Game nightmare

[Lottery Larry]

"I am the aforementioned dealer, and friend of Gorby's (as well as friend of the guy who won the pot in question). I can assure you that not only was I not cheating, but I am incapable of it, from a moral perspective and a purely mechanical one "

Here comes the coverup attempt.... cheater. Revenge for hitting on your GF, I'll bet. :P


"But this begs a greater question. Most home games I've played involve a rotating deal, and a somewhat mixed group ranging from good friends, friends of friends, and eventually down to perfect stranger. If this guy, or you for that matter, automatically assumes there's cheating going on because the dealer's buddy hit a four outer on the river, what does that mean to our game? People make bad calls, and sometimes they come through in the form of bad beats.

It's easy to say just kick the guy out and don't let him back in, but is it really that easy for some people to think there's cheating going on?"

It's a good question. The key is to have a good card process in place, preferably with 2-3 people involved in the shuffle/cut/deal procedures. I'm not a big fan of the shuffler getting back his own deck to deal, for the reason below.

That's also why I usually prefer that I know the dedicated dealer well, if that is being used. When the host seems to benefit inordinately from the same dealer, suspicions can arise...

Other than that, you have to deal with disgruntled losers while at the same time having the group as a whole keep out an eye out for game dealing integrity. Making cheating accusations is VERY dangerous, both for the accused and the house the game is played in. Lost reputations in this area can be VERY hard to repair- it's not something to mess around with.

"By the way, the accuser in question actually cut the deck prior to this very hand..." Any decent card magician or mechanic can get around a simple cut, if they arranged the deck. They can often get you to cut where THEY want you to, which is why I randomly choose between a 3 and 4-pile cut process myself.

[Radoric]

Okay, so I'm the guy who caught the four-outer to take the hand...

"Any decent card magician or mechanic can get around a simple cut, if they arranged the deck. They can often get you to cut where THEY want you to, which is why I randomly choose between a 3 and 4-pile cut process myself."
This guy actually uses a 3-4 pile cut anyway, so no issue there.

IMO there wasn't really any major issue here, he just hit a bad beat, and didn't handle it the best. It's not like it was a terrible call on my part. He flopped a straight, while I had top two pair, so my call was pretty easily made. Plus, he's a big-stack bully type, who could easily have been attacking the pot with absolutely nothing. I just caught my boat on the river.

Once he steamed a bit, he asked if we could go back to dealing ourselves, and we let him. It wasn't any big deal for us, the one guy had just busted out, and offered to deal instead of sitting on his hands for a couple of hours.

It's all pretty well good now anyway, he's been back every other night to play, and he's a make-or-break player, so he's always gonna have nights like that once in a while.