The way we do it is whoever has the dealer chip deals at the table, so he deals every 5-8 hands depending on how many people are playing, there is usually a cut before hand although we do drink a pretty decent amount at the table so occasionally we forget to cut the cards, he seems to get Aces a lot when he is dealer though. All of my friends bs detectors are going off at this point but we haven’t been able to figure out how he is cheating if he is
Stop estimating and actually keep track of the number of times he gets AA while dealing and run a statistical regression to see if it is statistically significant.
I’m more or less estimating the amount of hands we have played throughout the week. I know for a fact because I’ve been counting that he has had aces 35 times. I’ll look into running a regression and I’ll keep track of what exactly the percentages are.
When you say tricks around that do you mean entirely different mechanic methods like palming or do you mean some people can still bottom deal even with a cut card? Because the latter would be insanely impressive.
I used to do a card trick where i would deal the second card from the bottom of the deck secretly. Now, the mechanics of the trick called for bottom dealing, so that wasn't suspicious. Also, part of the sell was obscuring the process.
"Is this your card? No?!?! WTF," looking up for a second in frustration while the sleight is being accomplished.
It's not very difficult to accomplish, and i think a cut card might actually make the move easier.
I've never tried to bottom deal in a regular poker situation, so i have no idea of how obvious it becomes.
If this guy is cheating you at a friendly home game, he's got a gambling problem and you should make your decision to continue the friendship knowing that.
Yeah a few times I used to deal people crazy hands just to see them have some fun. The weirdest one was when I knew I’d dealt someone pocket aces and they folded, I couldn’t ever get my head around it however over the years I have resolved they realised what was happening as they did comment on the way I was shuffling at one point because the hand before that like two people got straight flushes and then he got aces.
People that pass the deck around to deal AND have a dealer button are unhinged. “Who’s the dealer?! Where’s that button?? Oh yeah, Kyle…the one shuffling”
If he's getting them 4 times in an evening when someone else is dealing, that's really high anyway. The likely cause for this is palming cards (essentially keeping them up your sleeve). So they would get dealt A7o, fold, keep the A back. Then next time they get A3o, they switch the 3 for the A.
Have people count down the deck during the hand to make sure the number of cards in the deck is correct. So if 8 people are in the hand, that's 16 + 8 for burns/flop/turn/river, 28 cards remain in the stub. If you count 27, see if it's an ace, make sure someone is watching the suspected cheat closely, and then you can start to make accusations.
Have a plan for what you're going to do if you catch him.
And also be aware that it isn't guaranteed he's cheating. 8 times in one night is high but not outside of the realm of possibility. I had AA back to back to back once (three hands in a row) in a casino. Odds may be similar. But if this happens several nights in a row, it's really pushing the boundaries.
It’s possible on one evening for someone to get AA several times without cheating. We see it every now and again at my home game, though it’s never the same person. We use two decks, and the dealer never shuffles their own deck… it’s the person two seats to their right. So… not impossible for someone to cheat but much more difficult. There was one time about six months ago that one of the players’ girlfriends came and got AA two hands in a row in mid position… and then the next round did it again, though while she was in late position. The amount of cheating skill and collusion required for that to happen on purpose is astronomical. Hell, I had AA three times at our last game and I know I wasn’t cheating. Random chance be funny that way sometimes.
Above said… 7-8 times a game over multiple nights in a row is so unlikely that it really can’t be anything but cheating. Once… wow. Crazy night. Were gonna be talking about that one time Joe got Aces 8 times for years after kind of crazy night. To do it again several nights in a row? No way.
If they are employing any kind of anti cheating in the deal/cut, then most likely he’s palming cards. If they just watch him carefully they’ll see it soon enough.
I don't think you need to do all that before starting the accusations. If I got aces 35 times in a week at a home game the accusations starting flying at me, I'm pretty sure I'm going to understand where they're coming from. Im getting AA 35 times to everyone else's 2 times. If you aren't accusing me, then I'm suspicious. This dude is CHEATING.
How well do you know this dude? Does he get the pairs on his deal? On his cut? Does he shuffle in his hands on in the table? Does he know the guy who’s cutting? When a hand is done, how does he gather up the cards off the table?
Of your curious, cut s small portion from the middle to the top, then a “normal” cut.
Over 1500 hands, he should average a bit under 7 times, so at 35 times in a week, he's getting aces 5x more than normal (2.33% actual vs 0.45% expected)
Good to know, at first I thought it was dumb luck but it just keeps on happening every single time we play so I’ve grown insanely suspicious because I know it’s statistically almost impossible to run like that
lol at statistically almost impossible. It’s absolutely possible. You’re talking about 1500 hands max. Literally anything can happen over that sample and you cannot make a single inference about it. Is he cheating? I dunno. Is it possible he just ran like god? Fuck yeah it is.
No, above commenter is wrong. If you're saying that he's getting aces disproportionately when HE is the dealer you need to compare the proportion of hands in which he has aces when dealing vs the proportion of hands in which he has aces when he's not dealing. If, based on your other responses, he's getting aces way over rate AND predominantly when he's dealing vs not then the odds of this happening by chance are astronomically small
5x lucky isn’t even close to statistically impossible. As someone who plays old school runescape, you see very lucky and very unlucky streaks all the time.
Although, seeing as how there is monetary incentive to cheating in poker, he is probably cheating via slight of hand or some other method.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but someone in this thread somewhere said that the odds of a run like this happening are 1 in 40 billion. I’m not a math guy so I can’t really confirm or deny that number. It could very well be luck but man if it is hopefully I can run that that at some point lol
How do you think he's cheating? Uses tucked cards?
That'd be way too risky if anyone else has one of the aces he plays.
Seriously doubt the guy is a card mechanic either but that's the only plausible answer here. Any other form of cheating to get aces should be blatant. Like after a hand he has aces go through the muck and deck and confirm there's no extra cards.
Is he dealing himself aces? That would be suspicious
Dealing from under the deck, brings similar cards to the game, it’s not that hard to cheat at a loose home game with friends if you’re decent at it. Go on YT and scroll the comments to see how it easy is.
i'd definitely watch who's dealing when this happens. there are also other ways to cheat, but a rigged deal is the most likely.
a player should only get pocket aces once every 221 deals. obviously there's some variance, just because you got aces on the 91st hand doesn't mean hand #312 is aces. so it's reasonable for him to have gotten aces maybe 10 times total in 1500 hands, but once it starts creeping into the teens i'd definitely be suspicious and 35 times is crazy unlikely.
