Most Baccarat players have at least heard of the technique of card counting, but what about edge sorting? Edge sorting first made the headlines way back in 2012 when legendary poker player Phil Ivey and his friend, Cheung Yin ‘Kelly’ Sun, won 9.6 million dollars from the Borgata Hotel Casino in Atlantic City from four sessions over the period of a couple of months.
This is enough to make headlines by itself, although the Borgata Casino regarded the wins as legit and paid up without question. Unfortunately for Ivey And Sun, they had also made a trip to Crockford’s in London, where they won nearly 8 million pounds. However, the British casino owners were more suspicious than their American counterparts and refused to pay out, launching a review of the game and sparking an 18-year legal battle that finally came to a close in 2020, with an accompanying resurgence of interest in the technique. But we will get back to that later. The point is, it was established that Ivey and his friend Cheung Yin Sun had been edge-sorting, and if you want to know exactly what that entails, read on.
What Is Edge Sorting?
Edge sorting is a technique used mainly in Baccarat for reasons we’ll look at later. Basically, players try to spot tiny imperfections on the backs of cards. This allows them to identify the cards later in the game and bet accordingly. It’s similar to the principle applied by magicians who mark the back of cards for their magic tricks. But since the players never get to touch the cards in most casino card games, it relies on manufactured imperfections and a little bit of subterfuge.
Edge sorting is primarily used in Baccarat, mainly because of the simplicity of the game; the highest hand wins. So, it is not hard to see why being able to identify a card before it is dealt would give the player a huge advantage. Baccarat is also the preferred stomping ground of edge sorters because the game always employs an automatic shuffler rather than have the dealer shuffle the cards by hand. The technique can also be applied to other card games, including Blackjack and several poker variations, where distinguishing between specific cards can confer a notable advantage.
Imperfections on the Cards
As we said, edge sorting relies on spotting imperfections and slight differences in the pattern or cut of individual cards in a deck. These appear during the manufacturing process, when the cards are cut from the sheet. Even the slightest misalignment will mean that the pattern on the back will be asymmetrical, with the diamonds or circles being cut off on one side.
The sorting process
But just being able to spot these imperfections isn’t enough, and that’s where the sorting comes in. As all the cards have their imperfections on one side, once a player has identified a pack with an irregular pattern, they need to turn the knowledge to their advantage. In order to do this, they have to convince the dealer to rotate some of the cards. This is usually done by claiming superstition and asking the dealer to rotate all the face cards. And this is why it is important that there is an automatic shuffler at work, as these shuffle the pack without rotating the cards and undoing all the dealers obliging sorting.
How Edge Sorting Works
In Baccarat, card values differ from other card games, with a unique scoring system. Here’s how the cards are valued:
- Cards 2 all the way to 9 are worth their face value in points.
- 10s, Jacks, Queens, and Kings are all 0 points.
- Aces hold a value of 1 point.
The hand, Banker’s or Player’s that is closest to 9 wins. If the sum is more than 9, then only the last digit is taken into account. For instance, a hand with a 7 and an 8 (totalling 15) would be counted as 5.
Edge sorting becomes advantageous in Baccarat because knowing the value of the cards before they are revealed provides a strategic upper hand. Distinguishing low-value from high-value cards allows the player to make more informed decisions and predictions about the likely outcomes of each hand. By recognising the card values through edge sorting, players can adjust their bets, predict the direction of the game, and make more strategic moves, ultimately increasing their chances of winning in this game of chance.
Is Edge Sorting Illegal? What does the Phil Ivey case say?
Phil Ivey never denied using edge sorting, and claimed it was just another advantage play like card counting, which is not illegal even though strongly discouraged, to the point of ejection, at casinos. In fact, he was so convinced of this that he even sued Crockfords in an attempt to claim his multi-million payout.
This turned out to be a very bad move as, in 2014, the presiding judge, Judge Mitting, declared that edge-sorting was “not a legitimate strategy for beating the game”. He argued that Ivey had, “gained himself an advantage by using a croupier as his innocent agent or tool.”
