History Main / FiveAcesCheater

This trope however, is when a character is cheating in an obvious and blatant manner and all the other players and the audience can clearly see that. He may do something seemingly impossible that could be only be done with special equipment or supernatural powers that aren't allowed, or something that the game itself makes impossible. The best (and most infamous) example is the name of this trope, named after the very common gag in media of a character playing Poker and having a hand of five aces. This is because most fair games of Poker have a card deck that has only four of each color and rank[[note]]This can be possible in card games that are played with multiple decks at once, but the scoring rules might ignore duplicates[[/note]], or something similar like having a hand of six cards, when in Poker you can only get five.

This trope however, is when a character is cheating in an obvious and blatant manner and all the other players and the audience can clearly see that. He may do something seemingly impossible that could be only be done with special equipment or supernatural powers that aren't allowed, or something that the game itself makes impossible. The best example is the name of this trope, named after the very common gag in media of a character playing Poker and having a hand of five aces, when a card deck has only four[[note]]This can be possible in card games that are played with multiple decks at once, but the scoring rules might ignore duplicates[[/note]], or something similar like having a hand of six cards, when in Poker you can only get five.

* ''Film/JohnWickChapter4'': John, Caine, Mr. Nobody, and Killa play poker. John gets a DeadMansHand, Caine gets four Nines and a Four, Mr. Nobody gets a royal flush, and Killa gets five Twos and declares he wins. Annoyed and unsurprised, the other three attack him and his men.

* ''VideoGame/SafeCracker'' The 1997 game has a book about cheating in chess with an example of "minimal and discrete" cheating where there are 15 queens on the board.

* In ''[[Website/{{TED}} Ted-Ed]]'''s video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk9c7sJ08Bg "The Cheating Royal Riddle"]], the king makes his 4 children play a game of dice to determine which of them will become his heir, has them each record their own scores and tasks the protagonist with analysing them. On closer inspection, it turns out that this trope is in play for 3 of the 4 scores submitted: [[spoiler: 2 of the children logged scores that were impossible - Bertram declares a score of 840 when the maximum possible score for the game is 700, and Draco claims to have rolled 423 on dice where every combined score should be a multiple of 5. A third player, Cassandra, declares 700, which would have required her to roll the highest score on her dice 40 times in a row, at odds of 1 in 13 nonillion - improbable enough that, under the rules laid down by the king, it's reasonable to assume she either cheated or miscounted, and disqualify her.]]

* In ''WebAnimation/HazbinHotel'' when Husk is teleported to the Hotel, he was in the middle of a Poker Game. [[FreezeFrameBonus His hand included a joker.]]

* In the DeathMontage in ''WesternAnimation/PussInBootsTheLastWish'', cheating with a hand of five aces was the cause of Puss' second death. This proved a bad idea when facing CaninesGamblingInACardGame.

* In ''VisualNovel/ApolloJusticeAceAttorney'', Shadi Smith conspired with crooked dealer Olga Orly to ruin Phoenix Wright's reputation as an undefeated poker player by planting a card on his person, then having Olga Orly deal five aces during one of their hands. The idea was to make it look like Phoenix had swapped out one of his cards for an ace, making him look like a cheater and thereby casting doubt on his previous wins. However, Phoenix managed to find the card planted on him and hid it in a grape juice bottle, so the plan failed.

[[quoteright:350: [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/5aoriginal.png]]]]

-->-- Said to be an actual epitaph in a WildWest graveyard.

--> '''Dr Chapatín''': Good thing that we are playing among honest people.

-->'''Daffy:''' Beats me.

-->''"He is either cheating, or he is a hallucinating sleep-deprived psychotic with severe constipation and unerringly good aim. In either event, I am confident he is ashamed of himself."''

