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Not a poker player, so maybe I'm missing something obvious, but: How did he think you were cheating? You had no way of knowing what that card was, right? And

Not a poker player, so maybe I'm missing something obvious, but: How did he think you were cheating? You had no way of knowing what that card was, right? And if you did somehow know what it was, surely you could have pre-arranged more subtle ways to tip off a player you were conspiring with?

School-Cotton 3y ago
You must not know many gamblers. They’ll invent any insane story to explain why they lost, no matter how implausible.
- lacrimacida 3y ago
  I guess. What I don’t know is whether you can call a misdeal and cancel the round. But if you’re the one who’s not advantaged by the situation will probably be upset if you had a good hand. I suspected there are rules for such a scenario since Im sure it was not the first or last time occuring…
  - School-Cotton 3y ago
    In a casino the hand would not be canceled for that. The card would just be burned.
    - noduerme 3y ago
      In this game, the hand was rewound and nullified. I can't speak for what a legitimate casino would do.
lacrimacida 3y ago
You can deduce odds by seeing a burn card. It could help more or less in certain situations
noduerme 3y ago
I guess they thought I produced the bluffing player's card to prevent the other player from folding. But you're right that a dealer who was trying to do that could've done so in any number of subtle ways. I couldn't really figure out why they were accusing me at the time, or what I would've gained from it, but it all happened very fast. There are dealers who are true shuffle mechanics and either know for sure or have a very good idea of who has what. I'm not that skilled. I re-watched the movie "Casino" recently, and there's a scene where the Joe Pesci character cans a floor man for not stopping a slot machine run after the first or second time someone hits a jackpot in a night. Paraphrasing the movie: "Either he was in on or he's a fucking moron, either way we can't have him here". To bring it back to the original topic, I think in the gambling world, the default assumption is that there's a scam and the employee is guilty until proven innocent. I wonder why that wouldn't apply to a shady firm like Alameda, too, unless management was "in on it". Come to think of it, I guess that's the point of my story, which I didn't realize when I wrote it.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > there's a scene where the Joe Pesci character cans a floor man for not stopping a slot machine run Robert de Niro. Joe Pesci plays a thug.
  - noduerme 3y ago
    Yeah. You're right, de Niro is the one who makes that analysis.
- mbreese 3y ago
  > the default assumption is that there's a scam and the employee is guilty until proven innocent. To answer your real question - my guess is that this was a place that had a history of moving fast and breaking things. But probably more importantly - there was no way for that person to benefit from the mistake. The BTC price recovered automatically through the quick arbitrage market. The only way they could have benefited would have been if they were the counter party in the sale, which is highly unlikely. Now, why FTX was a place that operated like this is another question altogether.
sneak 3y ago
It sounds like he didn't think he was cheating and that it was a honest mistake. An escalation (though obviously not to violence) makes perfect sense for a second error of that type, however. It's the kind of mistake that seems innocent enough but if it's deployed in a pattern it can obviously assist the bluffee. Fool me once, fool me twice, etc. It's not uncommon for dealers to be in on scams, obviously.
function_seven 3y ago
Let's assume the poker dealer is working a scam with one of the players, "Sam." On this particular hand, the scam is falling apart. Maybe Sam didn't pick up on a signal, or he has gotten out of sync with the plan. The dealer sees the tragedy coming down the pike, and as a last ditch effort he spoils the whole game to prevent an even larger loss from occurring after the river card. For example, on this particular hand, maybe the cards were preloaded into the deal to actually harm Sam. This was done deliberately because we need to keep some volatility across hands to make the cheating more subtle. So, on this hand, Sam is supposed to bet a little bit early, then fold. He loses some of his money, but the whole game seems on the up-and-up. Except, oh no!, Sam appears to think this is one of the planned winning rounds, so he just keeps betting! Sam has made an error, and may lose big. I (the dealer) am going to suck it up and pretend to make a mistake. I'll get yelled at in public, but the bosses will thank me later for rescuing Sam.
gexla 3y ago
He said the player was attempting to bluff. In a given set of community cards, you're calculating the possibilities in which you can get beat. You're also watching your opponents actions to see if their lies (bluffing) are plausible. Let's say you have a seriously strong hand, and there's only one way you could see that you could be beat. The opponent may have that hand now, or they may be hanging around in an attempt to upgrade to that hand while bluffing in the meantime. In some cases, the above scenario is obvious. Everyone at the table knows well enough what each player is attempting to project. Every player knows which cards to look for to be revealed. It can be devastating to the bluffing player for that card to be accidentally exposed as a burner card. Given there was a burner card exposed, then there was at least one more card to be added to the community cards. At this point, the bluffing player would be in a tough spot. The player with the stronger hand would likely be raising / re-raising to call the bluff and / or get more chips into the pot. Continuing the game after the exposed card would have been pointless. You also feel stupid getting exposed on a bluff, when you otherwise might not have had to show your cards. You're probably going to be very pissed. Edit: The dealer would have had no way of knowing what the burner card was, but the dealer could have known what card the bluffing player was looking for. However, I don't see how it would make sense to expose that card intentionally as a cheating move. Maybe the dealer could have used that as a signal to expose the bluff. My guess is the bluffing player was bluffing in an attempt to make their hand (fake it until you make it) and the other player sensed that. Maybe the other player wasn't convinced and would have won the hand regardless. But at the point of seeing the exposed card, they both knew it was over. NOTE: We would have to know more about how this played out to do much more speculation than the above.
- noduerme 3y ago
  ftw, this is a perfect explanation of that hand and the betting / emotional situation of the players. Also, it was the river, and it was heads up. But I'll be damned if I can recall their hands or what card I flipped by accident.
quickthrower2 3y ago
If there is a bluffer on the table, revealing a burn card is going to be net neutral or negative for them. Then add in the meta game! A mob bosses son won't want to look like they did nothing in a situation like this. They need to show they are not a pushover.

