I played in the Borgata Survivor tournament this week and found the format unique is how much implicate collusion plays into things.

When it was late and near-ish the bubble period, a lot of less-quality players would make dumb calls. A deep stack on the button called the push of another deep stack player in late with AQ, putting both their lives on the line as a coin flip when if he had just folded both of them would have been almost guaranteed to fold their way to the mutual win.

After a hand like this played out, I felt it a compelling option to explain out loud why I thought that player should have folded and to casually make a conversation of why people should be folding hands in this structure that they would call with usually, as showdowns put both players at risk somewhat needlessly.

Stalling is also an advantageous strategy for the entire table and excessive tanking is against the rules but if everyone takes an extra 20 seconds to look at their cards and fold pre-flop for example, the odds of the entire table going deeper increase and there should be an at least some basic acknowledgement that the usual "hurry up the blinds are rising" energy common to short-stacks late tournament scenarios should be relaxed and mellow.

There are plenty of other examples of elements of strategy to educate your table about when your table is has some of the sort of players who are obviously new to the structure. Presenting basic math to these guys can really up your odds of winning a late-tourney survivor because it really depends so much on how savvy the people who happen to draw to your table are and how politely you can try to get them up to speed on why deep stack against deep stack should really be considering the folding pocket kings pre-flop in a lot of situations.

However, this strategy of making implicate explicate starts to walk the fine and uncomfortable line of collusion. I think it is totally legal that you can simply point out the mathematics of the game you are playing, or point out, a little jokingly, that if every player folded every hand the entire table would win with no risk to anyone.

In a way, the structure of the game is almost built so that the very late-game is at it's heart a game of who can encourage the most implicate collusion without getting called out on it by a dealer. Which is a very different challenge than your typical tournament.

One could argue that the structure itself might be a flawed structure for this reason. A possible way to try to somewhat address this element might be to have mandatory table shuffles every two breaks when it gets down to the last few tables.

But my actual question is: How far exactly can you go in educating your fellow players or openly discussing the nature of the uniquely nuanced elements of implicate collusion that you should all be aware of and where is the line of risk where you are crossing the line.

Know what I mean?

You answered the question yourself and/or wrote it in a way that leaves only 1 conclusion. This format can only work if you take the sozial aspect out of live poker which hurts the game more than it helps.
Poker is a game of solving puzzles and discussing strategy is a way to manipulate the table. You can't take this away from the game.
I agree that the best strategy in said format is to agree to not play any hand. And if everyone does it there is no winner and no game at all.

Yes, maybe I did over-support my view in how I posted it.

Maybe the more concise way to have asked is should I be worried about being too aggressive with my chatter. Where is the line where you risk penalty?

You can't say exactly what cards you have in your hand and you can't tell a player in a hand what action he should take. Can you say anything you want when there aren't card in play? Can you openly suggest that no one call any hands.

You mention that if no one plays any hands then no one wins and the game goes forever, which is technically true. But the hope is that the tables you are not at are not as savvy as the table you are sitting it and since no one is switching tables in the final period of the game, the tournament, in a way, breaks down into a battle of which table can collectively organize into a team.

I can't help but wonder if, in practical reality, there are ever Survivor tables that have successfully come to a perfect, implicate understandings of "fold every hand, steal judiciously in position and only with top tier hands and fold 10's or less as long as no one gets out of line."

It's a lot like the game show Survivor in the late-season episodes when a final 3 alliance is formed and they all become locks as long as they stay true to their alliances and don't get jumpy.

technically, this thread should be in highstakes MTT, as this was a 500 dollar buy that at Borgats that I was referring to but it seems too late to move it once discussion has started. Unless a moderator sees this and could move it over there.

anything up to $1K live or $100 online is OK here in MSMTT, but this may be better in MTT Community as you're discussing rulez of poker

in a practical sense, the line is whatever the TD lets you get away with and the correct strategy is to push every advantage as far as you possibly can if the TDs are more interested in watching the tennis replay

as for what the rules actually say, i'll need to look it up but you can bet that if it's pressing on for 3AM and the tennis is over, the TDs will involve rule 1 (which says they can do anything they want)

It's implicit, not implicate. Don't try to educate anyone. Just take advantage of their mistakes.