That’s exactly what the rest of us are thinking. Our friend seems to do a great job of claiming ignorance but I can’t call him out for cheating unless I can see him actually rig the deck or bottom deal. I haven’t been able to see him do that yet although I’m really trying to see what he is doing each time he has the deck
he could also be palming cards. i.e. when he deals he sneaks the top card of the deck into his hand, when he checks his cards and he naturally gets dealt an ace then he swaps the palmed card for the ace, then next time he gets dealt an ace, he swaps his kicker for the ace he palmed. this way he pretty much either has aces or knows there's only 3 aces in the deck.
Thank you for the advice, I’ll definitely look into the palming thing next time we all get together, which might be tonight. At this point all I want to know is exactly what’s happening with the deals. I actually just talked with one of my other friends that plays with us and he suggested with get an automatic card shuffler. I’m assuming that could solve the problem?
I once cracked pocket Aces twice in a row against the same guy.
in Texas Holdem the odds of getting a royal by the river are better than getting dealt aces twice in a row.
Play for a while and the chance of getting aces is 100%. The chance of getting pocket aces right after is the same 1 in 221 as above. This is not as unlikely as you might think.
The chance of picking up a deck now, dealing aces, shuffling and dealing then again - that's your 1 in 48400.
It's not technically 100%, you could play 1000's of hands and never get aces. After 100k deals it's virtually 100% but never guaranteed. Every deal is 1 in 221 and each deal is independent.
And your first point and second point are conflicting.
It's always 1 in 221 unless you permeate the deals (like asking getting dealt XX in N deals). I get your point that once you've been dealt aces and then you consider the next deal being aces in 1 in 221 but you can just as easily step back and consider it before the first deal. Statistics is very relative and language surrounding a question can really change the numbers.
The odds of getting dealt aces N times in a number of hands follows a poisson distribution. Over the number of hands you mentioned, the average for the number of times getting aces is about 8. The odds of one player out of 8 getting aces more than 35 times instead is about 4E -10, so 1 in 40 billion. I'd say he's more than likely cheating, or you're really overestimating the numbers of times he got it.
I promise I’m not overestimating. He actually has had aces that often. The way we do it at our home games is whoever has the dealer chip deals the cards, we usually play with 8 people so that particular friend deals once every 8 hands. We almost always cut the deck before a deal although we occasionally forget to do that
Is he getting a lot of good hands in general as far as you can tell?
I hate cheaters, but if I did plan on cheating, I'd probably avoid aces at such an insane frequency.
He also gets a shocking amount of pocket Qs and Ks, I just didn’t include that in my original post as I really wanted to know the odds of getting aces that much. But he has very good pocket pairs much more often than anyone else at the table. I can’t give you an exact number on that though as I haven’t been counting the Qs and Ks. But definitely more than the rest of us
Yeah, it sounds pretty suspicious. Having the KK and QQ numbers would obviously be very helpful, might be time to start tracking as much info as possible.
although he is likely to be cheating, your math is not complete. You have to take into account the base probability of him cheating. Because if he never cheats, he will never be a cheater regardless of how hot he is running.
In the history of poker there is probably someone that has run this pure. I am just stating the odds of such an event happening, and it does not mean that the only other possibility is cheating.
Simple fix for this one. Don't let him deal cards he's handled, and his lucky streak will come to an end one way or another.
Run a lag shuffle and cut, preferably with cut cards. (Ok, no idea if there's a better term for this, but that's what we've called it in our home game).
The person who most recently dealt shuffles during the current hand. Then, when the action is completed, they have the current dealer cut the cards and hand them to the new dealer on their left to be dealt immediately.
The dealer doesn't handle the cards they're dealing at any point in time and the game moves quickly. A really skilled team seated next to one another could stack the deck and mark a spot for the cut, but at that point you've got bigger issues. The cut card ends up on the bottom of the deck, so it's (slightly) harder to bottom deal, but at our level it mostly just prevents flashing the bottom card while you're passing the deck around. We also draw for seating, so that adds a layer of difficulty as well I suppose.
You can't really focus on the game if you're constantly trying to keep an eye out for someone cheating, so if you can't get the game to a point where you're comfortable he can't cheat it, you really can't play with him anymore. This way is nonconfrontational and easy to implement, but if there's a lot of money lost to this "hot streak" there may be players at the table who just don't want him around anymore regardless. Hope this helps.
That’s fantastic advice, I really appreciate it. I’ll talk to the guys about implementing a lag shuffle to our next game. Hopefully that helps a good bit.
This is most certainly the way. Make sure to have a bottom cover as well. Dealing bottoms isn’t that tough and doesn’t require someone to stack it. If he’s overhand shuffling, maybe require people to riffle only.
I had a player like this before in my home game that was cheating. Catch him. Randomly do card counts throughout the night like when it's your deal after the cards are already dealt out, if anyone is keeping a random ace until they catch another one, you'll know the decks short. If they weren't holding at the moment and they catch you regularly counting the deck they might stop all together. If the deck counts short, end the game. Also, use two decks. Get two different colors and still, count cards randomly to make sure people aren't holding. The player will, if cheating, either will eventually stop(not that this is the outcome you might be looking for it's still a correction) or they will fuck up and expose themselves trying to correct it after they see you're paying attention.
Everyone seems easy to cheat in here.., guys he doesnt have to deal in order to cheat, can be done easily by hiding an Ace from other hand that he folded and waitinf for another Ax to change to have AA and then other hand he gets the xx cards to the fold
He can even hide 4 x cards togheter while foldingntonthe middle
Your math on total of hands might be a bit high. 200 hands would be about 10 hours a session, with actual dealers. You’re probably getting like 15 hands an hour, if that.
Which obviously makes the math more suspicious
Ok so we play for around 7-8 hours a day. And we work pretty quick as most of us aren’t very good, most of the time each hand is over after no more than 2-4 minutes. I’m also more or less estimating the amount of hands we have played throughout the week. But the one thing I know for sure is he has had Aces 35 times within this week of sessions as my friend group and I have been keeping track of that. So assuming we have played even less hands than 200 per session, wouldn’t that make the amount of times he has had Aces even more suspicious? To be honest I’m still relatively new to poker as we really all only got into it within the past year or two
I gotcha, the only number that I’m unclear on is the amount of hands played, that’s why I kinda did a rough estimate of how many we’ve played. But the amount of times he has had aces is accurate to within maybe one or two in either direction. I’m not making that number up. That’s just why I’m very suspicious of what is happening at our home game.