** WesternAnimation/BugsBunny, dressed as a southern gentleman, is involved in a game of poker with a Col. Cornpone on a riverboat ("Mississippi Hare"). Cornpone shows five aces in his hand. Bugs shows six.
** "Bonanza Bunny", another one involving Bugs, has him play Blacque Jacques Shellaque in blackjack. Bugs draws his first card and chooses to stand. His opponent proceeds to blatantly cheat by drawing a 10 of Spades, and then pulling a second 10 of Spades out of his sleeve. Bugs flips over the 21 of Hearts.
* On the Disney short ''Sports Goofy'', the Beagle Boys discuss their plan to beat Scrooge [=McDuck's=] soccer team while playing cards. Throughout the scene, an ace of spades keeps getting passed around, as each Beagle Boy keeps stealing it from the other. In the end, they all deal their hands and ''all'' the cards are the ace of spades.

* ''Film/JohnWickChapter4'': John, Caine, Mr. Nobody, and Killa play poker. John gets a DeadMansHand, Caine gets four Nines and a Four, Mr. Nobody gets a royal flush, and Killa gets five Twos and declares he wins. Annoyed, the other three say of course this asshole would cheat before attacking him and his men.

[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]

[[folder:Film - Animated]]

* In a DeathMontage in ''WesternAnimation/PussInBootsTheLastWish'', it's revealed that a hand of five aces was the cause of one of Puss's deaths. This proved a bad idea when facing CaninesGamblingInACardGame.

[[folder:Film - Live Action]]

[[folder:WebAnimation]]

* The ''WesternAnimation/BettyBoop'' Screen Song "One More Chance" ends with an entire gambling house being thrown in the back of a police wagon (literally the entire house) save for one dog character while he was in the middle of a poker game. When the dog notices he somehow has five aces, he jumps back in the police wagon in order to play his hand.

* In one episode of the ''WesternAnimation/{{Dilbert}}'' cartoon, Dilbert, Dogbert and Dilmom are playing Scrabble. When Dogbert plays "Quizzing" for 188 points, Dilbert comments that he thought the Scrabble set only has one Z. Dogbert brushes this off by saying that that's the kind of thinking that made Dilbert lose 400 games in a row, but the next shot shows him carving his own scrabble tiles under the table.

!!Real-Life examples:

