Poker cheats come in all shapes and sizes, from the business professional to the much loved grandmother. Poker cheaters are also always coming up with new and innovative ways to try and cheat players out of their money.
One of the ways cheaters try to win is with a move called clipping the pot. This sleight of hand cheat does not involve manipulating the cards at all. Clipping the pot is when the cheater either makes a bet with too little money, or takes too much money out of the pot.
The only way to safeguard against is for the players to monitor all monies flowing into or out of the pot. Some of the friendly get together type poker games allow for players to make change from the pot. This is prime time for a player to clip the pot while his comrades are looking to their cards or are engaged in conversation. Although it may seem something that isn’t done at a friendly game, this is expressly the prime time for the cheater to use this tactic. The cheater knows he is trusted among friends and that no one would suspect or accuse another friend of clipping the pot. Even if caught, the cheater could plead that he simply miscounted, and did not intend to intentionally clip the pot.
The Stacked Deck is perhaps one of the first poker cheats one thinks of when the subject is raised. The stacked deck is an easy to do cheat. It can only be used once in a game, as the deck would be shuffled before the next game. The stacked deck is prepared before hand and can be used to start, or even used in the middle of game play.
The cheater’s deck will consist of a certain number of cards inserted by the cheater into the right places before the deal. It is often used by the cheater who claims that the deck has already been shuffled. It’s also common to substitute a stacked deck after the real deck has been shuffled, or passed among cohorts in the game for their deal. This is of course called collusion, when two or more players team up to cheat the others.
A stacked deck may also consist of something as simple as turning certain cards in the opposite direction when cards that have non symmetric backs on them are used. The target cards are turned as to be upside down from the other cards, marking them for the cheater.
Jury selection kicked off April 27 in the trial of a Delaware woman who prosecutors say helped veterinarian Dr. Seth Fishman supply illegal performance-enhancing drugs to trainers who used them to secretly dope horses to win races.
By day's end, a jury of eight men and four women was sworn in to hear the case against Lisa Giannelli in U.S. District Court in New York.
Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil scheduled opening statements for Apr. 28. The government has two FBI agents lined up to testify as their first witnesses.
Giannelli was in court for the jury selection.
One of the jurors chosen is a 60-year-old woman who said during voir dire that she has attended the GI Kentucky Derby “numerous times.”
Giannelli, of Felton, worked for Fishman and his Florida company Equestology as a sales representative. They were arrested two years ago following a lengthy FBI investigation into suspected backstretch horse doping that nabbed more than two dozen others.
Those charged included prominent Thoroughbred trainers Jorge Navarro and Jason Servis. Navarro pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced to five years in prison. Servis is awaiting a trial that has been pushed back to early 2023.
Giannelli's case is being heard in the same courthouse where Fishman was convicted Feb. 2 on two counts of conspiracy to violate adulteration or misbranding laws after an 11-day trial. She is charged with one of those crimes.
Fishman and Giannelli have been the only ones in the case to take their chances at trial. There have been nine other guilty pleas since the arrests, including Navarro's.
Giannelli was to be tried with Fishman, but after opening statements and testimony from the government's first witness, a mistrial was declared in her case after her lawyer Louis Fasulo tested positive for COVID-19, preventing him from proceeding.
She faces five years in prison if convicted. She is free on $100,000 bond.
At a conference Apr. 25, Fasulo said his client would be testifying in her own defense. He also said she would be his only witness. Fishman didn't testify, and his lawyers called no other witnesses.
Fasulo told Vyskocil that he was “100% certain” Gianelli would take the stand.
“I never make that commitment, but we know it's going to happen,” he said.
In court papers last month, prosecutors spelled out their case against Giannelli.
They said she had traveled to racehorse training facilities in the northeast U.S., offering to sell Fishman's drugs “on demand, without regard to the existence of any prescription, the medical need for such drugs or the legality (or propriety) of selling such drugs directly to racehorse trainers.”
