first, I hold the same standard for myself. I do not see any difference in the amount of cooperation you and I would employ as the larger stacks in this hand than someone who will say it outloud, smile, check back super fast, raise an eyebrow or comment after the hand so others consider the strategy in coming hands. There is an obvious second rule that gets broken, speaking the strategy during the hand, but it does not change the act of the conspiracy to benefit each other at the expense of the all in.

eta: I get what you are saying more now. You do not check with any expectation of the other person also checking, and they should not expect that from you, if I am reading you right. This is not "checking it down" for the purpose of this discussion. There are lots of people who regularly will call and check against the small stack to have a greater chance to knock them out as a team by keeping more hands in with an expectation of the same consideration by the other hands. That is the action I believe is the same no matter how the agreement is reached and when. It is team play/collusion regardless.

pretty much. We can say that the player who was about to bet and then didn't after this was said to him also was guilty .... but there is an evidentiary issue. the player had not yet committed to acting. Perhaps on his own he would have changed his action to a check and maybe he would have checked the later streets.... we can't really know. I'm not prepared to say he hasn't cheated as well by agreeing to the proposed check down .... but I have a harder time imposing a penalty beyond a warning.


He is violating OPTAH by telling others how to play their hands and by soliciting them to collude or act as a team.

personally i believe these are inappropriate as they are solicitations to collude in the future. however i recognize most people do not consider general strategy talk in between hands as being inappropriate (aside from those who don;t think its a good idea to smarten up the fish. As such I would probably let the statements you list go as just strategy talk .... but I don't let go the more egregious statements like .."Next time that happens we check it down ..."


I find all of the statements equally serious breaches of the rules (however as an accomodation to the real world I am more tolerant of the general strategy talk type statements in between hand).

I easily distinguish these statements from the situation where two players independently choose to check it down because they have not netered into an agreement, nor have they solicited anyone to enter into an agreement about how to play the hand. Each one is independently choosing what they think the best of course of action is.

If you and I are playing and there is an all-in player .... If I check and I am hoping that you check it down .... I do not believe you have any obligation to do so. If you do not check it down I do not feel I have been slighted. And If I choose not to check it down I do not feel like I am double crossing you.

If the circumstances end up being that you should have checked it down and you didn;t .. I just chalk it up to you play bad. I have no problem with that.

I think this is sometimes the case but often not. Often an agreement to check down is super clear to all observers and those in the hand, and the cards that hit the board are obviously not even being considered as they come out. If you have not seen this happen loads of times it is the most shocking thing I'll read in this thread. Seems like we mostly agree except I still am not sure why you more harshly judge this specific discussion of strategy during a hand though since you are okay with people using the strategy. That and I believe that many, if not most players who engage in the unspoken agreement to check down are colluding at the same level in practice if not technically.

Look up "implicit collusion, poker" on a web search.

This is standard for anyone who has read a book, including a number of discussions on this forum

The WRONG THING is to bring it up verbally. Don't discuss strategies that are in other books and forums.

I first learned about this in Harrington's book on tournament poker.

As I stated, I not only understand it I engage in it. The question I had is why some seem to feel it is more repugnant to say it outloud in this one, precise case, not whether it is against the rules to do so. The answers range from because it is against the rules, (kind of what you are saying?) which is not a gauge of the morality of the specific action imo, to using other more blatant examples of verbal collusion like planning a more complex strategy with a friend to play as a team. I don't think they are related because team play between friends, regardless of how much it has been communicated, is not accepted and checking it down is.

I don't like to discuss strategy at the table even if it is not collusion, and I have experienced the level of breach described in the op, and much worse examples in Tourneys and don't like any of it. I am not questioning the validity of the op complaint, the rule or the need to follow it. I am questioning the level of disdain toward those that break the optah rule in this case vs another. Also asking about the fairly stern judgment toward observers who dare point out that implicit collusion happens all the time and it is fairly reasonable to say the op was not really cheated in a more dastardly or immoral way by the same action being punctuated with a separate breach of rules--saying "lets do it." Lines were even drawn that anyone who doesn't see this as wildly different than implicit collusion is okay with cheating or lacks the moral fiber to understand right and wrong. That if you apply a rational thought like "people engage in this behavior all the time without saying so" you must not understand the difference between spoken and unspoken because you think it is similar.

