An ethical dilemma (non-grumpy content)

Last night I played a hand at the Riviera while knowing what my opponent held. It was an extremely strange sensation. How it happened requires some fairly boring background explanation.

Many of the sleazier poker rooms (and the Riviera fits that description) scrimp way too much on putting replacement decks of cards into use. The uniform pattern on the backs of cards gradually starts wearing off in places, leaving tell-tale pale spots in the design. Often, there are so many cards affected in this way, and the marks are so hard to distinguish from each other, that it would take great concentration and effort to learn which spot went with which card. But sometimes one of the marks is fairly distinct in shape or location, and an observant player can quickly learn to identify that card.

Naturally, I consider it unethical to continue playing with such a card in the deck, once I'm confident I can spot it in an opponent's hand. I alert the dealer to the problem and get that card (or the whole deck) replaced.

One of the first times I did this, I was embarrassed to be wrong. As the card I had noted was mucked by another player, I said to the dealer what has become my standard line: "You should peek at that card. If it's the four of hearts (or whatever), you should probably replace it." I had been right all three times or so that I had noted such a problem before. But on that occasion, I was wrong for the first time. It turned out that that deck had two or three cards all with similar marks.

As a result, I tightened up my standards. My method now is that when I see what appears to be a distinctive worn patch, and learn what card it is associated with, I have to correctly spot that card twice before I alert the dealer to it. For example, if I get dealt the card and correctly identify it to myself before peeking at it, that's one. If I see it coming off of the deck as one of the flop cards, and the card I've named to myself is indeed on the flop, that's two. Then I feel ready to alert the dealer the next time there's an opportunity.

Even then, I still want the dealer to do the final test. It's far more convincing that there's a problem if I point to a card in the muck and name it for the dealer, than if I point to a spot on a card that the dealer knows that I've seen (e.g., one from the flop or one of my own hole cards). So even after I've passed my double test, often quite a bit of time passes before I get the chance to see the card in a situation where the dealer will know that the only way I could name it is from recognizing the back (usually when another player folds his hand, and I see the mark as the card is being pulled into the muck).

The reason for this final demonstration is that on a previous occasion when I didn't prove my secret knoweldge, but just pointed to the tell-tale spot on a card from my hand, the dealer waved it off, saying, "Oh, lots of the cards have little marks like that."

Before last night, I had never contemplated the dilemma that I would face if I found myself in a hand with an opponent who was holding the card I had confidently identified, but had not yet had the chance to reveal to the dealer. So of course, since I hadn't thought about how to handle the situation, the poker gods foisted it upon me.

On one of my very first hands of the session, I noticed an unusual mark on a card in the muck. The Kem card pattern was one of tiny overlapping circles. There isn't a straight line anywhere in the design. But this wear mark was perfectly linear, which is why it caught my eye. It was a long, long time before that card was dealt to me, and I learned that it was the nine of spades. But having been burned once, I was aware that there might be two or more cards with similar features, and I couldn't be sure. So I waited until it was dealt to me again. Yep--nine of spades again. That's almost surely a unique mark, and I'm ready to point it out to the dealer next time I see it in a situation where he or she will know that I didn't see the face of the card.

Then the problem hand developed. I was in the five seat, and looked down at the ace and jack of spades. I raised. I got only one caller, an older man in the one seat, who was in the big blind. He didn't use a card protector, and as he tossed in the chips to call, I saw, to my consternation, that his top card was the marked one. I now knew that he had the nine of spades.

This was an eerie feeling, one that I've never had before. Instead of mentally constructing a list of the possible range of hands with which he would have called me in that situation, I knew one of his cards for sure, and could place extremely tight boundaries on what the other card must be. He might have an unsuited ace-nine (had to be unsuited because I had the ace of spades), he might have pocket nines, and he might have suited connectors, with the eight or ten of spades as his second card. Those were really the only possibilities for his call, given that he was a tight player, that he knew me to be a tight player, and that he was willing to play the hand against me from out of position.

It's hard to describe how incredibly useful this kind of information is.

The flop was J-4-5, with one spade. I had top pair, top kicker. He checked to me. Naturally I'm going to bet here, even if I have no idea what he's holding, but I would usually be doing so with a cautious eye to the possibility that he had flopped a set and was slow-playing it, or had a big pocket pair with which he was preparing to sandbag me. Here, though, that wasn't possible. Of the narrow range of hands listed above, the best he could have at this point was pocket nines, which were way behind my jacks. He could not have a flush draw or a straight draw. He could not have a higher pair.

I bet with a higher degree of confidence than I can recall ever previously having on the flop (short of holding the absolute nuts). It was spooky. I suddenly had an inkling of how the infamous Potripper must have felt playing on Absolute Poker last year. (He's the guy who had insider access so that he could see all of his opponents' cards while he played. Poker is a remarkably easy game when you can do that.)

I was fidgeting, though, and unsure of what to do. I wasn't cheating, of course. I hadn't marked the card. I hadn't peeked at it when it wasn't mine to see. I had only used information that was freely available to anybody at the table who cared to pay attention to it. Furthermore, I hadn't intentionally withheld my knowledge of this one card--I just hadn't yet had the opportunity to disclose my knowledge of it in the way that I have developed, in good faith, as my custom.

If this guy had called my bet on the flop, I was thinking that I should probably stop the action and tell him what an advantage I had, and let the dealer and floor figure out what to do about it.

Fortunately, I was saved the decision of whether to actually do that, because he folded. And yes, I did seize the moment, as he slid his cards toward the dealer, to tell the dealer, "Check his top card. If it's the nine of spades, you need to replace it." My opponent looked as if I had just performed an astonishing magic trick. "How did you know that?" I pointed out the spot. He turned over both cards. The other one was the nine of diamonds. Bingo.

Now my problem is what procedure to use to balance being highly confident that I have, in fact, identified a unique mark, against being again put in the awkward position of playing against an opponent when I have such a huge unfair advantage. It's a problem I haven't solved yet.



Note above, please, that the Riviera is another casino with a huge assortment of lovely chips for collectors. (Click on the photo for a magnified view.) I especially like that they issue chips for conventions that they host, which produces some really unexpected ones. My favorites from this batch, though, are the Easter one in the center and the Halloween one in the lower right corner.


Addendum, February 4, 2008

Yesterday I was playing at Boulder Station. Twice in a fairly short interval I was dealt the five of clubs, which I noted had a small mark on the back. Given my story above, I decided to lower my threshold for pointing out the problem to the dealer, so instead of waiting for a second confirmatory instance of identifying the card from the mark, I used just one (i.e., the second time it was dealt to me, I correctly suspected it was the 5c before I turned it over). The next time I saw what appeared to be the same mark on a card in the muck, I had the dealer check it. It was the deuce of clubs, not the five. *D'oh!* So I'm still unsure how to get to a position of confidence that a mark is unique and therefore especially problematic without risking putting myself in an ethical quandary again.