Did Phil Ivey and Sun Overplay their Baccarat hand during Cheat Scandal?

Could they have been more careful?

We all know the story of how poker great Phil Ivey and his feline gambling partner Cheng Yin Sun edge-sorted their way to tens of millions of dollars that are currently tied up in legal hassles across the globe between Ivey and Sun and victimized casinos.

There has long been a debate between casino-cheat whizzes and experts as to whether or not Ivey and Sun's edge-sorting technique is actually casino cheating. I, as one of those whizzes and experts, believe that edge-sorting does constitute cheating, not because Ivey and Sun manipulated the cards but rather because they manipulated the deal of the game by getting dealers to deal and turn cards that breach casino dealing and game protection rules.

But that aside, could Ivey and Sun behaved differently and avoided detection of their scam? Could they have carried it out in a better fashion?

Probably so.

You've all heard the famous saying of doom about going to the well too many times, but in Ivey and Sun's case, perhaps they went to the wells with too-big buckets. By that I mean maybe they should have been content to win a million or a half million a shot instead of going as far as ten million in a single baccarat session. Maybe the casinos would have been more convinced that theirs was legitimate baccarat play by high rollers and not so suspicious.

Well I, for one, certainly know how hard it can be to put the reigns on something so good that seems invincible and undetectable. Back when I created my famous Savannah move, my teammates and I often debated about how hard we should hit the casinos with it. We knew we would eventually take heat even though the move was virtually flawless and undetectable.

That's because sheer winning alone eventually takes heat.

So we went for the gusto just like Ivey and Sun did.

In the end, I would have to say that Ivey and Sun probably should have gone after the casinos with a little less ferocity, but I would also have to say that it would have been nearly impossible for them to make that determination. They would probably have been thinking that even if their scam got discovered, as it did, they would never end up in court, where as it now stands they have to refund their winnings.

After all, they especially could never have imagined that the courts would rule that their scam was NOT cheating but that they still had to return their winnings to the casinos.

All in all, this baccarat edge-sorting case is without a doubt is the most interesting casino-cheating case (or pseudo casino-cheating case) in the history of casinos.