Sahara Renovation on Hold

Despite last year's sale, not much seems to have changed at the Sahara.  I'm spending a couple of nights there while trying to find a more permanent place to rest my head this summer.  My room on the 14th floor of the Tunis Tower has fresh new carpet and the AC seems to be blasting cold air perfectly, but other than that, you might not know that this is one of two floors that were renovated prior to a halt on all the upgrade plans here.  My dealer friends in the poker room are foregoing the annual leave of absence to work the WSOP at the Rio this year because new management has stipulated those who chose to leave will not be safe from anticipated cutbacks.  The poker room hasn't moved, and the action seems to be about the same.  Nearly 100 runners in the 7pm tourneys, slightly less for the 11am and 11pm daily versions.  Aside from replacing The Magnificent Jonathan with Rosanne Barr, the shows are all the same and I don't see much of a line at the theatre entrance.  The 70's passion pit is silent, and the NASCAR cafe is still largely empty.  The member price on the buffet has dropped to $6.99 for dinner, which almost makes it a justifiable play, if you value quantity over quality.

During my first tournament shot, my keen powers of observation created a situation that made me question my own ethical standards of play.  A couple of the older dealers here make quite a few mistakes.  I keep an eye on things, but rarely speak up unless a situation arises since they almost all know that I am a dealer and I don't want to be "that guy."  A few of them are unbearably slow as well.  We didn't get anywhere near a full button revolution during the first 20 minute level.  When the tournament director announced the blind increase, he instructed the dealers to change decks, and "David" struggled a bit with the cards when he gathered up the cards from the initial deck.  During the deal for the first hand with the new deck, I noticed that the bottom card of the used deck in his tray was the ace of spades.  This caught my curiosity immediately.  

Dealers are trained to set fresh decks in a specific manner.  The suits are arranged from ace-low to king-high and ordered spades, hearts, clubs, diamonds.  So, the ace of spades should always be on top of a freshly made face-up deck. It is an indication that it has been examined, is complete and does not contain any fouled or marked cards.  A red jack on top indicates that there is something foul, any other card simply means that the deck has been in use previously. This is a casino convention that helps dealers and floor staff, a matter of time efficiency, giving the necessary information at a quick glance to all staff members.  Decks set in any other manner annoy the poker bosses, as well as dealers who may follow you and push into your table.  So, as unlikely as it may be (1 in 52) that the ace of spades ends up accidentally at the bottom of a used deck, its the dealers responsibility to ensure that another card is visible when retiring a deck from play.

Now, I knew that David had struggled when he gathered the cards.  I was pretty sure I had noticed a red medium card on the bottom when he brought them together.  He was surely experienced enough to know better than to let the ace of spades show, but also careless enough to have not checked.  The thought occurred to me that perhaps the ace was from the set deck that be brought out of the tray and into play - accidentally left behind, and thus on top of the retired deck.  I was pretty sure that he didn't spread the new deck face up.  I know that he didn't shuffle adequately, as the first board had five nearly contiguous clubs on it.  I watched the play real carefully for a button pass, and I didn't see the ace of spades shown (or even a situation where it was clearly in someone's mucked hand).  I started to think about how I could use this little bit of information to my advantage.  Of course, I mucked A-10 out of position and let go of A-Q when facing a bet and nothing paired on the flop.  I held onto K-6 suited in spades on the button, hoping a couple of spades would hit the board and someone might try to represent the ace high flush, but the flop came out all red and I divested myself after the first bet against me.

Then the next dealer, "Craig" pushed in and he didn't change decks.  In major tournaments, dealers are directed to change decks on every push.  If the deck in the tray is setup, you spread them face-up, verify, spread them face down, scramble and shuffle.  If the deck in the tray has already been in use, you just spread them face down to ensure the same color on the back, then scramble and shuffle.  Since Craig didn't change the decks, I figured I had at least another level or dealer push for a situation to occur where I might benefit from the specific information advantage that I might have on the rest of the table.

After another lap of the dealer button without seeing the ace of spades on any tabled cards, I was now pretty certain of my assumption.  A few hands later, the young guy to my left whom I had been chatty with earlier, flashed his A-Q at me after I had folded.  He was facing an all-in pre-flop raise from a player with enough chips to severely damage his stack if he lost.  I tried my best to hold back any sort of expression, and as he mucked his cards, I mentioned that I thought it was a good fold.