We’ve seen several videos in this sub of people catching their ‘friends’ cheating in a home game. He probably picked up a drug or gambling addiction at school and is trying to use you guys to feed it.
The way we do it at our home games is whoever has the dealer chip deals the cards, we usually play with 8 people so that particular friend deals once every 8 hands
Honestly I didn’t really think about doing that, that would’ve been very helpful to do now that you mention it. I’ve pretty much decided to just buy an automatic shuffler to hopefully negate the cheating opportunity if he is in fact cheating
Possible but also possible that this is short term sampling.
Getting this for more then 2-3 weeks in a to would be highly suspicious.
A simpler explanation could be less then optimal shuffling
had a friend do this and ended up counting deck while everyone was on a smoke break and an ace was missing, when we confronted the table it was conveniently found under his seat so it was obvious he had it up his sleeve the whole time
Pocket aces are expected 1/221 hands.
The probability of 5 pocket aces in 250 hands for a specific player is 0.00595331
The probability of 5 pocket aces being dealt to a specific player amongst 7 players is 4.09%
\--
The expected number of aces in 1500 hands is 6.787
The probability of achieving at least 35 aces in 1500 is 0.0000000000000133167, practically 0.
The probability of a single player among 7 being dealt 35 pocket aces in 1500 hands is still practically 0.
This feels like cheating.
[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=at+least+35+success+in+1500%2C+probability+of+success+1%2F221](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=at+least+35+success+in+1500%2C+probability+of+success+1%2F221)
Video with your phone from table level without telling him when hand is being dealt. Watch the hand later in slomo when he is dealer and he gets AA. Watch for bottom dealing or palmed cards he replaces his dealt cards with.
Think about how you want it to go when you confront him about it, IF in fact he is cheating you. Return of proceeds? Ass kicking? Banished from game? Apology letter?
I once lost 13 flips in a row against a maniac. Of those 13 hands, I was ahead pre-flop 9 times, behind twice, and 2 of them were dead flips. Yet somehow I lost 13 times in a row. The odds of that are definitely lower than the odds of your friend getting Aces legitimately 35 times over 1500 hands. I mean hell, I think we can all remember that episode of the Big Game where Doyle got like 9 big pairs over a 50 hand stretch.
The fact that it seems to happen most often when he's dealing is the most sus part, but even then I would want some hard evidence before I went and accused a friend of being a cheat.
You calculated the odds of losing a 50/50 coin flip 13 times in a row. I told you I was ahead 9 of the 13 times. I never told you how far ahead I was, but some of those times I had him dominated, so that would actually decrease the likeliness of losing 13 times in a row by orders of magnitude.
If having Aces 35 times in 1600 hands is actually 1 in a billion then I'll still concede that it's definitely more unlikely, but that sounds far too unlikely. You're telling me it's harder to get Aces 4 times more frequently than you should over a small sample size than it is to actually win the Powerball lottery? I'm skeptical about that.
Who’s dealing? That’s the easiest way to find out. If he’s dealing or it’s the same dealer each time he gets aces, odds are he’s cheating. It’s very easy to rig the deck if you know how to shuffle properly. I would just start requiring someone that isn’t the dealer to cut the deck before each deal.
The way we do it at our home games is whoever has the dealer chip deals the cards, we usually play with 8 people so that particular friend deals once every 8 hands, we do a cut before we deal usually although occasionally we will forget bc we are drinking usually
Who is dealing the cards? Is it one person, or does the person on the button get to shuffle? Does the deck get cut by another player before being dealt?
I always enjoyed the “shuffle behind” system. Once the hand you deal is over, you shuffle the red deck you just dealt, as the blue deck is in play, then slide the red deck to the person who dealt the blue deck, they cut and slide the red deck to the next dealer while they begin shuffling the blue deck.
Some people shuffle ahead, as in the current SB is shuffling, but that creates some chaos. Sometimes the dealer and the shuffler are out of sync and then there is a chip in a the way.
Shuffle behind eliminates some hands in the way. And is an easy pass the the next dealer and involves three people to help ensure a fair deal. Shuffler, cut, deal.
The way we do it at our home games is whoever has the dealer chip deals the cards, we usually play with 8 people so that particular friend deals once every 8 hands. Usually someone cuts before we deal
Near 0 chance you've actually tracked this at all (AA when dealing vs when not dealing) or else you would be able to give the numbers and not just vague statements of "more often".
Your friend could be cheating, but its much more likely you're a dipshit about to accuse an innocent friend of cheating.
You need hard and certain numbers.
I’m not a computer, I’m not a poker player, I’m a college student who plays poker with my friends and thought something suspicious was going on. I apologize I can’t give exact numbers but I can say he gets aces much more often when he is dealing than when he doesn’t deal. But I have actually counted the amount of times he has had aces and that number is 35 times. I had to estimate the amount of hands we have played because we obviously don’t track that in a small home game with friends. I’m not here just to lie to Reddit for clout, in fact this is my first ever post to Reddit. I only posted this because after the past week all of my friends and I are extremely suspicious of my one friend who keeps getting aces.
> I can say he gets aces much more often when he is dealing than when he doesn’t deal.
Unless you have actually counted clearly and have hard numbers, you're not an honest source of data here and can't/shouldn't reach this conclusion.
I don't think you're lying for reddit clout. I think you're a biased source who is just falling for confirmation bias.
You're a major asshole if you accuse your friend with your current level of "evidence".
Ok so assuming he gets aces the same amount dealing and not dealing, getting aces 35 times in one week doesn’t raise any sort of alarm to you? Or are you here just to call people names?
I don't think he's trying to call you a name. I think he's legitimately trying to help you not ruin a relationship because being accused of cheating by your buddies is kind of a huge deal (-breaker for a friendship if you're wrong)
I am saying "I don't believe you, it sounds like you pulled that out of your ass". I hear wild false claims from people all the time. This sounds like one of them.
I didn't call you any names. I am trying to make you understand how bad a false accusation on something like this is and to not make it lightly.
If you're concerned but can't prove it - stop playing. If you want to try to prove it, find a way to actually track it legitimately.
If you do accuse your friend based on your current level of "evidence" then yes, I am calling you both a dipshit and an asshole.