[[folder:Video Games]]
* In Online Multiplayer Games, cheaters are usually subtle so other players will not report them, and many cheaters, rather than winning too much, will stop cheating for a while so they don't get caught. But there's always that dumb cheater that does stuff like headshotting invisible players, leveling up too fast, and making high scores that you can't possibly achieve. And there's always games with little moderation where cheaters almost never get banned, and you can find cheaters that make no effort to hide it, like using invincibility hacks and then standing still while the other players repeatedly headshot them. Not to mention achievements unlocked at the exact same time when they have no business being able to do so.
* ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' is no stranger to blatant cheaters. The game has a very prevalent hacking community, and a lot of the time, the hacks are extremely easy to detect, and are sometimes even noticeable by regular players.
* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'':
** This was brought up during the WAR! Update, which involved a contest where Soldier and Demoman players would try to kill each other, with the winning side getting the Gunboats item. Naturally, the developers discovered that some players were getting outrageous kill counts--the highest scorer on either side had accumulated over 200,000 kills. Keep in mind that the contest lasted a week, so that translates to getting a Soldier or Demoman kill every three seconds, in an online FPS where only a fraction of the base plays Soldier or Demoman, and doing this every second of every day. Or, as the Administrator put it:
-->''"He is either cheating, or he is a hallucinating sleep-deprived psychotic with severe constipation and unerringly good aim. In either event, I am confident he is ashamed of himself."''
** This is exploited by bot accounts. They use low-quality aimbot programs that are very easy to spot (since they cause their users to spin in place with their guns pointed skyward before locking onto a target) and routinely pull off impossible feats like headshotting cloaked Spies from across the map. In their case, the fact that they're obviously cheating is part of the point. They're designed to grief servers and exploit lax moderation standards, and the fact that they're able to run around not even hiding their cheating without fear is much of what makes them demoralizing to face.
* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Rogers_(video_game_player) Todd Rogers]] used to hold many high-scores in videogames, most of them achieved in the 80s. They didn't have any photo or video proof, but were still accepted by the organization Twin Galaxies, a partner of the Literature/GuinnessWorldRecords. A lot of these records were either impossible, way higher than the second place, or would take [[BladderOfSteel days of constant play]] to achieve. In 2018 all his records were removed. Here's a list of his [[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12r8Hi8QuIedNKsyrVIyjw4S8194YtnEiGVZxqEx-b7U/edit#gid=0 suspicious records]], with some notable examples below:
** His most famous example is a downplayed one, finishing the race in ''Dragster'' in 5.51 seconds, and that record stayed unbeaten for over 35 years, also giving him a record of longest-standing video-game world record, [[MilesGloriosus but he never managed to do it again in front of cameras even with so many people asking]], and extensive analysis of the code claims that the minimum possible is 5.57, some players achieved 5.57 legitimately.
** ''Centipede (Atari 5200)'': An exact score of 65,000,000 points, when the second place was 58,078.
** ''Barnstorming'': 32.04 seconds, even though that time is impossible even if you remove all the obstacles by hacking.
** ''Wabbit'': 1698 points; not only does the game end when the player gets 1300 points, but the score counter increases in 5 point units.
** ''The Legendary Axe'': 99,999,990 points, even though the score increases in fifty point units, and the second place was 30,068,300 points.
** ''Fathom'': A claimed 1,110,500 points while the second place was 142 in 2.5 minutes. Doing the math, he would have taken over 325 hours to achieve it, meaning he should also have a record for most time without sleeping. Admittedly, the current record is now 19,566 points in 29 minutes with video proof, which drops it to a ''mildly'' less ridiculous twenty-seven-hour-straight marathon.
* The literal version of this trope can be averted with some specialty decks of cards [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playing_card_suit#Five-suit_decks which indeed have five or more suits]].
* WebVideo/KarlJobst's video "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFrQ1_2bbsI The Worst Fake Speedrun on Youtube]]" talks about a ''WebVideo/{{Badabun}}'' video where Tavo tries to fake a ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1'' speedrun by splicing together various runs, one of which is a TAS. Karl Jobst points out several mistakes that make it clear that the run is impossible:
** The game footage uses a TAS-only technique called "fast acceleration". It requires you to press left and right on the same frame, which is impossible to do with the regular controller Tavo is using in the video.
** The display is taken from the TAS and combined with gameplay from other runs. It sometimes appears too early or late, it may be misaligned, and at one point the coin counter (whose flashing does not match that of the coins in the level) increases by 12 even though Mario only collected 11. It gets worse when actual gameplay happens at the top of the screen, such as when Mario "disappears" while going for the Warp Zone in 1-2, or when stuff randomly appears there because it was there in the TAS.
** Between 4-1 and 4-2, Tavo reaches for a slice of pizza and doesn't manage to put his hand back on the controller before Mario starts moving again.
** Discussed when Karl Jobst points out that the timer is inaccurate. While he thinks the most likely explanation is that Badabun just used it incorrectly due to incompetence, he also proposes the explanation that they intentionally made the final time too long because it would be too obvious that Tavo's "run" was fake if they had used the true time, which is faster than the world record.

[[folder:Sports]]
* In the 2012 Olympics, several Chinese and South Korean badminton teams realized that if they lost in their first-round, [[ThrowingTheMatch they would face easier competition later and avoid fighting against their other national teams]]. However, they tried far too hard in throwing the match, failing to even get the badminton over the net. This got both teams banned.

!!Fictional examples:

[[folder:Advertising]]
* PlayedForLaughs in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSdsTiQ-CGM this commercial]], when the other players throw out over-the-top bets to call a wager of a bowl of avocados. The winner (the guy who bet the avocados) hauls in the pot with five aces, one obviously hand-drawn.
* One Advertising/WilkinsCoffee ad had Wontkins produce a hand of five aces. Wilkins responds by showing a can of Wilkins Coffee, because nothing beats Wilkins... and [[BlackComedy a gun]].