But on the other side of the Atlantic, where the Borgata were suing Ivey, U.S. District Court Judge Noel HillmanIn ruled in October 2016 that edge sorting was not cheating. He did rule that Ivey had breached his contract with the casino, and things got very messy, legally speaking, for the next four years until the whole case was wrapped up with an out of court settlement in 2020.
So, the answer to the question of whether edge sorting is legal or not depends on which side of the Atlantic you are on. But it is fair to say that although the technique can give the player a significant advantage, it comes with a great deal of legal risk.
Just who exactly is Phil Ivey?
A ten-time champion of World Series Poker Bracelets, Phil Ivey has been in it to win it since his breakthrough poker tournament in 2000. Not just a profession for him, but his nickname “No Home Jerome” shows its been a lifelong passion, harking back to his teenage years when he’d use a fake ID to play poker in Atlantic City.
And who is Cheung Yin Sun?
Although it may not seem like it, Phil Ivey is really just the sidekick in this story. This game of Baccarat has backstory, with Cheung Yin Sun plotting a plan for revenge and earning herself the nickname “The Queen of Sorts”. In a New York Times interview, Kelly Sun, a Hong Kong heiress that frequented casinos with big bankrolls, revealed that she was in a Las Vegas jail for 3 weeks in 2007 after not being able to pay back a $93,000 gambling debt at an MGM casino.
“I decided that one day I would get the money back by playing at MGM properties”.
And lo and behold, sticking true to her words, Sun targeted the Borgata, a casino owned by MGM. Sun used Phil Ivey’s already famous image to sway dealers into thinking his request for rotating the cards was simply one of his good luck rituals.
And it worked, until it didn’t.
Is it Possible to Use Edge Sorting Online?
Edge sorting, as a technique reliant on the physical imperfections of playing cards, is completely impossible to employ when playing casino Baccarat games online. In the digital realm, all aspects of the game, including card distribution and shuffling, are controlled by a set of algorithms and Random Number Generators (RNGs). These virtual decks of cards lack the physical imperfections that edge sorting depends on, as they are generated and presented on-screen with complete symmetry. As a result, the irregularities and distinctive patterns that edge sorters exploit simply do not exist in the online casino environment.
Live Dealer games, which creates a near-perfect synergy between traditional casinos and online gambling, introduce an intriguing dynamic when it comes to edge sorting. In Live Dealer games, real human dealers operate the game, including the shuffling and distribution of physical cards. However, even in this format, edge sorting remains challenging. While the use of physical cards provides the potential for imperfections, online casinos that offer Live Dealer Baccarat games are well aware of the risks and take measures to prevent edge sorting. Dealers are trained to minimise any card exposure that could lead to an advantage.
Remember: The House Always Wins
While variations of edge sorting may have existed for some time, its widespread awareness is relatively recent, primarily due to Phil Ivey’s high-profile case. This notoriety has compelled card manufacturers to improve their production processes to avoid such errors in the future.
Public opinion remains divided on the ethics of edge sorting. Some argue that casinos share responsibility for allowing this advantage play, while others believe that cheating remains cheating, regardless of the technique employed. In the end, casinos tend to find a way to reclaim their money with house edge, even when players seem to have the upper hand.
Not only that, for edge sorting to work in Ivey and Sun’s case, very specific conditions had to be met. Here are all of the requests the casinos acquiesced to, aside from just simply rotating certain cards to edge sort them:
- A private area for playing Baccarat.
- A dealer who spoke Mandarin.
- Phil Ivey could bring a guest along with him.
- An 8 deck show of purple Gemaco cards (these had a distinct white circle pattern on the back).
- An automatic shuffling machine.
And once again, these conditions were granted to Phil Ivey due to his image as a famous, high-rolling casino player. It’s not just an average person that can pull off edge sorting.
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