Not kidding about this one.
From Poker News:
The tournament staff at the Rio has been catching flack in spades, ins,
s,
s and
s to be exact. During the $1k No Limit final table being played under the lights on the main stage, Jon Turner noticed that the back of the low spades were marked significantly enough to be identifiable from across the table. Turns out the same manufacturing error can be found in every deck made for the 2011 World Series. The final table was moved to a regular tournament table, and without the stage lighting, the marks were deemed not visible enough to be a problem.
Two days later, Steve O'Dwyer tweeted that he could see the marks from the one and nine seats at regular tournament tables. Good thing all of this was happening during the $10k 2-7. Don't care much about wheel cards in that one. Players took to the "fair and balanced" medium du jour (twitter, obv) to air their frustration. Tournament staff responded by switching the marked decks in the 2-7 event for unopened set ups from 2010, but all other tournaments continued using the flawed decks. The whole thing seems pretty outrageous for a big-budget production subplot. (In the director's cut, the marks turn out to be a genius corporate response to the annual accusations that a particular player marks the deuces in the $50k. Mark 'em all, and the TD gets to skip that awkward conversation this year.) Back in the real world, one would hope that thousands of marked decks would get a better, faster, more apologetic response from the World Series. Players shouldn't have to beg for a level playing field. But, hey, as long as the decks are stacked, might as well wear your infrared glasses to today's H.O.R.S.E tournament.
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Originally Posted by Box of Wine
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