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* ''Manga/OnePiece:'' The Davy Back Fight Arc has this in spades, especially during the Groggy Ball event. There's a "No weapons" rule that forces Zoro to leave his swords behind, but the other team shortly after have no problem whipping out their own weapons to use. Naturally, both the team ''and'' the referee are from the same pirate crew, and the ref always "Just happens" to be looking away when these obvious fouls are performed.
* ''Manga/SpyXFamily'' has the Campbelldon tennis tournament, which is already noted to have something of an "anything goes" policy with regards to fouls--something initially showcased by a pair of competitors who are so jacked up on experimental drugs that they can crush tennis balls like grapes. Even by those standards, though, the Campbell siblings--[[ScrewTheRulesIHaveConnections being the children of the man who arranged the tournaments]]--are huge cheaters. They start out by pumping low-level nerve agents into the rooms of fellow competitors before matches, then show up with absurdly overtooled custom equipment, including a jet-powered racket, and use devices built into the court to do things like lift the net right before the opponent serves. When they get particularly desperate, they go so far as to have snipers ''shoot'' their competition (with rubber bullets, but still).
* ''Manga/{{Toriko}}'' has the heroes face the ArcVillain Livebearer in a game of Memory. While Coco's special vision can let him see which cards are matches, he still doesn't know the point total. Livebearer, on the other hand, wears special contacts that let him see ''everything'' about each card, and he wastes no time racking up huge points. Furthermore, players have to prepare and eat the foods depicted on each match, and Livebearer knows how to handle each ingredient. It's acknowledged that the game is stacked in Livebearer's favor to the extreme, and the goal becomes not to win through point total, but tricking Livebearer into eating a food combination that will cause him to give up.

[[folder:Asian Animation]]
* ''Animation/BoBoiBoy'': After losing to Tok Aba in the second round of checkers, Sleep Monster starts the next and final game with four king pieces (instead of none). While the heroes call him out, Sleep Monster counters by saying that since the game takes place in ''his'' dream, he can do whatever he wants. [[DefeatingTheCheatingOpponent He loses anyway]].

[[folder:Comic Books]]
* ''ComicBook/LuckyLuke'': 5-ace decks are a common sight when visiting the local saloon. In "Black Hills", the bad guy assigned to disrupt the scientific expedition gets them to play poker, then accuses them of cheating when they all have 4 aces.[[note]]Well technically, one only has three aces, whereas his neighbor proclaims himself winner because he's got five.[[/note]] The crowd nearly lynches them, until Luke shows up and asks why they were playing with a deck containing 48 aces. In "Lucky Luke vs Joss Jamon" Joss decides to play a game with his gang for who gets to intimidate Luke. The goal is roll two dices and have the highest roll, the cheater of the team goes first and rolls thirteen which Jamon disqualifies.
* Played for laughs in ''ComicBook/TheLifeAndTimesOfScroogeMcDuck'' with the poker game between Pothole [=McDuck=] and Porker Hogg. Porker lays down a full house of three kings and two aces, and Pothole responds with another full house of three aces... and two more aces. It turns out the "ace dispenser" up Porker's sleeve broke. Pothole then tells Scrooge that they were playing by "riverboat captain rules", in which not trying to cheat is an insult to the other players.
* Issue 13 of Marvel's ''WesternAnimation/LaffALympics'' shows that Really Rottens leader Dread Baron and ''WesternAnimation/WackyRaces'' villain Dick Dastardly are brothers. As youths they were said to be proficient cheaters. Playing poker, they try to one-up each other with additional aces until Dastardly produces a box with over 20,000 aces. Baron concedes.

[[folder:Fan Fiction]]
* During a poker game in ''Fanfic/ThisBites'', both Zoro and Robin have a royal flush in the same suit. Likewise, Boss and Chopper each have a royal flush as well though of different suits.
* In ''Fanfic/QueenOfAllOni'' the Enforcers, Blankman, and Right are having a poker game. When Ratso notes someone is cheating, Blankman responds that with who is at the table, the question is who is cheating the ''best''.

[[folder:Film - Animated]]
* A scene in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsRainbowRocks'' has the human Pinkie Pie and Applejack playing cards. Applejack shows four aces, which Pinkie counters with ''four Jokers''.
* In a DeathMontage in ''WesternAnimation/PussInBootsTheLastWish'', it's revealed that a hand of five aces was the cause of one of Puss's deaths. This proved a bad idea when facing CaninesGamblingInACardGame.

