This about sums up Trooper and his logic/thought process perfectly.

Do any of the mods or higher ups on 2+2 have the means to contact people running the WSOP to make sure these two don't register on the same table at events this year or imply ban them both? There are plenty of other places in town they can play without ruining the reputation of the WSOP, the biggest poker event of the year.

Or at least bring it to their attention so they are aware of collusion being bragged about on YouTube so they can protect their brand image at the WSOP?

LOL, no offense, but maybe you think a bit too highly of the WSOP. My guess is they DGAF, as long as these players pay the rake and don't get too much publicity with what they are doing, they are perfectly happy with it

Maybe you should contact your congressional representatives at the state and national levels to introduce some kind of legislation as well? It seems like this is much bigger than just the WSOP.

Why don't you contact gaming control in Nevada,
especially since it's such high priority for yourself.
Anything short by yourself is a grave injustice to those who may get scammed in the future. How can you sleep at night?

Do any of the mods or other posters on 2+2 have the means to contact family members of mrducks to make sure he's taking his meds or at least not in danger of hurting himself or others? There are plenty of other places on the web he can post without ruining the reputation of 2+2, the biggest poker site on the web.

Or at least bring it to their attention so they are aware of his daily trooper meltdowns and multi-year trooper obsession so they can protect their site from becoming a compete clown show?

I think it can be proved/implied by the following (if true, not sure its true in this case):

two players who play in single table sitngos
two players admit to sharing a bankroll
two players play in the same stts with one another frequently (or at all really)

Even if the collusion isn't provable, it is basicly as unethical as it gets if you're profit splitting playing the same STT events. It creates situations where it would be highly profitable to your bankroll to maximize someone else's results. Seems like many nvgtards aren't getting this so I'll put it out there.

I think the troop guy is basicly admitting to the above/not denying it, but im not really sure. We'll see how it goes I guess.

Of my concerns playing winner take all STTs trooper's colluding is at the bottom of the list.

In order for Harry and Trooper not to be colluding they would have to actively be deciding to act contrary to their best interests in multiple spots. If someone announced at the table that "my friend and I are splitting anything we win 50/50 but promise not to soft play each other" I would refuse to play in the game. Even if I believed they intended not to soft play it strains credulity to think that their arrangement would not at least be subconsciously influencing their actions.

I mean having watched quite a few of his vlogs and his thinking process, Trooper is def one the guys I would not mind having at my table, but still in tourneys even small edges can have a huge effect

Collusion? But Trooper tells us (almost every week) that he is honest and honorable. He would never do such a thing.

When regs systematically softplay in STTs it drastically increases their edge and is simply cheating. Recs softplaying is no big deal because they will be losing players either way and don't softplay as strategically. You already know this but choose to misrepresent the situation by making false equivalencies because you feel the need to stick up your own kind (scumbags).

Softplaying is not an profitable way to collude in a winner-take-all SNG (neither is chip dumping).

It is true that these SNGs are often chopped, but they are typically chopped for something approaching chip equity. You might see an equal 3-way chop if chips are split 40/30/30, but not if chips are split 60/30/10. Since your actual equity in the tournament is always very close to your chip equity, transferring chips to a partner does nothing to increase your joint equity. There's almost no incentive to slip into 3rd place with 1 BB like in a 50/30/20 online SNG.

The effective ways to collude in this scenario are basically the same as in a cash game. Mostly they would have to involve signaling your hand strength to your partner to set up a whipsaw or something like that. You could also bluff at a side pot while your partner was all-in.

My impulse is that Trooper and his friend are probably not sophisticated enough to profitably engage in this sort of collusion. If they were, it seems they would be astute enough not to brag about it so openly. Nevertheless, the appearance of collusion they are creating is very disappointing.

The chops are wacky enough in these often enough that I place some value on getting headsup as you can get extra value.

Sorry but the "50/50 is clearly collusion but x% / y% would be OK" is a very dubious position to defend. Don't mean to pick on Gobbo in particular, but according to the logic above, if the confederate #1/#2 split is:
- 100% / 0% = Definitely OK
- 60/40 = Benefit of doubt / OK
- 50/50 = Zomg, kill them with fire!

So #gobbotheory is that there's an inflection point between the SNG non-winner getting 40% and 50% where this behavior goes from OK to not-OK. So...what is it? 42%? 46.24%? Yeah, that rationale just doesn't fly. Likewise, the idea that swapping percentages in an MTT is completely benign, but that this behavior is beyond-the-pale unconscionable is intellectually dishonest unless you're willing to articulate the exact inflection point where it becomes inappropriate, which no one has yet attempted. %-swapping is just a watered down version of this 50/50 split. I don't think you can credibly take a position against one but not the other.

Im still not sure if Ducky is for real but thinking of tons of more ways the "WSOP brand image" is hurting other than the possibility of trooper taking down SNG's Ocean 11 style.

A SNG isn't the same as a cash game though. In a cash game it's ALL about chip equity and you could play big pots with your partner and take all your partners chips and it would not change your EV one bit. In a SNG there is value associated with having life in the game. Ie I'd rather have two 1,500 chip stacks rather than just 1 3,000 chip stack. This is especially true in these live SNGs where stack sizes get relatively shallow quickly.

There's all sorts of opportunities where it makes sense to chip dump. For instance, if the starting stack is 1,500, and TeamPlayer1 has 5,000 chips while TeamPlayer2 only has 500 chips and everyone else has around starting stack. If TeamPlayer1 can get 1,000 chips to TeamPlayer2 they will be in a much better position to win. With 4,000 chips TeamPlayer1 can continue to be table captain but TeamPlayer2 will no longer be on life support.