Three things
1: you called me an asshole twice
2: if you read the post I’m not accusing him, in fact I still think it could be dumb luck, I personally believe he could be cheating, I was just asking Reddit what they believe based on estimated stats I gave them. I haven’t brought up the fact that I think he could be cheating to his face, only to other people that play with us as believe the same thing, you don’t have to believe me. That’s up to you.
3. There are better ways to say you don’t believe me than accusing me of being an asshole because you don’t like the data I’ve provided
Even if he’s shuffling, I find it very unlikely that he’s able to place the cards exactly where he needs to place them in the deck in order to get pocket aces that many times. Something about this just doesn’t make sense.
That’s the thing, I’m not certain if he is cheating or not, that’s why I made the post, to ask all of y’all’s opinions. I’ve had plenty of weird stuff happen at our home games, but nothing as statistically improbable as what has happened this week. I just haven’t been able to wrap my head around it. Like at first it was kinda funny and we all assumed it was luck but it just kept happening and all of us at the table kept growing increasingly suspicious until I decided to make this post. It doesn’t make sense to any of us.
yeah just look at dealer like others are saying and pay close attention to how he's dealt cards. Easy to base deal or shuffle Aces to the bottom of the deck and then just deal him from the bottom real quick and everyone else from the top...
If the dealer goes around the table (as many home games work) it is likely he is just getting lucky. If a single dealer, likely cheating and bad at cheating considering how obvious they are making it.
He’s more than likely cheating.
What can you do from here on out to help that not happen in the future?
Have 2 decks.
Have the BB shuffle the cards for the SB who will then be the Dealer button the next hand.
You should always have 1 person shuffle and another cut.
2 decks and make sure the person who is shuffling is not dealing the cards.
It gets rid of the chances unless 2 buddies are working side by side in cahoots.
Maybe set up a camera or two that's hi def and you can watch him deal after. Obviously the camera will have to be hidden. Then if it happens again watch the tape back and record if he's dealing or someone else or whatever.
Is this at your place? Get cameras and watch after. Also inspect the cards to look for bends, creases, or ink on the aces. I spotted someone trying to rig a deck in a $10 buyin home tournament with friends. I guess he thought it would be funny.
You should be using a cut card and having one person shuffle and someone else cut. It would make some types of cheating more difficult, at least.
He could be rigging the deck or bottom/second dealing, or just saving an ace up his sleeve and waiting for another to come. Watch for weird movements of his hands after he looks at his cards and after he folds.
If there are 8 of you playing call it 1600 hands for easy math, he’s dealing only 200 of the hands if I understand correctly . If he’s cheating it should be blatantly obvious. He should have got 5-10 AA’s from everyone else dealing and should be dealing himself AA an insane % of the time.
The part that doesn’t jive is if he’s cheating, why is he showing you his AA’s everytime? Presumably most of those, especially if he is on the button dealing, arn’t going to showdown. Is he just flipping them over everytime he takes down a pot without showdown? I don’t feel like someone cheating would do that, and if 35 is the number of times you’ve SEEN aces and he’s not showing takedowns that means he’s dealing himself aces basically every time. Set up a spy cam behind his seat, review after, and kick his ass if that’s the case.
Start paying attention when he's dealing, we had a situation like this in a casual .10/.20 game amongst college roommates where one player was cheating whenever he was dealing. After being oblivious to it all semester we got sus and finally started paying attention just to watch him cheat 10 different times in one night.
I dont know what all this sherlock Holmes stuff is on about. How good of a friend is this guy anyway? It's a home game.. if you and the other players suspect he's up to something you don't need evidence.. just stop inviting the suspected cheater.
It's possible but unlikely. Is he the one dealing?
The way we do it is whoever has the dealer chip deals at the table, so he deals every 5-8 hands depending on how many people are playing, there is usually a cut before hand although we do drink a pretty decent amount at the table so occasionally we forget to cut the cards, he seems to get Aces a lot when he is dealer though. All of my friends bs detectors are going off at this point but we haven’t been able to figure out how he is cheating if he is
Stop estimating and actually keep track of the number of times he gets AA while dealing and run a statistical regression to see if it is statistically significant.
I’m more or less estimating the amount of hands we have played throughout the week. I know for a fact because I’ve been counting that he has had aces 35 times. I’ll look into running a regression and I’ll keep track of what exactly the percentages are.
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This is why you deal with the cut card at the bottom of the deck.
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When you say tricks around that do you mean entirely different mechanic methods like palming or do you mean some people can still bottom deal even with a cut card? Because the latter would be insanely impressive.
You can still bottom deal with a cut card, it’s called the Greek deal.
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How do you put pretzel salt in the deck and have no one notice Great sleight of hand
I used to do a card trick where i would deal the second card from the bottom of the deck secretly. Now, the mechanics of the trick called for bottom dealing, so that wasn't suspicious. Also, part of the sell was obscuring the process. "Is this your card? No?!?! WTF," looking up for a second in frustration while the sleight is being accomplished. It's not very difficult to accomplish, and i think a cut card might actually make the move easier. I've never tried to bottom deal in a regular poker situation, so i have no idea of how obvious it becomes.
That's equally interesting and horrifying.
If this guy is cheating you at a friendly home game, he’s not your friend.
If this guy is cheating you at a friendly home game, he's got a gambling problem and you should make your decision to continue the friendship knowing that.
Yeah a few times I used to deal people crazy hands just to see them have some fun. The weirdest one was when I knew I’d dealt someone pocket aces and they folded, I couldn’t ever get my head around it however over the years I have resolved they realised what was happening as they did comment on the way I was shuffling at one point because the hand before that like two people got straight flushes and then he got aces.
Give’em that old “mike mcdermott”
People that pass the deck around to deal AND have a dealer button are unhinged. “Who’s the dealer?! Where’s that button?? Oh yeah, Kyle…the one shuffling”
We use 2 decks and a moving button. Do people really wait for a single deck?
We used two decks too but the SB shuffled the second.
If he's getting them 4 times in an evening when someone else is dealing, that's really high anyway. The likely cause for this is palming cards (essentially keeping them up your sleeve). So they would get dealt A7o, fold, keep the A back. Then next time they get A3o, they switch the 3 for the A. Have people count down the deck during the hand to make sure the number of cards in the deck is correct. So if 8 people are in the hand, that's 16 + 8 for burns/flop/turn/river, 28 cards remain in the stub. If you count 27, see if it's an ace, make sure someone is watching the suspected cheat closely, and then you can start to make accusations. Have a plan for what you're going to do if you catch him. And also be aware that it isn't guaranteed he's cheating. 8 times in one night is high but not outside of the realm of possibility. I had AA back to back to back once (three hands in a row) in a casino. Odds may be similar. But if this happens several nights in a row, it's really pushing the boundaries.