Near the bubble I went all in with pocket 88's as a deep stack and got called by the other deep stack with A3o.

My point is that in the Survivor format you can't take advantage of the fact that this is a bad call as you would in every other structure. If I had perhaps explained to that player that putting both our lives on the line even when I am a decent favorite hurts both of us needlessly and that calling light makes no sense every at that point, he may have folded and both us of would have won. Where as letting him play like a donkey as you suggest gives me a 30 percent chance of busting.

The structure is unique in that you can't 'let players make mistakes and take advantage of it' as the structure itself incentives implicit collusion, something most players in my tourney didn't seem to completely grasp.

Another question is why u felt the need to go all in near the bubble w/ "pocket 88's as a deep stack"? Maybe u need an education in the structure too?? Ur sayin others should fold KK pre in spots, yet u do this at that point of the tourney. Makes no sense.

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You can't take advantage with a deep stack. Only the short stacks benefit from some idiot with a deeper stack calling off A3o.

It doubles up shorties more often creating new dangerous opponents.
If Hero is prepared to play, it puts you in +cEV but ----$EV spots more often.

So if you can educate him, then all the better.

But yeah, 88 is probably an awful shove at this point. Potentially raise/gii vv shorties and raise/fold to A3 idiot, but don't jam.

Educating the table may help you out this time, but longer term you want them to keep making mistakes. In addition recreational players may be there to enjoy themselves rather than grinding out a few extra cents, so I would make sure you aren't too condescending in your table talk.

To defend my push with 88:
I wasn't so deep as to be an absolute lock quite yet and felt that I needed to steal what one blind every three times around the table to float to the end. I had the tightest rep at the table and everyone had been folding everything, every hand. If you gotta steal at some point, 88 isn't the worse choice, although I would have liked better, of course. if I get called by a short stack, so be it. My issue was that it was a deep stack calling so light. In any normal tourney I would be totally happy to be called when I am a 70/30 favorite.

I feel like the structure allows for looser pushing because the major adjust is that it is the calling standard that changes. On the button with a tight rep I think it can be fine to push with any 2 if you need a blind, but I think that calling from the blind with AQ is questionable, because you are risking your stack and likely a 60/40 favorite at best. 70/30 if you think they are pushing with a weaker A.

Once again, keep in mind this is a survivor format with 20 minutes of play left. The deep stacks should be avoiding each other and bleeding the short stacks to death if they happen to get some hands.

@redhot: I was not condescending at all, I was genuinely trying to explain why we should all stop calling other deep stacks light. As soon as it gets down to one table, the 10 random players at your table are all in the same implicit collusion situation.

As far as the long-term effects, I don't see there being that many more Survivor format tournaments in my future that these 9 guys learning the basic truth you shouldn't be putting your life on the line by forcing thin showdowns without a good reason to on the bubble. It's just too specific. And for the record, I was not the only guy at the table kind of trying to keep the topic in the air and keep the jumpy novices calm.

This is probably the only time I have ever "table coached" a bad player and it felt weird to feel like it was in my intrest but this structure really creates a lot of these very specific, implicit situations.

In general these tournaments come so often for professionals it would be bad to educate table. In special monetary circumstances, say you don't have big hourly or roll and are playing live WSOP main satellite and it is deep it may be wise to educate table. In general the edge from table talk is too small considering that some opponents might even learn.

There are some satellites and survivors I play weekly, which are huge EV and it shows in that most losses come in spots that are not setups. Obviously my play reflects that - say I have 15bb stack and I'm likely to win a seat and it comes to me unopened, im button and GTO has SB calling with KK+ and BB calling AA+, my GTO pushing range might be any two cards, but I rather assume ranges like 88+, AQ+ for unknowns and JJ+, AK for solid regulars that I don't know and play accordingly.

Maybe the bigger big stack called your push with Axo because he was pissed off by your attempts to educate the table.