A situation arised on the bubble of a tourney the other day. Short stack shoved, big stack looked at him and with a wink said "you're buying me dinner tonight" as he folded. Kind of suspicious. Not long after the short stack was all in and got called by the big stack and another guy. Instead of checking it down, the big stack bet the other guy out of the pot when he had air and the short stack ended up surviving.

At this point half the table started getting suspicious. I called him out on it and he got real pissed and defensive. The dealer asked me if I wanted to call the floor. I had to decline cause there was no hard evidence. How do you guys deal with these scummy pieces of sh!!!t? I feel like most of the time asides from shaming them there's not much to do unless they're stupid enough to make it obvious by checking back a nutted hand on the river.

The first one doesn't seem that obvious to me. I'd say the same thing to my buddy while folding a garbage hand just to screw with him and as a joke. Basically saying, "I know I could take a shot and knock you out here, but I won't do it this time" even though I know I'm folding for sure.

The second one is bad. I'd need more info on the hands and pot size to know for sure. Was it pure air he was betting or was it some sort of draw that he missed? Everyone plays differently and it's hard to prove he's betting just to protect his buddy. Sure, poker etiquette there says you don't bet out a hand in a tournament when someone is all-in, but there's nothing specifically against bluffing a dry side pot (other than it being idiotic).

It's worth keeping an eye on, but I don't think you can "get" these guys in trouble for anything you described here.

You won't have hard evidence until you call the floor.

If you wanted to do something, you'd need more evidence. Your options would be:

1 - Don't say anything and wait for more collusive behavior to occur and then ask for the floor.

2 - Talk to the floor away from the table and tell him of your suspicions and hope he watches and actually does something about it.

I'd go with option 2 and hope the floor sees something worth taking action on.

The 2nd thing that happened is pretty bad, but alone it doesn't prove anything. I see random fish do this kind of thing simply because they're terrible players all the time.

There are good reasons for the big stack to not have a player eliminated, especially at or close to the bubble. Zero reason to believe anything shady happend here without having more information.

It's the second thing COMBINED with the first thing that made me suspicious. He did not have a draw. Pretty sure he had like queen high total air. Really looked like he was betting the other guy out to protect his friend.

Looks like it walks like a duck.

However:

If I'm a big stack, and I'm adding to my stack by abusing the table before the bubble bursts, I might absorb a few -EV at the moment moves, for the +++EV that I gain keeping the bubble.


Could be just coincidence, you'll never really know.

Its interesting to me that you make the argument that this could be just banter but use the example which makes OPs concern. You said you would say the same thing to a "buddy". Now I get that just because he is your buddy doesn;t mean YOU would soft play him. But isn't the problem of soft play generally between buddies not random strangers? What does it mean that you are buddies here ..... well thats data point one. So OP starts with that and then he sees the questionable hand and puts those two data points together and starts building a case. His conclusion may be off. Or maybe if we had more data points (like he has) we might reach the same conclusion.

I do agree with your point though ... I know people who would say this playfully to anybody as they fold. Maybe they shouldn't though because it is joking about cheating .... like joking about bombs at an airport. Yeah we know its a joke but maybe its best not to make that joke at this time and place.

Public shame. Explain to them why its cheating and how it hurts all their other friends and even them when others do it. Some dont care but for most a little public shaming is a big deal.

As noted - he may be playing in a +EV manner (abusing the bubble) while disguising it with the table talk. At a minimum the talk is a problem though.

The TD should be aware of what's going on, but at this point I wouldn't take any action yet, but I'd be watching fairly close, and not being subtle about it.

What would the floor/dealers here do in this situation - Husband and wife, clearly regs, everyone including staff knows them and are chummy, sit next to each other in open seats 2 and 3. First hand, which made me suspicious is a multi-way big pot (cash game) which on the turn has seat 7 shoving and seat 8 tanking. I hear some mumbling (I'm in seat 4), I turn and see husband's lips moving just a tiny bit and I hear words now and then. Seat 2 (husband) and 3 (wife) are discussing the hand! He's next to act after seat 8, wife's not in the hand. I clearly hear "has got a flush draw" but I can't tell if he means himself or speculating on 7 or 8's hand. Seat 8 eventually folds and then seat 2 folds, saying he only had a flush draw.

The above is not hard evidence I can show anyone because it's likely nobody else heard it. Everyone was watching seat 8 tank. Then a half-dozen hands later there are a couple limps, a pretty big raise from seat 2, and his wife in seat 3 calls, everyone else folds. They check down flop, turn, and river, he shows aces, and she mucks. The reg from seat 8 yells out "collusion!" half-jokingly (they all know each other). I got a table change.

I played again the next day with seat 8 and said something was fishy with the married couple. He said, no, they are upstanding, he knows them well, yadda yadda. Then I explained in detail how they were discussing the first hand above, and he agreed that was awful and it was hard to believe the couple would do such a thing, etc.

Ok, so maybe it's because I play in a room with a bunch of regulars and see stuff like this somewhat regularly, but this doesn't seem like that big a deal. Did the wife calling in seat 3 change how any one would play the hand? Or does the husband (seat 2) take down the pot preflop if she doesn't call? It's not like they raised someone else out of the pot. Anyone else could have called his preflop raise and played the hand against them. This wasn't a squeeze play where someone in the middle got squeezed out due to the threat of a re-raise.

Assuming they both play pretty decently, I'd guess the wife had a legit hand here (10's or better?) and was wanting to see a flop. If anyone else calls, I'd guess the hand doesn't get checked down. In reality, here is a husband and wife where the money is going to one household when the day is over. If anything, betting against each other after everyone else folded could be seen a collusion and a way for the husband to get more chips on the table and build a stack.