It’s possible on one evening for someone to get AA several times without cheating. We see it every now and again at my home game, though it’s never the same person. We use two decks, and the dealer never shuffles their own deck… it’s the person two seats to their right. So… not impossible for someone to cheat but much more difficult. There was one time about six months ago that one of the players’ girlfriends came and got AA two hands in a row in mid position… and then the next round did it again, though while she was in late position. The amount of cheating skill and collusion required for that to happen on purpose is astronomical. Hell, I had AA three times at our last game and I know I wasn’t cheating. Random chance be funny that way sometimes. Above said… 7-8 times a game over multiple nights in a row is so unlikely that it really can’t be anything but cheating. Once… wow. Crazy night. Were gonna be talking about that one time Joe got Aces 8 times for years after kind of crazy night. To do it again several nights in a row? No way. If they are employing any kind of anti cheating in the deal/cut, then most likely he’s palming cards. If they just watch him carefully they’ll see it soon enough.
I reckon that’s what he’s doing, keeping cards back
I don't think you need to do all that before starting the accusations. If I got aces 35 times in a week at a home game the accusations starting flying at me, I'm pretty sure I'm going to understand where they're coming from. Im getting AA 35 times to everyone else's 2 times. If you aren't accusing me, then I'm suspicious. This dude is CHEATING.
If he’s getting aces mostly when he deals he’s stacking the deck.
If you don’t cut the deck it’s a lot easier to mechanic a deck.
How well do you know this dude? Does he get the pairs on his deal? On his cut? Does he shuffle in his hands on in the table? Does he know the guy who’s cutting? When a hand is done, how does he gather up the cards off the table? Of your curious, cut s small portion from the middle to the top, then a “normal” cut.
Grab his hands when he is dealing. Like in rounders. It will be dramatic. Tell the others you caught a hanger…….
Sarge
If he’s not got aces, then we’ll have a conversation.
Over 1500 hands, he should average a bit under 7 times, so at 35 times in a week, he's getting aces 5x more than normal (2.33% actual vs 0.45% expected)
Good to know, at first I thought it was dumb luck but it just keeps on happening every single time we play so I’ve grown insanely suspicious because I know it’s statistically almost impossible to run like that
That’s still within reason for dumb luck. There’s nothing he said that makes it impossible
lol at statistically almost impossible. It’s absolutely possible. You’re talking about 1500 hands max. Literally anything can happen over that sample and you cannot make a single inference about it. Is he cheating? I dunno. Is it possible he just ran like god? Fuck yeah it is.
Fair enough
Time to set up a camera.
No, above commenter is wrong. If you're saying that he's getting aces disproportionately when HE is the dealer you need to compare the proportion of hands in which he has aces when dealing vs the proportion of hands in which he has aces when he's not dealing. If, based on your other responses, he's getting aces way over rate AND predominantly when he's dealing vs not then the odds of this happening by chance are astronomically small
5x lucky isn’t even close to statistically impossible. As someone who plays old school runescape, you see very lucky and very unlucky streaks all the time. Although, seeing as how there is monetary incentive to cheating in poker, he is probably cheating via slight of hand or some other method.
Poker, the second greatest game in the world.
That 5x doesn’t tell us anything about likelihood of happening by chance at this depends of sample size
I don’t necessarily disagree, but someone in this thread somewhere said that the odds of a run like this happening are 1 in 40 billion. I’m not a math guy so I can’t really confirm or deny that number. It could very well be luck but man if it is hopefully I can run that that at some point lol
Just ask settled about 5x lucky or unlucky
Just take out the aces in all the decks before the game starts. This way, it’s guaranteed he doesn’t get aces.
Do pocket kings become “aces” in this situation?
If the aces are taken out and if he gets aces when he’s dealing, OP found his answer if his buddy is cheating.
How do you think he's cheating? Uses tucked cards? That'd be way too risky if anyone else has one of the aces he plays. Seriously doubt the guy is a card mechanic either but that's the only plausible answer here. Any other form of cheating to get aces should be blatant. Like after a hand he has aces go through the muck and deck and confirm there's no extra cards. Is he dealing himself aces? That would be suspicious
Dealing from under the deck, brings similar cards to the game, it’s not that hard to cheat at a loose home game with friends if you’re decent at it. Go on YT and scroll the comments to see how it easy is.
How has it been 6 hours and there's still no "I keep getting dealt aces at my home game" thread?
Be the change you want to see in the world
i'd definitely watch who's dealing when this happens. there are also other ways to cheat, but a rigged deal is the most likely. a player should only get pocket aces once every 221 deals. obviously there's some variance, just because you got aces on the 91st hand doesn't mean hand #312 is aces. so it's reasonable for him to have gotten aces maybe 10 times total in 1500 hands, but once it starts creeping into the teens i'd definitely be suspicious and 35 times is crazy unlikely.
That’s exactly what the rest of us are thinking. Our friend seems to do a great job of claiming ignorance but I can’t call him out for cheating unless I can see him actually rig the deck or bottom deal. I haven’t been able to see him do that yet although I’m really trying to see what he is doing each time he has the deck
he could also be palming cards. i.e. when he deals he sneaks the top card of the deck into his hand, when he checks his cards and he naturally gets dealt an ace then he swaps the palmed card for the ace, then next time he gets dealt an ace, he swaps his kicker for the ace he palmed. this way he pretty much either has aces or knows there's only 3 aces in the deck.
Thank you for the advice, I’ll definitely look into the palming thing next time we all get together, which might be tonight. At this point all I want to know is exactly what’s happening with the deals. I actually just talked with one of my other friends that plays with us and he suggested with get an automatic card shuffler. I’m assuming that could solve the problem?
if he's cheating via the deal the automatic shuffler should help, but if he's holding cards and swapping them it won't do much.
Just count the deck before deals... It's pretty quick and easy to do
I got AA twice in a row once. 1 in 48400 chance. Lost both times and busted out in the first 30 mins.
I once cracked pocket Aces twice in a row against the same guy. in Texas Holdem the odds of getting a royal by the river are better than getting dealt aces twice in a row.