In court papers, Fasulo has signaled his intent to put on a “good faith” defense.
“A person acts in good faith when he or she has an honestly held belief, opinion, or understanding that as part of her experience in the horse racing industry veterinarians were allowed to sell drugs they compounded or manufactured and it was the trainer's responsibility to follow withdrawal times, even though the belief, opinion or understanding turns out to be inaccurate or incorrect,” Fasulo wrote in a proposed instruction that he wants the jury to hear before it begins deliberations.
At the previous trial, Fasulo sought to distance his client from Fishman, a tactic he is expected to take this time around.
“We sit here today after hearing the government's opening statement that Lisa Giannelli is a lone wolf in a herd of sheep,” he said as he began his opening remarks to the prior jury. “This case will prove that Lisa was a sheep herded by the sheep master.”
Fasulo said then that Giannelli had been a groom and a trainer before she went to work for Fishman. He said they had worked together for 18 years.
Fasulo said his client had no ability to create the products that Fishman manufactured and had no ability to label them.
“She took no responsibility as to the products as they were presented to her, other than they were presented by a veterinarian who was licensed in the states in which she was dealing,” he said.
At the end of his remarks, he said they don't hide from the fact that Giannelli worked for Fishman.
“What the government found in her home were products given to her by Seth Fishman, the veterinarian, and you will hear that she believed those products to be okay to transport to others,” he said.
The trial is expected to last two weeks.
The Thoroughbred industry's leading publications are working together to cover this key trial.
The post Lisa Giannelli Trial Begins appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.
In advance of the April Horses of Racing Age sale, the writers ventured to Keeneland this week for in-person chats with Keeneland's Vice President of Sales Tony Lacy and Grovendale Sales' Chance Timm. Trainer Michael Stidham was also featured on the TDN Writers' Room presented by Keeneland. The upcoming sale features a number of new concepts, including dropping a requirement that horses in the sale be present at Keeneland. The sale will also take place on a racing day, after the conclusion of the card on Friday, the last day of the meet.
“I started almost a year ago and the first thing we did was look at everything so far as how do we better service our clients?” said Lacy, who, along with Timm and Stidham were the Green Group Guests of the Week. “What is the best way to do things? So at Keeneland that embodies everything in the industry. It's a sales company, but it's also a world class racetrack. So we decided to combine the two activities on the one day. Logistically for our team, it's really challenging. But everybody knew it was very important that we could pull it off to get it done. The feedback has been really, really positive. I think the people really appreciate the fact that they can go racing, watch the Bewitch Stakes, and walk down the hill and an hour later we're able to sell horses.”
All the sales companies had to make adjustments due to the pandemic, and one was an increased emphasis on online bidding. Once again, in Friday's sale, prospective buyers can bid on their computers from the comforts of their homes.
“The pandemic has forced a lot of innovation that may have taken a lot longer to initiate otherwise,” Lacy said. “The horse industry is not something that really embraces change really quickly. So as we have learned from a lot of our customers, they have really appreciated the fact of being able to bid online. They also need to do their homework, so Information transparency is incredibly important. That's why we're trying to be flexible as much as possible and are trying to find ways to make it all convenient. A traditional auction is absolutely something that's not going to go away. But we've got to find a way of modernizing it and finding a way that better suits the modern way of doing business.”
Timm, who has had many roles in the industry, recently announced that he has joined forces with James Keogh at Grovendale, a Thoroughbred consignment based in Versailles, Kentucky. The April Horses of Racing Sale will mark the first time the newly formed team would be selling horses together.
Elsewhere on the show, which is also sponsored by Coolmore, XBTV, Lane's End Farm, West Point Thoroughbreds, Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders and Legacy Bloodstock, writers Joe Bianca, Bill Finley and Jon Green discussed the win by Letruska (Super Saver) in the GI Apple Blossom H. and her prospects for another stellar campaign in 2022.
For the audio (only) version, click here.
The post The TDN Writers’ Room On Site at Keeneland appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.
