Phil Ivey(pictured) is in a heated legal battle against Atlantic City’s Borgata Casino, which is suing the 10-time bracelet winner for $9.6 million, the amount he won at its baccarat tables using a technique that the casino considers to be cheating.

In response, Ivey has made counterclaimsalleging it was the casino which tried to take advantage of him using attractive cocktail waitresses and free alcohol. This week, Borgata filed a brief to have those allegations dismissed by summary judgment, a document that revealed new details about the incident.

Borgata claims that Ivey and a woman named Cheng Yin Sun committed fraud against the casino via a technique called edge-sorting, in which eagle-eyed players exploit tiny imperfections on the backs of playing cards. Over the course of several sessions, Ivey used his VIP status to make several odd requests that would help him in that scheme, including requiring a purple deck of Gemaco playing cards and a Mandarin-speaking dealer.

The pair walked away with nearly $10 million in winnings, with the casino only becoming suspicious after Ivey had been accused of using edge-sorting at Crockfords Casino in London, where he and Sun had won several million dollars as well.

In a 19-page brief filed this week, Borgata said the issue simply boiled down to whether edge-sorting was legal. “When the dust kicked up by Defendants’ repeated attempts to vilify the casino industry settles, we will have come full circle to the beginning of this case,” said Borgata attorney Jeremy Klausner. “This issue is, and has always been a simple one: is edge-sorting, as specifically admitted to and practiced by Mr. Ivey and Ms. Sun, cheating or unfair play?”

Borgata also challenged Ivey’s claims that he was not able to review the playing cards in question, as they had been destroyed by the casino. “Mr. Ivey is a well-known, high-stakes, professional gambler and a longtime VIP customer of Borgata. Borgata had no reason to suspect Mr. Ivey intended to engage in edge-sorting or any other cheating or unfair play,” it stated.

Borgata brushed aside Ivey’s argument that he was taking advantage of by the casino as well. “The individual playing cards do not change the answer. Complimentary drinks do not change the answer. Cocktail servers do not change the answer,” said the brief. “There is no defense that changes the underlying nature of Defendants’ edge-sorting scheme. It is either permitted or not, lawful or unlawful, and that is the question before this Court.”

With the filing came several new details about how Ivey and Sun were able to pull off such stunning wins. In the document, Ivey’s partner is referred to as one of the only people in the world who knows how to edge-sort at baccarat. It claims that people have offered to pay Sun to teach them the technique, but she has always refused.

Edge-sorting is extremely difficult and took Sun three years to teach herself. To pull off the scheme with Ivey, she instructed the dealer to give her a peek at the next card off the deck before turning it over on the table. But before flipping it, Sun would tell the dealer how to orient the card (for a “superstitious” Ivey) on the felt. It would then be put back into the shoe, but turned in a way where she knew what it would be when it came up again.

Advance knowledge of what the first card off the deck will be gives a baccarat player a substantial edge over the casino. “Mathematically, players with first card knowledge have an overall advantage of approximately 6.765% over the house. The advantage is up to 21.5% for ‘player’ bets and up to 5.5% for ‘banker’ bets,” said the brief.

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