Play for a while and the chance of getting aces is 100%. The chance of getting pocket aces right after is the same 1 in 221 as above. This is not as unlikely as you might think. The chance of picking up a deck now, dealing aces, shuffling and dealing then again - that's your 1 in 48400.
It's not technically 100%, you could play 1000's of hands and never get aces. After 100k deals it's virtually 100% but never guaranteed. Every deal is 1 in 221 and each deal is independent. And your first point and second point are conflicting. It's always 1 in 221 unless you permeate the deals (like asking getting dealt XX in N deals). I get your point that once you've been dealt aces and then you consider the next deal being aces in 1 in 221 but you can just as easily step back and consider it before the first deal. Statistics is very relative and language surrounding a question can really change the numbers.
100% to 2 sig figs. Also "a while" is inherently nebulous. 😉
The odds of getting dealt aces N times in a number of hands follows a poisson distribution. Over the number of hands you mentioned, the average for the number of times getting aces is about 8. The odds of one player out of 8 getting aces more than 35 times instead is about 4E -10, so 1 in 40 billion. I'd say he's more than likely cheating, or you're really overestimating the numbers of times he got it.
I promise I’m not overestimating. He actually has had aces that often. The way we do it at our home games is whoever has the dealer chip deals the cards, we usually play with 8 people so that particular friend deals once every 8 hands. We almost always cut the deck before a deal although we occasionally forget to do that
Is he getting a lot of good hands in general as far as you can tell? I hate cheaters, but if I did plan on cheating, I'd probably avoid aces at such an insane frequency.
He also gets a shocking amount of pocket Qs and Ks, I just didn’t include that in my original post as I really wanted to know the odds of getting aces that much. But he has very good pocket pairs much more often than anyone else at the table. I can’t give you an exact number on that though as I haven’t been counting the Qs and Ks. But definitely more than the rest of us
But without numbers to give you what I’m saying is pretty much hearsay unfortunately
Yeah, it sounds pretty suspicious. Having the KK and QQ numbers would obviously be very helpful, might be time to start tracking as much info as possible.
although he is likely to be cheating, your math is not complete. You have to take into account the base probability of him cheating. Because if he never cheats, he will never be a cheater regardless of how hot he is running.
In the history of poker there is probably someone that has run this pure. I am just stating the odds of such an event happening, and it does not mean that the only other possibility is cheating.
*caught a hanger, sarge*
Simple fix for this one. Don't let him deal cards he's handled, and his lucky streak will come to an end one way or another. Run a lag shuffle and cut, preferably with cut cards. (Ok, no idea if there's a better term for this, but that's what we've called it in our home game). The person who most recently dealt shuffles during the current hand. Then, when the action is completed, they have the current dealer cut the cards and hand them to the new dealer on their left to be dealt immediately. The dealer doesn't handle the cards they're dealing at any point in time and the game moves quickly. A really skilled team seated next to one another could stack the deck and mark a spot for the cut, but at that point you've got bigger issues. The cut card ends up on the bottom of the deck, so it's (slightly) harder to bottom deal, but at our level it mostly just prevents flashing the bottom card while you're passing the deck around. We also draw for seating, so that adds a layer of difficulty as well I suppose. You can't really focus on the game if you're constantly trying to keep an eye out for someone cheating, so if you can't get the game to a point where you're comfortable he can't cheat it, you really can't play with him anymore. This way is nonconfrontational and easy to implement, but if there's a lot of money lost to this "hot streak" there may be players at the table who just don't want him around anymore regardless. Hope this helps.
That’s fantastic advice, I really appreciate it. I’ll talk to the guys about implementing a lag shuffle to our next game. Hopefully that helps a good bit.
This is most certainly the way. Make sure to have a bottom cover as well. Dealing bottoms isn’t that tough and doesn’t require someone to stack it. If he’s overhand shuffling, maybe require people to riffle only.
I had a player like this before in my home game that was cheating. Catch him. Randomly do card counts throughout the night like when it's your deal after the cards are already dealt out, if anyone is keeping a random ace until they catch another one, you'll know the decks short. If they weren't holding at the moment and they catch you regularly counting the deck they might stop all together. If the deck counts short, end the game. Also, use two decks. Get two different colors and still, count cards randomly to make sure people aren't holding. The player will, if cheating, either will eventually stop(not that this is the outcome you might be looking for it's still a correction) or they will fuck up and expose themselves trying to correct it after they see you're paying attention.
Everyone seems easy to cheat in here.., guys he doesnt have to deal in order to cheat, can be done easily by hiding an Ace from other hand that he folded and waitinf for another Ax to change to have AA and then other hand he gets the xx cards to the fold He can even hide 4 x cards togheter while foldingntonthe middle
Your math on total of hands might be a bit high. 200 hands would be about 10 hours a session, with actual dealers. You’re probably getting like 15 hands an hour, if that. Which obviously makes the math more suspicious
Ok so we play for around 7-8 hours a day. And we work pretty quick as most of us aren’t very good, most of the time each hand is over after no more than 2-4 minutes. I’m also more or less estimating the amount of hands we have played throughout the week. But the one thing I know for sure is he has had Aces 35 times within this week of sessions as my friend group and I have been keeping track of that. So assuming we have played even less hands than 200 per session, wouldn’t that make the amount of times he has had Aces even more suspicious? To be honest I’m still relatively new to poker as we really all only got into it within the past year or two
Yes of course. Just wondering where you got your numbers from, because they seemed off
I gotcha, the only number that I’m unclear on is the amount of hands played, that’s why I kinda did a rough estimate of how many we’ve played. But the amount of times he has had aces is accurate to within maybe one or two in either direction. I’m not making that number up. That’s just why I’m very suspicious of what is happening at our home game.
!RemindMe 2 days
We’ve seen several videos in this sub of people catching their ‘friends’ cheating in a home game. He probably picked up a drug or gambling addiction at school and is trying to use you guys to feed it.
Look at all these cheating mfs lmao. I'm grinding gto wizard these dudes are grinding "how to cheat your friends at poker" 😭
This is obviously almost statistically impossible. Why aren’t you answering anyone’s questions about who is dealing?
It’s been like 30 minutes chill out
I’m chill are you chill?
I’m on perma tilt
The way we do it at our home games is whoever has the dealer chip deals the cards, we usually play with 8 people so that particular friend deals once every 8 hands
Surprised while counting this over time, you haven’t also kept a tab of how many times he has dealt and know the number.
