david bach

Being in the poker TV table streaming production business for more than 10 years, I highly recommend 3 things to ensure game integrity can’t be compromised. First, as some less experienced poker fans might become paranoid after watching this video, I want to make it clear that I don’t think any cheating is going on here. They’re simply worried about the possibility of being cheated at the end of a major tournament where the prize pool is significant. Here are my 3 recommendations for every tournament, cash game, and stream operator: 1. As Foxen and Kulev pointed out, cards should never be known in real time at any point during a hand. They should only become known once the hand is over. In any case, the 30 minute to 1 hour delay that every poker stream already has is enough for software to display the cards in real time, even if they are scanned after the hand. I’m in favor of non-RFID cards, as anything can be hacked nowadays. I’m also in favor of bringing back the old-school method, with each seat having its own hole-card webcam. AFTER each hand, the player would show their cards to their personal webcam, so viewers would still see the hole cards on the live stream just as they do today, but NO ONE and NO software could ever have access to a player’s hole cards in real time during the game. The information would only appear after the hand, without affecting viewers’ experience. (And if the player forgets, the dealer should remind them to show their cards to their personal webcam before mucking.) 2. Every organization needs to teach its dealers to slide the cards instead of pitching them through the air. Props to Rob Yong for enforcing this in his highstakes room at Onyx, Merit Casino in Cyprus. That prevents hidden devices used by cheaters around poker tables from identifying the cards through micro cameras and AI software while the dealer is pitching them, allowing someone with a tiny earpiece to know your hand in real time without anyone noticing. 3. Every organization should enforce a dynamic shuffle before each street. That way, the order of the deck can never be known. Shuffle machines know the order of every card internally, and that information is hackable. For anyone interested in understanding how shuffle machines can potentially be hacked to predict the winning hand, I’ll post a video explaining the method in the comments of this tweet. A single cut by the dealer after using the shuffle machine is not enough. By simply signaling your card to someone outside right after folding, an app can determine where the cut was made and then tell you or others at the table in real time which seat will receive the winning hand before the preflop action even begins. A dynamic shuffle is when the dealer quickly reshuffles before dealing EACH street (preflop, flop, turn, and river). That prevents hacked shuffle-machine systems as well as barcode decks. Barcode decks are special decks, mainly used in private games, that can’t be detected by the players but can be read similarly to RFID technology. As a result, the order of the cards can be known by one or multiple players, allowing them almost directly to identify the winning seat. Again, props to @rob_yong_ and @_OnyxLive at @meritpokerlive for enforcing both the dynamic shuffle and slide dealing. I know it requires some changes on the operators’ side, but they will be necessary to better secure our game moving forward. I love poker. It’s the best game in the world, and for all the poker players out there risking their own money every day based on their skill, I wish for a safe playing environment and a non-technological deck of cards. The identity of the cards should never be known by any machine or by anyone during a hand except the player holding them. That way, everyone can be sure cheating is impossible. That’s in everyone’s best interest. If you care about poker integrity, please retweet this. Thank you for reading. 🙏