Earlier quoted context omitted.
Michael’s run on PYL is often called a “scandal” as if he cheated. The only scandal was that CBS tried like hell to figure out a way to deny him his winnings.
Where do you fall on the Phil Ivey edge sorting incident?
> It may be that it would not be cheating if a player spotted that some cards had a detectably different back from others, and took advantage of that observation, but Mr Ivey did much more than observe; he took positive steps to fix the deck.
Whether this means Ivey shouldn't be paid is more debatable IMO. On one hand, he didn't hide his actions and the casino in some sense accepted them into the game, nor did he tamper with the cards. On the other, he deceived the casino into acting outside the normal and intended rules of the game and in in his favour, which, regardless of the means used to do it, can be seen as cheating/dishonest.
I'd come down on the side of the latter, but it's not a particularly firm opinion. I can envision cases why I might feel differently, such as if someone _genuinely_ asked for the cards to be rotated due to superstition then _later_ realised that the cards are aligned as such (though I'm not quite how you'd show that was the likely order of events).