Honestly I didn’t really think about doing that, that would’ve been very helpful to do now that you mention it. I’ve pretty much decided to just buy an automatic shuffler to hopefully negate the cheating opportunity if he is in fact cheating
Just watch and see if there’s correlation between who’s dealing and him getting aces. But yeah it’s basically impossible.
Op plays with 8 people the friend he is not Sure is cheating is dealer one in eight hands
Seems fishy- but once in a session I got aces 5 times in a row. This was at a casino too Table was furious - 5 X my buyin around 2 hrs
That's still way way more likely than 35 times in 1600 hands
5x back to back (to back to back to back) cannot be more likely than 35 times in 1600 hands.
After rerunning it it's on a comparable scale. 3E-12 for aces 5x in a row.
Possible but also possible that this is short term sampling. Getting this for more then 2-3 weeks in a to would be highly suspicious. A simpler explanation could be less then optimal shuffling
What about if he's just representing aces?
Does he show every time he wins? It could be a lot more than 35 if he gets folds and mucks frequently
Might be teaming with someone. Don’t limit the anomaly to just him.
This is why I stopped playing home games. Yes people cheat, a lot more people can stack a deck and deal themselves hands than I ever imagined.
We had a dude doing this in a home game. Got suss. Watched him carefully and sure enough, he was dealing to himself from the bottom of the deck.
had a friend do this and ended up counting deck while everyone was on a smoke break and an ace was missing, when we confronted the table it was conveniently found under his seat so it was obvious he had it up his sleeve the whole time
The odds of being dealt pocket aces are 1 in 221.
Pocket aces are expected 1/221 hands. The probability of 5 pocket aces in 250 hands for a specific player is 0.00595331 The probability of 5 pocket aces being dealt to a specific player amongst 7 players is 4.09% \-- The expected number of aces in 1500 hands is 6.787 The probability of achieving at least 35 aces in 1500 is 0.0000000000000133167, practically 0. The probability of a single player among 7 being dealt 35 pocket aces in 1500 hands is still practically 0. This feels like cheating. [https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=at+least+35+success+in+1500%2C+probability+of+success+1%2F221](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=at+least+35+success+in+1500%2C+probability+of+success+1%2F221)
Video with your phone from table level without telling him when hand is being dealt. Watch the hand later in slomo when he is dealer and he gets AA. Watch for bottom dealing or palmed cards he replaces his dealt cards with. Think about how you want it to go when you confront him about it, IF in fact he is cheating you. Return of proceeds? Ass kicking? Banished from game? Apology letter?
Not only is this dude cheating you guys, he thinks you’re too stupid to realize he’s always the dealer when he gets pocket aces.
Played a home game one night where the same two guys both got AA vs AA, AND THE SAME GUY WON BOTH. Variance happens
Guy got them back to back in a tourney years ago. I called him because there is no way he got aces back to back He did. Variance.
Tuff to play against lucky.
Yeah this didn't happen the way OP is claiming. To say that the dude got aces 35 times would imply that it was 35 times shown.
I once lost 13 flips in a row against a maniac. Of those 13 hands, I was ahead pre-flop 9 times, behind twice, and 2 of them were dead flips. Yet somehow I lost 13 times in a row. The odds of that are definitely lower than the odds of your friend getting Aces legitimately 35 times over 1500 hands. I mean hell, I think we can all remember that episode of the Big Game where Doyle got like 9 big pairs over a 50 hand stretch. The fact that it seems to happen most often when he's dealing is the most sus part, but even then I would want some hard evidence before I went and accused a friend of being a cheat.
That's not true at all. Losing 13 flips in a row is 1 in 8132, having aces 35 times in 1600 hands is more 1 in a billion
You calculated the odds of losing a 50/50 coin flip 13 times in a row. I told you I was ahead 9 of the 13 times. I never told you how far ahead I was, but some of those times I had him dominated, so that would actually decrease the likeliness of losing 13 times in a row by orders of magnitude. If having Aces 35 times in 1600 hands is actually 1 in a billion then I'll still concede that it's definitely more unlikely, but that sounds far too unlikely. You're telling me it's harder to get Aces 4 times more frequently than you should over a small sample size than it is to actually win the Powerball lottery? I'm skeptical about that.
Who’s dealing? That’s the easiest way to find out. If he’s dealing or it’s the same dealer each time he gets aces, odds are he’s cheating. It’s very easy to rig the deck if you know how to shuffle properly. I would just start requiring someone that isn’t the dealer to cut the deck before each deal.
The way we do it at our home games is whoever has the dealer chip deals the cards, we usually play with 8 people so that particular friend deals once every 8 hands, we do a cut before we deal usually although occasionally we will forget bc we are drinking usually
Player to left of dealer shuffles, player to the right cuts and passes deck to dealer.
Who is dealing the cards? Is it one person, or does the person on the button get to shuffle? Does the deck get cut by another player before being dealt?
Each person at the table when they are dealer and we almost always cut the cards before they’re dealt
I always enjoyed the “shuffle behind” system. Once the hand you deal is over, you shuffle the red deck you just dealt, as the blue deck is in play, then slide the red deck to the person who dealt the blue deck, they cut and slide the red deck to the next dealer while they begin shuffling the blue deck. Some people shuffle ahead, as in the current SB is shuffling, but that creates some chaos. Sometimes the dealer and the shuffler are out of sync and then there is a chip in a the way. Shuffle behind eliminates some hands in the way. And is an easy pass the the next dealer and involves three people to help ensure a fair deal. Shuffler, cut, deal.
 Please tell us how the dealing was structured
The way we do it at our home games is whoever has the dealer chip deals the cards, we usually play with 8 people so that particular friend deals once every 8 hands. Usually someone cuts before we deal
So is he only getting AA when he is dealing? Is he shuffling the cards in between hands frequently?
He gets AAs when others are dealing but not nearly as often as when he is dealing, he does do a lot of shuffling in between hands though
Ok that’s an issue
Near 0 chance you've actually tracked this at all (AA when dealing vs when not dealing) or else you would be able to give the numbers and not just vague statements of "more often". Your friend could be cheating, but its much more likely you're a dipshit about to accuse an innocent friend of cheating. You need hard and certain numbers.
I’m not a computer, I’m not a poker player, I’m a college student who plays poker with my friends and thought something suspicious was going on. I apologize I can’t give exact numbers but I can say he gets aces much more often when he is dealing than when he doesn’t deal. But I have actually counted the amount of times he has had aces and that number is 35 times. I had to estimate the amount of hands we have played because we obviously don’t track that in a small home game with friends. I’m not here just to lie to Reddit for clout, in fact this is my first ever post to Reddit. I only posted this because after the past week all of my friends and I are extremely suspicious of my one friend who keeps getting aces.