The ferocity of the claims of actual right and wrong in this case beyond the clear rule violation are intriguing to me and I wondered how people arrive where they do. That question sparked a flurry of weird positions being ascribed to me and I found it frustrating and reacted defensively, but in the end I had my question answered directly and indirectly. /diary

Many times I certainly hope they will check it down - like if I'm in a precarious place chip-wise and have a medium strength hand that might be the best but can't call a bet.

Its not an unspoken agreement ..... there is no agreement. There is me making my play .... hoping that you will make the same play.

Suppose I'm in early position and I limp in. another player raises and third player calls, then I call.

On the flop I am strong. I think that the preflop raiser will probably c-bet and if he doesn't I feel that the third player may bet, so I check hoping for the check raise.

If one of those players does in fact bet .... is it do to an unspoken agreement? NO. Its do to each player doing they individually think is best for themselves .... Does the fact that I could predict what they would do change that? NO.

Its the same with the all-in checkdown. There is NO UNSPOKEN AGREEMENT. its just that the play is so common that its become predictable.


NOw there isone other situation with the checkdown where their might be unspoken agreement that is the case where where the players immediately start making out of turn or (excessively early dark) checks in a manner which is clearly intended to convey "Hey I'm just checking this thing down" I am willing to call that an unspoken agreement or at least an unspoken solicitation to agreement and I object to that behavior .... though I have no confidence in floor people penalizing it.

fyi you look incredibly dumb attacking a man for not doing a better job of attacking your embarrassing analogy.

Like, it's your analogy. Don't make it his responsibility lol.

That's not soft play, it's simply play. It's like saying:

It's soft play if you would normally bet, but don't because you think betting is the wrong move.

It's obviously wrong, as everyone would be soft playing at every move if it were true.

Lol. My analogy was not directly speeding is like collusion. I don't care a hell of a lot that you and he don't get it, and certainly am not going to waste much energy explaining myself to people that far behind in reading comprehension. I'd rather teach my grandma to use her universal remote. Let's agree to disagree on who looks, like, incredibly dumb.

As a returned favor I will not ask you to explain whatever this means to me.

Cheers!

My bad analogy is actually good, everyone else is dumb. Now please explain this simple concept to me.

No, not everyone. And I asked you not to explain it. It is simple to be sure, but I don't know and I don't care why you think it is worth saying.


Look, you are bringing nothing new to this. I have already written an embarrassing amount in this thread that explains my position, which is not complex. You are not even disagreeing with me, you are disagreeing with something I didn't say. You and the other guy who don't understand how analogies are used in discussions are not going to learn/teach much if you want me to defend a position I don't hold...so I'll let you call me dumb for not engaging and mark a victory for yourself. Good one. You are right and I am wrong. Off you ****.

Sometimes debating folks on 2+2 is like french kissing a porcupine.

Holy crap. So I was playing in my monthly home tourney and there were 20 people left. Two people all in, with a small main pot and a large second pot. I'm the big stack and two medium stacks still left to create a third pot. I got priced in after a few rounds of action to call in position with J9 suited preflop. The flop hit with 8, 10, q two spades. This group is full of flush chasers, so I bet almost pot because a 4 flush will almost always call here. A guy not in the hand says "check it down...the object is to knock out the all ins!" One of the all ins says " you're not in the hand!"

One fold, one over the top all in. We flip our hands and the preflop all in has aces, the over the top on the flop has kings, the small stack has something irrelevant, and flip over my....j.....7......what the? I misread my hand. I immediately thought of this thread and had to consider that all the people who called me a dumbass must be right.

So side question....is it better for my table image to let people think I bet into an empty side pot with a straight draw, or is it better to let them know I can't read my own hand?

Anyway. Still soft play.

They probably won't remember or they never even registered that aspect of it.

Checking down with no side pot is not the same as soft playing. When I check it is because it is in my interest to check. It is similar to folding on the bubble to a raise which would put me all in. The value of my hand would ordinarily lead me to act differently but ICM considerations must also be accounted for.

Checking down with a medium strength hand (whether you think you are ahead or behind) serves several purposes.

It takes into consideration the value of eliminating a player. Which, when in the money has a tangible benefit to each player that checks.

Also, bluffs and semi-bluffs serve no purpose because they are rarely better than the all-in player and gain nothing when we don't improve. They pose the risk of losing money and creating a side pot though when behind.