Another big difference between a live SNG and a live cash game is that cash games are full ring. SNGs start out full ring but soon end up short handed. The impact of 2 out of 10 players colluding is significant. The impact of 2 out of 3 players colluding is far greater though. Can you imagine the poor schlub that has to go 3 handed vs these two. They are going to be constantly stealing his blinds and putting pressure on him while rarely tangling with one another unless they are looking to move chips from one player to the other.

your equity when eliminated is 0. there is no chance that 2 guys with a 50/50 split are trying to knock each other out. it makes no sense. additionally it does make sense to chip dump if one gets a big stack.

it's not an appearance of collusion. they definitely colluded.0f course he'll used his trooper logic to deny it, telling us how honest and ethical he is while peddling his garbage clothes and struggling to beat 1/2 nl.

i agree trooper isn't sophisticated at all but you don't have to be too sophisticated to collude in these things. and chances are his friend is the brains of the operation.

so what a lot of you are saying is that only very intelligent people are capable of colluding or outright cheating?

totes.

It amuses me the guys/girls here comparing 'playing poker with a mate cause its fun and to try and bust him' to trooper and "poker partner" harry 50/50 split profits, likely playing at the same SINGLE table sng (video footage and trooper saying they try for the same table), for about $10k winnings in around 150 sngs.

This appears not to be just a one-off occurrence. It looks like it has happened multiple times, and this is only from his own edited video. So who knows how many times trooper and harry have tried to sit at the same single table tourney.


It once again highlights the thinking and make up of a trooper supporter. ]


also lol at comparing it to doing 5% or 10% swaps in a multi table tourney

WTF?!

Has anyone in this thread watched Trooper's vlogs?

I have.

Go back and watch. (and please don't ask me to post them for you or explain the exact contents, you lazy, obsessed couch bobbers)

By almost all accounts in his older vlogs, Trooper and Harry played in seperate SNG's, often at different stakes. Jeezus on a stick!

The one positive that has come from all of the sick nonsense posted here and in the other thread, Trooper has every right to press for the real identities of the slimy bagtards who LITERALLY post ten and twenty times/day spewing sub-being crap.

These are serious, life changing accusations. I hope he goes after the human waste here.

Cheers!

Love all of you.

Yours,
Vidda

is this not what everyone accused men the master of doing?

Although this thread was started by one of the mouthbreathers from the vlog thread on LVL, there is a legitimate concern here.

I suppose witch hunts do actually discover a witch from time to time.

TLDR Wilbury Long-Winded Story Time:

Years ago, I met up with an old high school buddy in Vegas. I got enlisted to shoot a WPT event at Bellagio, he and his wife were already in town, so our schedules just coincided. We went over to Caesars to play in one of the casino's small daily tourneys. While waiting for the tourney to start, we thought, let's make a deal: if either one of us wins a prize, we'll split it 50/50. And if we both win, we'll just combine the prizes and split it evenly. I figured we were both roughly of equal skill, so it's EV-neutral. It just reduces the variance. So yeah, no biggie. At no point did I even think about colluding, soft-playing, chip-dumping, or anything shady like that. Just something fun to do as a one-off.

A few levels into the tourney, we ended up at the same table. Only at that moment did I realize... well, damn, our arrangement creates a pretty uncomfortable situation. Should I ask the floor to reseat one of us? Do I tell the table? What's the protocol here?

In my head, I would play him as if he was any other stranger in the tourney. If I get an opportunity to bust him, so be it. He probably thinks of me as a fairly straightforward TAG-ish player, so if I can use that to my advantage, I will. (Plus, I'm also competitive enough that the idea of busting my friend and holding that over him at our next high school reunion outweighs any EV considerations.)

At one point, he took a hit to his stack and got short-stacked, forcing him into AIPF mode. I was sitting 2-3 seats to his left, so in most cases, I was in position to react to his shove. Again, I had no notions of colluding or dumping, and couldn't possibly get away with anything nefarious (e.g. calling or three-betting with absolute trash to give him an easy double-up). Plus, giving him a courtesy double-up would then cripple me. Even with all of that, I found myself reminding myself: just treat him as if he was a total stranger. "What would your calling range be if it was some rando player pushing for 10 BBs in that spot? Then call with that range, dumbass."

It's worth pausing to mention that I still had an unfair advantage: I knew enough about his game to approximate his shoving range in a way the other players couldn't.

Still, it crossed my mind how wide open the door was for some shady stuff. Suppose I call him a little lighter than I probably should. Either I give him an easy double, extending his tourney life; or I bust him, and his now chips come my way rather to some other donk in the tourney. Alternatively, what if I fold a hand I should call with? Now I extend his tourney life and let him take a pot uncontested. (At that point, I didn't know enough about ICM to know how such decisions would affect our combined equity in the tourney. Hell, I still don't.)

Ultimately, none of it mattered. He ended up running into a hand and busting out. I enjoyed a well-timed rush and finished third. Even then, we waited until later to settle the money out of fear that it would just look suspicious. All in all, it was a good learning experience not to make such a deal again – in part for the situations we could have been in, but mostly because the result-oriented side of me hated giving away half of my prize.

Cliffs/Moral Of Story:

1. Even with two honest players in a one-off MTT, splitting action 50/50 created at least an unfair situation, and at worst an opportunity for some shady activity.

2. Splitting action 50/50 in an STT rather than an MTT would create nothing but unfair situations and opportunities for some shady activity, especially when done repeatedly.

3. Comparing my posts to SageDonkey's may now ensue. I have it coming.

Not at all. You made sense.

It's nigh on impossible to know if strangers are colluding in such a way unless the colluders do something very stupid. Trooper, however, takes the poker Darwin award on this one.

Those who out themselves as colluders should be punished as a deterrent to others.