If only there were e-wallets that colluders could use...

Even if there is room for soft play and collusion I'd think it would mostly only be prevalent during the initial first few levels where most players try and run with something other than a push/fold strategy.

Once the game enters the push/fold levels I don't really see to much a team of two players cooperating together could do to gain a significant edge over that third person. Aside from possibly dumping chips to the more experienced and stronger HU player there is not much to gain here.

Almost all the advantages I can possibly think of would come in those first few levels and I'm not sure that the chipEV gained from those levels would be enough incentive for two people to ever want to purposely collude and work together in these games.

lol. The shorter the stacks more problematic the collusion becomes due to smaller edges, and preflop game being much more important- as opposed to postflop, where it's genuinely difficult to collude.

Fact is if you share a br with one other guy this allows the both of you to shove much wider when you shove into 2 players, and also allows you to call the third guy's shove with a wider range with your friend acting behind.

And yes dumping chips technically is also possible- only really to maintain the 3 player game mode. So instead of snapping off your friend's shove with A5o you should fold, since the resulting game mode is way more profitable than being HU with the third guy.

And again- no where in the above analysis is there a requirement for 2 players to premeditate their collusion. They could be the cleanest of players, but if they share a br and are on the same table collusion naturally arises if they are maximizing their OWN ev.

Good points watergun. I seem to be wrong in my last post. Your points are valid.

I would like to see pokerstars comment on this problematic ESPECIALLY with comsideration of established cartels and staking stables.

When the collusion on DoN happened there werent by far such established groups as they exist nowadays and this really concerns me.

Don't think stars reads this thread.

They may have stopped reading by now I suppose, but both Baard and Steve have posted in this thread.

Easy game!

that s the secret now you can start a blog about your carrier as a pro spin and goer

it wouldn't be such an issue if 50/50 splits were forbidden. if you share 60/40 you are still inclined to gain an edge over your partner.

Yep. And you are inclined to fold A5o vs a shove as 60/40 split with your button partner 13bb deep on the BB (fwiw no maths went into this statement but you get my point).

So collusion will still happen if you define collusion as changing the way you play from when you are alone.

One way around this is to have a group of size 100, each swapping 1% with 99 other players.

However such large groups cannot exist without the risk of scamming becoming bigger than the risk of collusion. And anyway there is no incentive for players to take measures themselves to prevent their own collusion, so this is still a big problem.

i am sorry, but i don't understand this. you mean for 13bb you get dealt A5o in the BB and your SB partner jams into you, you are supposed to fold? why?
chip equity equals dollar equity, so unless you have an exact 50/50 split you should take every +EV spot, no?

pretty awfull not to have chops available

who doesnt think they can gain more edge chopping than playing in some situations?

If stars introduced a deal making facility then I guess it would reduce some of the incentive to form groups or collude - with reduced variance players are likely to be happier to 'go it alone'

Think chops would solve the majority of the issues braught up. If you look at deals made in MTTs, the ede gained there is insane. Players with nerves will be able to get 15/16k 3way no problem vs players desperate to get some more than third in the top prizepool

I mean your partner is on button and he shoves. Having a 40/60 chop still makes the 3 way game way more favourable than calling with the bottom of your calling range.

So you would fold knowing that future situation is more profitable as you would be able to shove wider on the button with your buddy in the BB etc etc and same for your buddy on his button.

Basically multiplayer gto is not unique, and if someone has any incentive to collaborate with someone else the third player loses a ton of EV.

Chop will only reduce the incentive for regs to swap %. But it will still happen, and thus collusion will happen.

Introducing the Spin & Go format is basically saying " **** YOU" to all the regs out there. So many fish that used to play HU hypers, 6m hypers or whatever are playing these now. They basically take all these fish and put them into a format that u can not beat, because its a -ev format in general. Really, effin amazing...

actually it is extremely plus ev, atm it is as soft as hypers were maybe 2 years ago. variance is unbearable anyways.

also i think it is a stupid idea to counter variance by increasing table number. is there an easy formula to find indifference roi drop per additional table, for example if i switch from 2 tables to 3 tables and my winrate drops from 36% to 35% variance will be the same?

I'm confused, are you saying that a random recreational player would take 10k before the start of the SNG just because a reg says in chat that they are really good at poker and therefore deserve 16k?

The % of the population who do that has got to be small no...?

I mean I have zero evidence but there a shedloads of mtt final tables where a player happily gives up 20-30% of his icm value in order to get just a tiny bit more. Considering that 8k is a ton more than 3k in a 3k 3k 36k payout I wouldn't be surprised if regs were able to leverage the weaker players into giving up a LOT of EV by just saying "k, fine let's play then"

Its about a balance between soft tables and a reasonable amount of volume.
I got no interest to 12 table 6m hyper with 3-4 regs at my table, but also have no interest to wait 2 minutes to get 1 table with only 2 regs or less. There were more fish without these spin and go sh*t thats for sure.

i was referring to you saying spin and gos are a -EV format, which is not true. obviously i cannot give numbers yet, but in the actual state winrates of good players should definitely exceed 36%.

Makes sense, I guess I'm just wondering what % of the random population would be willing to do that. May never know hah