that much by that amount of price money.
• burrows 7y ago
  Where do you fall on the Phil Ivey edge sorting incident?
  • mod 7y ago
    Not OP, but Ivey didn't touch the cards or use any kind of technology to win. That's not cheating. He should be paid.
    • burrows 7y ago
      Is there a set of people between “Casino might have a point and certainly it’s their right to pursue the issue in court” and “Ivey found a loophole in your system, suck it up you cry babies.”?
      • mod 7y ago
        I don't know, but it's likely they also freerolled him. As in, they decided not to pay him if he won, but let him keep winning in case he lost. He could easily have lost a few million, his edge wasn't that big. I think they're the sleaze. Anyway the matter is settled, not in Ivey's favor. The fact that Ivey isn't in prison should settle the debate over the legality of what he did.
      • a1369209993 7y ago
        FWIW, I take the "Casino might have a point and certainly it's their right to pursue the issue in court" position and I agree with both of mod's comments - it's the courts' job to rule against the casino in cases like this.
  • stordoff 7y ago
    No OP, but IMO the Ivey incident can be distinguished because he tricked the croupier into acting on his behalf, whereas Larson just observed normal behaviour and didn't seek to influence it (beyond normal play of the game). Indeed, I would say the Supreme Count (in Ivey) made reference to this distinction: > It may be that it would not be cheating if a player spotted that some cards had a detectably different back from others, and took advantage of that observation, but Mr Ivey did much more than observe; he took positive steps to fix the deck. Whether this means Ivey shouldn't be paid is more debatable IMO. On one hand, he didn't hide his actions and the casino in some sense accepted them into the game, nor did he tamper with the cards. On the other, he deceived the casino into acting outside the normal and intended rules of the game and in in his favour, which, regardless of the means used to do it, can be seen as cheating/dishonest. I'd come down on the side of the latter, but it's not a particularly firm opinion. I can envision cases why I might feel differently, such as if someone _genuinely_ asked for the cards to be rotated due to superstition then _later_ realised that the cards are aligned as such (though I'm not quite how you'd show that was the likely order of events).