Did You Hear the One About the Vietnamese Cheat Codes at L.A. Casinos?

Yeah, live poker is rigged. I've been saving this little bundle of joy for a week or so as more serious matters came to the fore. This one could be deemed as racist, reverse-racist, or even a steaming pile o' poo... and it's definitely not as serious as some other recent tales. It's only here because it's way funny, and 'way funny' makes for a good read. There's also no commentary here as to whether any of this junk is true. It might be... it might not be... and there have been a lot of hoaxes in the air lately, y'know....

The topic surfaced in a post made to the BARGE list by 'Bret Roth,' one of that list's more mercurial posters. I don't post there but I do read the list's daily mailing, because it's populated by lots of high-profile players and poker professionals, and tends to be magnitudes more relevant than that content found at rec.gambling.poker, the train-wreck of all interactive discussion forums. BARGE is sort of like what RGP used to be, early in its history, before it was overrun by all flavors of crap.

Anyhow, on February 6th, Roth wrote a missive titled "For Vietnamese cheaters in LA," and it read as follows:

I guess the vietnamese cheating in LA is so bad now, they post
translations
on live journal. And I always concentrated on their hand signals...

1: mote
2: hi
3: ba
4: bone
5: num
6: sow
7: bi
8: tum
9: jin
10: muy
J: boy
Q: dum
K: yah
A: see
Diamond: Ro
Heart: Gir
Club: Yoon
Spade: Bit

The stepping from Point A to Point C in the post is best left to your imagination. Anyhow, the first response was from Mike Chow, who quipped this: "Try as I might, I can't translate this into 'too paih no goot. you go home now.'"

Funny stuff, despite the fact that it hints at something very dark and brazen. One of the justifications of the 'English only' rule at many online sites is to thwart any such second-language collusion, although the fact that an alternate IM connection is just a click away is small comfort, at best. But seriously, live poker is so rigged, don't you think?

Nope, I'll pass on the straitjacket, thanks for asking.... Consider this a seedy alternative to me offering up useless commentary on Daniel Negreanu's mildly controversial "Jamaica, mon" video. Nope, don't even ask. Not today.