[[folder:Film - Live Action]]
* ''Film/BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure'': UsefulNotes/BillyTheKid enlists Bill and Ted to help win more money in a poker game. (He gets all their winnings as well as his own.) The game goes wrong a few minutes in when Bill reveals that he has three aces, causing the other cowboys to suspect (correctly) that Billy cheated somehow.
* ''Film/SpaceJam'' has both teams go haywire with cheating during the Ultimate Game. The Monstars gang-tackle Granny, dogpile on Stan Podolak, incinerate Foghorn Leghorn and beat the stuffing out of the Looney Tunes. The Tune Squad attach explosives to the Monstar goal, shoot out one Monstar's teeth with handguns, partially denude another Monstar with a rod and reel, and bring an angry longhorn bull onto the court.
* ''Film/TheDictator'': Aladeen, the titular despot, hosts his own Olympic Games where he participates in the event. The only event we see is the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcu5sYxcEuo 100 Meter Race]], where he not only has the starting pistol (which he fires a good full second after he starts running), but he uses said pistol to shoot one of the competitors (as well as a few bystanders), and has the people with the finishing ribbon carry it over to him. Needless to say, he won fourteen gold medals.
* A couple of gags in ''Film/TheThreeStooges'' involved this. One example has Curly and Moe bet pancakes during breakfast in a game of poker. Curly would always win with five aces (no jokers are seen), and Moe would always lose with five kings. Until Moe finds out (through a bonk on the head, natch) that Curly literally has ''hundreds'' of aces hiding in his clothing.

[[folder:Literature]]
* ''Franchise/StarTrekExpandedUniverse'' novel ''Planet of Judgment'' by Joe Haldeman. In order to stop an interstellar invasion, the senior crew of the Enterprise must engage in psychic duels with the invading aliens. Dr. [=McCoy=]'s test involves a simulated poker game. In order to win a hand, the alien uses a non-standard card: the three of eagles. During the course of the game, [=McCoy=] and the alien use three non-legal cards: the king of green eagles, the king of oranges and the king of skulls.
* ''Literature/ImInLoveWithTheVillainess'' features a downplayed case: Yuu wins the round with a hand of four aces and a king, beating Claire's full house. However, Rei remembers that her own hand had an ace, which she got rid of in an attempt to make a straight. And then she notices that the dealer is Yuu's personal attendant.
* One novel in ''Literature/TheRiftwarCycle'' mentions a friendly game between four notorious [[CardSharp card sharps]]. At the end of the evening, they examined the deck and discovered that it now had seventy cards in it, nine of which were aces.

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* In ''Series/ElChapulinColorado'', two mobsters "invite" an old man, Dr. Chapatín, to play pocker with them. He was asked to cut the deck and took a pair of [[LiteralMinded scissors to cut one card]]. One of the mobsters was angry that he cut an ace, which he knew due to a little mark behind it, while the other said that's no problem since he had another one under his sleeve.
--> '''Dr Chapatín''': Good thing that we are playing among honest people.
* ''MissionImpossible'' has Rollin Hand reveals during a game that he has a winning hand: five pair. For the record, this requires a ten-card hand, which pretty much no version of poker allows.
* In the Series/{{Monk}} episode "[[Recap/MonkS3E8MrMonkAndTheGameShow Mr. Monk and the Game Show]]", the mystery of the week surrounds Adrian being asked by his television producer father-in-law to look into possible cheating on game show ''Treasure Chest''. The reigning champion Val Birch (who is blackmailing the show's host Roddy Lankman over murdering his assistant), makes it blatantly clear he is cheating, as he not only gives the correct answers before all the choices are given, but also correctly answers a question with a visual clue without even turning around to look at the clue.[[note]]The question was "Which US president lived in this mansion?", and the clue was a picture of Monticello. The answer, is of course, Thomas Jefferson.[[/note]]
* In ''Series/TheWonderYears'', Kevin and his friends have a poker night and Jeff is sweeping the table all evening long, until the last hand where Randy puts everything on the table and challenges his hand, calling out his cards as a bluff. Jeff congratulates him and folds. Later as Kevin is cleaning up, he notices that Jeff's hand is still on the table, face down. He starts flipping them one by one, finding one king after the other and realizing he had an unbeatable four of a kind of kings. He finds new respect in Jeff for yielding to Randy in a [[TheGreatestStoryNeverTold gentlemanly gesture no one would ever find out about]]... and then flips the fifth card that is ''also a king.''
-->'''Adult Kevin:''' He was a ''CHEATER!''
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* The supplemental book ''Tome of Artifacts'' features the Lucky Coin, a copper coin which, among other things, makes it so that if the user bets it in a game of chance, they always win, barring divine intervention. However, it's noted that the coin doesn't simply put the user ahead: it gives the user the most outlandishly good result possible (i.e. a royal flush in poker) every time. The book points out that once a gambler has gotten four consecutive royal flushes, no sane opponent is going to assume they did so through ordinary luck.
[[/folder]]