"You wouldn't call there?", he inquired.

"Maybe under circumstances," I mentioned, "but I think you might have only had two outs," a not so obvious attempt at obscuring the issue.  The all-in player mucked his cards face down, but indicated that he had a big pair.

"Don't you mean six?", he attempted to correct me.

"I believe he actually DID have a pair, if they were jacks or lower, you might have have had five outs."  Now, I've pretty much hooked myself into revealing what I know, because I am pretty sure this kid would keep the conversation going and not just let my seemingly erroneous math lie.  Quickly I decide to sort of let him in on things, or see if I can tease him into a prop bet that might earn me a free add-on.  "There were only two aces left in the deck," I added.

"You dumped one?"

"No, I'm just pretty sure that there are only three in this deck."  I knew this would prick his interest.

"Did you take one?  You know something I should know?"  He took the bait cautiously.

"No, I didn't take one.  I just noticed something and I'm pretty sure that there is an ace missing."

"Did someone slip one up their sleeve or something?"  He looks nervously around the table to try and identify a culprit.

"No, I didn't see anyone take an ace.  I'm not certain of anything, but I'd be willing to offer you 3-to-1 on a friendly $10 wager that I am correct."  At this point I was sort of hoping that he'd actually want to up the stakes.  But my confidence lead him to believe that something was up and he wasn't the type to fall foolishly into rigged proposition bets.

"I'm going to have the dealer count the deck," he stated.

"Wait, do we have a bet?  You could make an easy buck if I am wrong."  But, by now our conversation had attracted the attention of other nearby players, and more consequentially, our new dealer.  Craig is a strong dealer with obvious attention to details and good skills.  He is from Michigan and I've seen him deal several times.  I am confident that he's now tuned into our conversation, even though that was not my intention.

"Dealer, can you count down the deck, please?" my new friend requested.  Craig indicates that the blinds clock is ticking and shuffles thoroughly and starts to deal.  I can almost see the wheels turn in his head and I am convinced that he intends to count the stub as soon as possible.  The stub are the remaining cards left in the deck once a hand is dealt.  It is fairly easy to count whenever the hand reaches the river card, a bit more of a challenge if not.  Good dealers should be counting down the stub a couple of times a down.  It demonstrates to any cheats that you are aware that the deck is complete and discourages them from hiding cards. It is good preventive game enforcement.

Rather than let it go that far, I interject "naw, Craig, if you will, just check the color on the back of that first card in your well."  As he deals the last card to the button, he looks down and sees the ace of spades, and I think it is a revelation to him.  He reaches down, pulls out the card and turns it over.  The back is green, just the same as the deck in play.  He shoots me an angry glare and then gathers in all of the cards and in a rush counts down the deck.  He doesn't mention, but from his gestures, it is clear that there are only 51 cards.  He retires the deck, pulls out the other used deck, which has brown backs, spreads them and counts it down immediately.  As soon as he is confident that it is fine, he shuffles and deals again.  Then he asks me if I saw him do something wrong.

"No, it was the previous dealer, David.  After he swapped out decks, I noticed the ace and thought it was a bit more than coincidence.  After several hand passed without seeing it in play, I thought there was a good chance he made a mistake.  I was hoping for a chance to benefit from the information or maybe angle a prop bet, but the opportunity didn't come."  He seemed a bit perturbed, but got on with his duties and tried to put the situation behind him.

At the next player break, I went and sat the table that Craig was watching.  I asked him if he thought I had crossed any ethical boundaries by not immediately bringing up my suspicion.  He said that a real card room deck could have waited until a big pot went against him and then throw a fuss and demand that the deck was foul and accuse the house or other players of cheating him.  He said it would probably have involved a floor decision to recreate the betting and return all of the chips involved in that hand, and it would not have been fair to someone.  I agreed and assured him that I would never have taken any sort of action like that.  He corrected me and stated that if I knew, it was possible that someone else might know as well.  And, although he didn't bring it up, I suppose my revealing my knowledge to just a single player at the table is surely collusive in nature.  

I was wrong to let it go on as long as it did.  We played almost two full levels with a 51 card deck.