Checking back a monster (2 pair or better) is a personal preference issue. I typically won't do it unless the chips to be gained are dwarfed by the money to be made (maybe when there are 5 players left and we are fighting over a 10 BB pot and we have over 100 BB's). Its only going to pay off if the other player in the hand would beat the all in player on a long shot.

But your analogy about speeding is just flat out wrong. Speeding is against the law. There is a fine for that. Betting my hand without consulting any other players is my business and there is no penalty for that. The equivalent action to speeding would be turning over my hand when HU with action pending.

Personally what I think about the players talking about the hand and colluding is far worse than speeding. Speeding rarely causes damage. This type of overt collusion is much more likely to cause damage IMO.

At this point I realize where the discrepancy is in my point of view compared to others. The crux is this: whether agreeing to check down a pot is its own infraction or whether voicing that desire is the infraction or both. I was assuming that it must be both otherwise it is no different than commenting on someone's bet sizing being bad during a hand in play, also not okay but would probably not have people adamant about the suspect moral fiber of the people involved.

There are several reasons why someone would check down here and not all of them are in the self interest of the players involved. They can be, but they are often not or are certainly questionable. Either way, saying it outloud does not change the intent of the action whatever it is so it is surprising to me still, even after understanding the point of view you and others hold and giving it merit, that there is a more visceral response to it than other acts of speaking when you should not during a hand.

My speeding analogy was only is regards to the act of checking it down as an agreement/team effort to raise the odds of knocking out as the crime in question. If people say it outloud, the cop is there. If they act with the exact same intent but do not say it outloud, the cop is not. It was never intended to stand as a perfect analogy for checking down a pot, and if you don't agree that checking it down in agreement that it will be checked back to you regardless of how the board plays out and your hand strength is collusion even if nobody says anything, then yes it falls apart even as I intended it. That is because we disagree on that point. I think it is collusion regardless (though I now understand why people would feel otherwise), and am okay with it as a strategy. I am only very slightly less okay with what happened here because it violates a different rule entirely.

For me it is the same regardless of circumstance.

I am always very upset when somebody speaks out to help another player in the hand. It is totally unfair. It is also almost impossible to undo the damage.

I find it more irritating I guess. There are ample opportunities to be irritated by people at the poker table and this is just one of many. Another one is when people overreact to minor rule breaches tbh.

I know that the integrity of the game can be at stake if optah is violated, and that in some cases it can be harmed greatly, but in this specific case it is just not that important to me that an inexperienced player is exposed to a standard strategy that most people have learned by being told at some point. It's a rule violation but should not be considered in the same light as organized cheating. Still don't condone it, but I accept the game is played by all kinds of people, from the perfect folks ITT, to those who don't know any better, to those who eff up now and then in the heat of the moment, to those who are compelled to cross the line when desperate all the way to downright scoundrels.

But he wouldn't have done it if he wasn't told. Not really sure what you still don't get if your mind hasn't been changed yet after this entire thread.

Are you okay with someone telling someone how to play their hand in any other scenario? I mean, if that guy is just new to the game, and he doesn't know any better, you'd be okay with it.

Friend, I started to go through the thread to quote all the times I said I understand why it is wrong and I'm not okay with it, but it was restated in almost every post I made and it would have been ridiculous. Find any one of my previous posts to answer that question and here it is again. No. I'm not okay with it.

The difference is I am less disturbed by it than some others. I don't automatically put all rule breaches in the same bucket even if they are similar, so when people first started calling this cheating and collusion I assumed it was the nature of the advice...that they were saying to check it down and work as a team...that was the main point. It turns out I was mistaken I guess and that this is only about optah. If that is the case, not the soft play or team play or implicit or explicit collusion agreed or not agreed upon, then it reframes the discussion.

I don't think it is that complicated.

1. I think the op is right to be upset that the rule was broken.
2. I think that elevating this infraction to even include explicit collusion as a comparison only makes sense if checking it down with the unspoken expectation of others checking it down is also collusion.
3. Since implicit collusion is acceptable, acting as though the action of saying let's check it down is suddenly worse than any other suggestion of strategy makes no sense to me. Saying it is the same as more complex team play is exageration imo. There is no more or less chance of the person taking this suggestion than a suggestion of calling an all in.
4. If you are only upset with the optah violation, and you think this is no different, we have no disagreement. Except maybe how it makes us feel on the scale of tolerability.
5. If you still think I am trying to say speeding is a good analogy for collusion, checking it down with an all in, or that I am okay with optah violations I can't help clear it up any further.