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Rogers_(video_game_player) Todd Rogers]] used to hold many high-scores in videogames, most of them achieved in the 80s. They didn't have any photo or video proof, but were still accepted by the organization Twin Galaxies, a partner of the Literature/GuinnessWorldRecords. A lot of these records were either impossible, way higher than the second place, or would take [[BottomlessBladder days of constant play]] to achieve. In 2018 all his records were removed. Here's a list of his [[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12r8Hi8QuIedNKsyrVIyjw4S8194YtnEiGVZxqEx-b7U/edit#gid=0 suspicious records]], with some notable examples below:

* A scene in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirlsRainbowRocks'' has the human Pinkie Pie and Applejack playing cards. Applejack shows four aces, which Pinkie counters with ''four Jokers''[[note]] Only one joker is included in a typical deck of 32 cards; a "54" card deck has two.[[/note]].

* ''ComicBook/LuckyLuke'': 5-ace decks are a common sight when visiting the local saloon. In "Black Hills", the bad guy assigned to disrupt the scientific expedition gets them to play poker, then accuses them of cheating when they all have 4 aces.[[note]]Well technically, one only has three aces, whereas his neighbor proclaims himself winner because he's got five.[[/note]] The crowd nearly lynches them, until Luke shows up and asks why they were playing with a deck containing 48 aces.

* In ''[[Website/{{TED}} Ted-Ed]]'s video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk9c7sJ08Bg "The Cheating Royal Riddle"]], the king makes his 4 children play a game of dice to determine which of them will become his heir, has them each record their own scores and tasks the protagonist with analysing them. On closer inspection, it turns out that this trope is in play for 3 of the 4 scores submitted: [[spoiler: 2 of the children logged scores that were impossible - Bertram declares a score of 840 when the maximum possible score for the game is 700, and Draco claims to have rolled 423 on dice where every combined score should be a multiple of 5. A third player, Cassandra, declares 700, which would have required her to roll the highest score on her dice 40 times in a row, at odds of 1 in 13 nonillion - improbable enough that, under the rules laid down by the king, it's reasonable to assume she either cheated or miscounted, and disqualify her.]]

* In ''[[Website/{{TED}} ]]Ted-Ed]]'s video [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk9c7sJ08Bg "The Cheating Royal Riddle"]], the king makes his 4 children play a game of dice to determine which of them will become his heir, has them each record their own scores and tasks the protagonist with analysing them. On closer inspection, it turns out that this trope is in play for 3 of the 4 scores submitted: [[spoiler: 2 of the children logged scores that were impossible - Bertram declares a score of 840 when the maximum possible score for the game is 700, and Draco claims to have rolled 423 on dice where every combined score should be a multiple of 5. A third player, Cassandra, declares 700, which would have required her to roll the highest score on her dice 40 times in a row, at odds of 1 in 13 nonillion - improbable enough that, under the rules laid down by the king, it's reasonable to assume she either cheated or miscounted, and disqualify her.]]