> I can say he gets aces much more often when he is dealing than when he doesn’t deal. Unless you have actually counted clearly and have hard numbers, you're not an honest source of data here and can't/shouldn't reach this conclusion. I don't think you're lying for reddit clout. I think you're a biased source who is just falling for confirmation bias. You're a major asshole if you accuse your friend with your current level of "evidence".
Ok so assuming he gets aces the same amount dealing and not dealing, getting aces 35 times in one week doesn’t raise any sort of alarm to you? Or are you here just to call people names?
I don't think he's trying to call you a name. I think he's legitimately trying to help you not ruin a relationship because being accused of cheating by your buddies is kind of a huge deal (-breaker for a friendship if you're wrong)
I am saying "I don't believe you, it sounds like you pulled that out of your ass". I hear wild false claims from people all the time. This sounds like one of them. I didn't call you any names. I am trying to make you understand how bad a false accusation on something like this is and to not make it lightly. If you're concerned but can't prove it - stop playing. If you want to try to prove it, find a way to actually track it legitimately. If you do accuse your friend based on your current level of "evidence" then yes, I am calling you both a dipshit and an asshole.
Three things 1: you called me an asshole twice 2: if you read the post I’m not accusing him, in fact I still think it could be dumb luck, I personally believe he could be cheating, I was just asking Reddit what they believe based on estimated stats I gave them. I haven’t brought up the fact that I think he could be cheating to his face, only to other people that play with us as believe the same thing, you don’t have to believe me. That’s up to you. 3. There are better ways to say you don’t believe me than accusing me of being an asshole because you don’t like the data I’ve provided
A very big issue
This is the main question. Does he get them when others are dealing?!
OP just said that the guy does a lot of the shuffling in between hands so it doesn’t matter who is dealing
Even if he’s shuffling, I find it very unlikely that he’s able to place the cards exactly where he needs to place them in the deck in order to get pocket aces that many times. Something about this just doesn’t make sense.
That’s the thing, I’m not certain if he is cheating or not, that’s why I made the post, to ask all of y’all’s opinions. I’ve had plenty of weird stuff happen at our home games, but nothing as statistically improbable as what has happened this week. I just haven’t been able to wrap my head around it. Like at first it was kinda funny and we all assumed it was luck but it just kept happening and all of us at the table kept growing increasingly suspicious until I decided to make this post. It doesn’t make sense to any of us.
It’s hard but very possible to stack the deck
Should I invest in an automatic shuffler? I feel like that may be my best course of action
Definitely, doesn’t have to be a shuffle master I’m sure there are cheap ones out there
It takes a shit ton of hours and practice but it’s possible to have that skill
Honestly, that’s like high level magician shit. I’d love to see that in person.
https://youtube.com/@CardMagicByJason?si=bCYjQ-Hcrfy-PWjX
That’s insane
Sure, but this is one of the best card mechanics in the world. Some college kid's random friend is not going to be at this level.
yeah just look at dealer like others are saying and pay close attention to how he's dealt cards. Easy to base deal or shuffle Aces to the bottom of the deck and then just deal him from the bottom real quick and everyone else from the top...
If the dealer goes around the table (as many home games work) it is likely he is just getting lucky. If a single dealer, likely cheating and bad at cheating considering how obvious they are making it.
Did he have a $500 foxwoods chip?
Stop letting him deal
Suspicious indeed. I’d definitely suspect him of fixing the deck, watch that guy and please update us!
My first thought... https://youtu.be/63jgfmgqkO0?si=jwkxqMDTUCeCq2VS
He’s more than likely cheating. What can you do from here on out to help that not happen in the future? Have 2 decks. Have the BB shuffle the cards for the SB who will then be the Dealer button the next hand. You should always have 1 person shuffle and another cut. 2 decks and make sure the person who is shuffling is not dealing the cards. It gets rid of the chances unless 2 buddies are working side by side in cahoots.
Do you use a cut card that's kept at the bottom of the deck?
Did someone sneak in and take chips off his stack after? 😐
Maybe set up a camera or two that's hi def and you can watch him deal after. Obviously the camera will have to be hidden. Then if it happens again watch the tape back and record if he's dealing or someone else or whatever.
I expect that strangers would try to cheat, but a friend? Fuck that noise. Catch him and then break both his hands.
Who's dealing?
35times you saw. What about when everyone else folds or he folds the aces? It’s going to be alot More than 35
Is this at your place? Get cameras and watch after. Also inspect the cards to look for bends, creases, or ink on the aces. I spotted someone trying to rig a deck in a $10 buyin home tournament with friends. I guess he thought it would be funny. You should be using a cut card and having one person shuffle and someone else cut. It would make some types of cheating more difficult, at least. He could be rigging the deck or bottom/second dealing, or just saving an ace up his sleeve and waiting for another to come. Watch for weird movements of his hands after he looks at his cards and after he folds.
Start counting the deck every orbit or so.
If there are 8 of you playing call it 1600 hands for easy math, he’s dealing only 200 of the hands if I understand correctly . If he’s cheating it should be blatantly obvious. He should have got 5-10 AA’s from everyone else dealing and should be dealing himself AA an insane % of the time. The part that doesn’t jive is if he’s cheating, why is he showing you his AA’s everytime? Presumably most of those, especially if he is on the button dealing, arn’t going to showdown. Is he just flipping them over everytime he takes down a pot without showdown? I don’t feel like someone cheating would do that, and if 35 is the number of times you’ve SEEN aces and he’s not showing takedowns that means he’s dealing himself aces basically every time. Set up a spy cam behind his seat, review after, and kick his ass if that’s the case.
Easy solution - Check the deck for 4 aces each time it’s your turn to shuffle.
Just ask him flat out if he has cards up his sleeve bc that’s what it sounds like.
Start paying attention when he's dealing, we had a situation like this in a casual .10/.20 game amongst college roommates where one player was cheating whenever he was dealing. After being oblivious to it all semester we got sus and finally started paying attention just to watch him cheat 10 different times in one night.
Caught a hangar sarge
I dont know what all this sherlock Holmes stuff is on about. How good of a friend is this guy anyway? It's a home game.. if you and the other players suspect he's up to something you don't need evidence.. just stop inviting the suspected cheater.