Is there any sort of bad beat jackpot or high hand promotion in the room? Maybe she calls with a hand thinking they have a chance to hit a jackpot of some kind. In the hand you described, I doubt her action of calling prevent another player to call. Hard to see that truly as collusion.

To me, this is more bad etiquette than collusion. He knows he's folding. The wife looks at the husband to see what he's planning to do while seat 8 is tanking. He knows he's folding and mentions he's folding a flush draw. Talking about the hand is bad in that someone else might have heard his comment and made a decision based upon his comment, but this happens sometimes with regular players who play together often. Nowhere in your description is the wife telling the husband what she folded or what she had in the hand (which would be a bigger problem if she had folded some of his outs and told him). Bad to talk about the hand while it's happening, but they probably assumed they were being quiet and no one heard them. It's not like they were telling each other their cards during the hand or something (unless there's more to this story). Sounds to me like she was just curious what he had and he told her as he was planning to fold no matter what seat 8 did.

Only time I heard of a colluder getting penalized-was the bubble of a sattellite, a well liked reg goes all in for like 1.5 BB, the BB says 'I can't knock out my friend' and folds. Got a one round penalty, but they both got paid.

Not sure how they rule if he doesn't make the statement

It's a violation of OPTAH but not collusion. The latter involves two players in the hand (or a dealer/floor) which isn't the case here.

As long as the player in the hand doesn't ask for advice or receives unsolicited advice, I would just ignore it.

Y'know - checking-it-down is kinda collusion too....... Yeah, some call it 'soft play' but, technically, the two of you are teaming up against 1 player...

Simply making a comment out loud may be enough to get the villain to back off. I find raising the issue with the dealer usually pretty useless (most dealers just want to get out of the tourney and go back to dealing the cash games)...

If the situation allows (say you are playing hand-for-hand) you might raise the concern with the TD. Not any sort of direct accusation, just asked for a little extra attention to assure fair play.

Stuff like this is hard to eliminate... and one of the many challenges of tournaments...

The first instance is clearly a problem and if I hear players talking about a hand I will speak up and if it continues I will call a floor. But the problem is that I can't always hear it and my attention has to be on the action.

The second instance bothers me because it indicates to me that these players likely will always check it down and while in this hand that may have not been an issue in this bet (HE had AA and made a big raise preflop following several limpers seems pretty normal play) The problem is it can affect play. Her call there may be influenced by the fact that she knows if everyone else folds she will not have to face anymore bets. And her call can influence the action so there is the problem. The problem with husbands and wives is that poker is a social game and no poker room wants to run off business by telling a couple they can't play together but even the most honest couple can;t help being influenced by the common bankroll issue. I know couples who will play each other hard ..... often bragging about which one bested the other .... but still when it comes down to it the fact that losing money to the other half of the couple isn't really losing money has to influence then if even just on a subconscious level.

Its really hard to penalize a player who doesn't make this admission .... unless a floor is actually going to look at the players hand and make a judgment about how it was played. folding for half a BB is pretty bad but I can imagine stack size scenarios where a player might believe (even if incorrectly) that his best play is try to sit on all his chips and let a bigger stack knock out another player.

There is many ways to catch colluders but you'll need solid proof of evidence. Some players are just stupid enough to fold for 80 more at blind 500-1000 when there is an all in at 1080 for example. You can use multiple tracker tools for that. I did catch some frequent players that we're colluding into sit n go and mini sat. I could prove it via hours of play during the day ( which we're the same), they we're as well each of them the most frequent opponent, etc. I just build a case and tracked them and one of them got banned and the other restricted.

Gl with it.

True for online poker, but almost everything in this thread is discussing live poker

What's the title of the thread again ... ??


Spot #1 .. Who knows, depending on the previous table banter and mood I might say this to a 'complete stranger' ... whilst mucking 72o.

Spot #2 .. So the big stack is supposed to stop playing poker and (colludingly) check it down? At least he didn't try to muck that we know of .. now that would be a crack in the door. And yes, it could be a very good thing to keep the bubble going if the big stack has been bullying the table. GL

Checking it down to get a short stack out isn't collusion. It's a standard MTT strategy especially on the bubble. Betting someone else off the best hand to protect your short stack friend who is all in from bubbling is.

Checking it down to bust a shorty may be standard play, but it also is collusive. If you actually say "check it down", you will likely be penalized.

It is a part of Matt and is a strategy. But it is also collusion. You get away with it because nothing is stated. So it is difficult to prove without an idiot saying it out loud

If you're playing in low buy-in live tournaments, you can't do anything about this. I've seen people openly colluding in almost every live tourney I've played. I've seen it go as far as a guy calling an all in and saying openly, "I'm only calling 'cause I got half your action," and then saying it again after he lost 2/3 of his chips and doubled the other guy up. He was more worried that we would think he was a donk than he was about openly cheating. And of course, nobody says a word, because if you do speak up YOU end up on the ****list for making an issue, and the cheaters and anglers are like "what, I dint do anything, lighten up, don't be so uptight, etc etc."

And it's not just in tournaments either. I've seen plenty of team play going on at the live cash games I've played too, including the $1/$2 PLO at Edgewater, which played a lot bigger than that and where the regs were so openly targeting me, a new face, that if I weren't in the hand it never went to a flop. I've never played above $2/$5 live but every time I play I see guys soft-playing their buddies so there you go.