School-Cotton 3y ago

You must not know many gamblers. They’ll invent any insane story to explain why they lost, no matter how implausible.

lacrimacida 3y ago
I guess. What I don’t know is whether you can call a misdeal and cancel the round. But if you’re the one who’s not advantaged by the situation will probably be upset if you had a good hand. I suspected there are rules for such a scenario since Im sure it was not the first or last time occuring…
- School-Cotton 3y ago
  In a casino the hand would not be canceled for that. The card would just be burned.
  - noduerme 3y ago
    In this game, the hand was rewound and nullified. I can't speak for what a legitimate casino would do.

lacrimacida 3y ago

You can deduce odds by seeing a burn card. It could help more or less in certain situations

noduerme 3y ago

I guess they thought I produced the bluffing player's card to prevent the other player from folding. But you're right that a dealer who was trying to do that could've done so in any number of subtle ways. I couldn't really figure out why they were accusing me at the time, or what I would've gained from it, but it all happened very fast. There are dealers who are true shuffle mechanics and either know for sure or have a very good idea of who has what. I'm not that skilled. I re-watched the movie "Casino" recently, and there's a scene where the Joe Pesci character cans a floor man for not stopping a slot machine run after the first or second time someone hits a jackpot in a night. Paraphrasing the movie: "Either he was in on or he's a fucking moron, either way we can't have him here". To bring it back to the original topic, I think in the gambling world, the default assumption is that there's a scam and the employee is guilty until proven innocent. I wonder why that wouldn't apply to a shady firm like Alameda, too, unless management was "in on it". Come to think of it, I guess that's the point of my story, which I didn't realize when I wrote it.

thaumasiotes 3y ago
> there's a scene where the Joe Pesci character cans a floor man for not stopping a slot machine run Robert de Niro. Joe Pesci plays a thug.
- noduerme 3y ago
  Yeah. You're right, de Niro is the one who makes that analysis.
mbreese 3y ago
> the default assumption is that there's a scam and the employee is guilty until proven innocent. To answer your real question - my guess is that this was a place that had a history of moving fast and breaking things. But probably more importantly - there was no way for that person to benefit from the mistake. The BTC price recovered automatically through the quick arbitrage market. The only way they could have benefited would have been if they were the counter party in the sale, which is highly unlikely. Now, why FTX was a place that operated like this is another question altogether.

sneak 3y ago

It sounds like he didn't think he was cheating and that it was a honest mistake. An escalation (though obviously not to violence) makes perfect sense for a second error of that type, however. It's the kind of mistake that seems innocent enough but if it's deployed in a pattern it can obviously assist the bluffee. Fool me once, fool me twice, etc. It's not uncommon for dealers to be in on scams, obviously.

function_seven 3y ago

Let's assume the poker dealer is working a scam with one of the players, "Sam." On this particular hand, the scam is falling apart. Maybe Sam didn't pick up on a signal, or he has gotten out of sync with the plan. The dealer sees the tragedy coming down the pike, and as a last ditch effort he spoils the whole game to prevent an even larger loss from occurring after the river card. For example, on this particular hand, maybe the cards were preloaded into the deal to actually harm Sam. This was done deliberately because we need to keep some volatility across hands to make the cheating more subtle. So, on this hand, Sam is supposed to bet a little bit early, then fold. He loses some of his money, but the whole game seems on the up-and-up. Except, oh no!, Sam appears to think this is one of the planned winning rounds, so he just keeps betting! Sam has made an error, and may lose big. I (the dealer) am going to suck it up and pretend to make a mistake. I'll get yelled at in public, but the bosses will thank me later for rescuing Sam.

gexla 3y ago

He said the player was attempting to bluff. In a given set of community cards, you're calculating the possibilities in which you can get beat. You're also watching your opponents actions to see if their lies (bluffing) are plausible. Let's say you have a seriously strong hand, and there's only one way you could see that you could be beat. The opponent may have that hand now, or they may be hanging around in an attempt to upgrade to that hand while bluffing in the meantime. In some cases, the above scenario is obvious. Everyone at the table knows well enough what each player is attempting to project. Every player knows which cards to look for to be revealed. It can be devastating to the bluffing player for that card to be accidentally exposed as a burner card. Given there was a burner card exposed, then there was at least one more card to be added to the community cards. At this point, the bluffing player would be in a tough spot. The player with the stronger hand would likely be raising / re-raising to call the bluff and / or get more chips into the pot. Continuing the game after the exposed card would have been pointless. You also feel stupid getting exposed on a bluff, when you otherwise might not have had to show your cards. You're probably going to be very pissed. Edit: The dealer would have had no way of knowing what the burner card was, but the dealer could have known what card the bluffing player was looking for. However, I don't see how it would make sense to expose that card intentionally as a cheating move. Maybe the dealer could have used that as a signal to expose the bluff. My guess is the bluffing player was bluffing in an attempt to make their hand (fake it until you make it) and the other player sensed that. Maybe the other player wasn't convinced and would have won the hand regardless. But at the point of seeing the exposed card, they both knew it was over. NOTE: We would have to know more about how this played out to do much more speculation than the above.

noduerme 3y ago
ftw, this is a perfect explanation of that hand and the betting / emotional situation of the players. Also, it was the river, and it was heads up. But I'll be damned if I can recall their hands or what card I flipped by accident.

quickthrower2 3y ago

If there is a bluffer on the table, revealing a burn card is going to be net neutral or negative for them. Then add in the meta game! A mob bosses son won't want to look like they did nothing in a situation like this. They need to show they are not a pushover.