Here’s what collusion actually looks like.

Parkers 12/24 game, circa 2011

I’ve been playing with a married couple for a while and I’ve been involved in a few hands with them that have put me on alert when this hand came up:

Husband is OOP, I have AA, and wife is in position. We cap pre. Flop is J82 and there is a bunch of betting. Maybe it’s capped again. I’m not sure.

What I am sure about is what is going to happen if I check the turn (another 2). The wife is going to bet and the husband is going to raise. I have AA on a J822 board against two people I think are colluding against me, so I put a 3-bet out, she caps it and he calls.

The river is a brick. He still bets, I call, and she FOLDS... with less than half a big bet left.

He turns over AJ and I win the pot with steam coming out of my ears.

Assuming neither of my opponents is drunk or a certified lunatic, my hand should never be good when three different people raise the turn and four bets go in. Plus, she caps the turn and then folds the river with less than a bet left?

Meanwhile, this is what you are calling cheating:

Bet fold call
Check check
Check check

What did you do after that?


The one time Ive encountered something like that was at Palace in a wee hour 4/8 game a bit over 4 years ago. I dont remember the specifics of the hands as I didn't take note and wasn't involved in the hand, but this man and woman that didnt make it obvious they were together and either didnt or didn't let on that they spoke English did a couple fishy things that caught my attention, and one very egregious situation like you described came up and I asked to see all hands at the end. It was something like the dude cold 3 bet his lady's raise on the turn with pocket 5s when it was clearly ****ing trash in the hand.

I told them both I know what theyre doing, racked up, and while cashing out I explained to the floor that there was blatant collusion happening in the 4/8 game and something should be done about it. I left and coincidentally didn't go back for a few years.

Unless there is a correlation established between collusion and loss of business - I don't think ownership would care.

However, enforcement of anti-collusion would probably lead to loss of business.

I talked to the floor about it and I remember not getting much of a response.

I also run into this same couple at Fortune nowadays and they are actually very pleasant people and I haven’t seen anything remotely like that hand I described since I started bumping into them again.

that would be terrible for the game, for recs, and for anyone who wants to check raise.
sure. i don't see how the same ripple effects apply to cash games. it really is a different scenario.
if soft play were beneficial, everyone would do it. it's not, so why care?

Finally some common sense shows up to this thread.

dark knight. i dont know what they were doing and obviously they didnt know either. but if they were colluding to trap you they sure gave away a ton of money to you.
that is why colluders usually are losers and a good player makes extra money off of them.

the good ones few will be able to catch as they dont do the obvious things.

We regularly read this forum and many ideas on how to improve Fortune Poker have come from discussions here, so thank you to everyone who has chimed in.

Just to be clear, we do very much care about collusion in our room. We want to run a clean, fair game and I can state as a fact that we have permanently barred people as recently as January for collusion in a game. We do not, however, consider soft play to be collusion as it does not give participating "soft" players any advantage over the remaining guests at the table.

As a result of the initial post, we reviewed hours of video and found soft play, but absolutely no indication of what we would consider collusion. We also spoke to the floor person who picked up the chips and the floor person who paid out the guest who initiated this discussion. Here is what we were able to determine from our investigation:

- Three rounds had definitively gone by (it was unusually quick due to another guest also being gone briefly and some chopped blinds, which really accelerated the pace around the table.) The first missed blind was at 5:53p, the second at 5:58 and the third at 6:03. The guest's chip stack was picked up at 6:06 and the guest returned at 6:07, literally less than a minute after getting picked up.

- Guest was offered first position on the waitlist and declined.

- According to the floors who were working at the time, at no point did the guest discuss any concerns about collusion with a supervisor. (The only difference would have been us investigating sooner, presumably arriving at the same conclusion.)

- I would like to add that another guest was also picked up during the same time frame (at a different table) and, while some other guests had two missed blinds at the same table during his session, no one else had received a third missed blind.

Fortune Poker management and staff definitely take great pains to prevent any inappropriate behavior in our room. I am confident that most of our regulars have seen this and appreciate the fact that, as a result, we run a tight, clean ship. That said, we always welcome ideas that can continue to improve Fortune Poker. Please don't hesitate to reach out directly to Mail Mai or myself with any comments or questions.

Regards,

David Hill

Great to see such a followup from poker room management.

I understand that you don't see softplay as the same as collusion, but would you agree that it is still bad for the game, and especially looks bad to tourists? Have you tried anything at all to stop the soft play?

david please come on frequently and give insight to your room as such. not ads but things the players can use for theirs and yours benefit.

thanks ray zee

Really excellent and impressive post, David. How could anyone not appreciate the time and effort and thorough explanation given?

Makes me proud to be a part of the Fortune family!

There's nothing wrong with soft play but there's nothing wrong with banning it either; and I don't think it's impossible to enforce. (They should ban chopping the blinds too).

What's wrong is when soft play is done because people are essentially playing out of the same bank roll, like a husband and wife or any 2 family members. Of course, we don't know if they're playing out of the same bank roll but, if I ran a room, if there were regulars in the game who are family members, I would always require them to sit as different tables whenever possible. If there are non-regulars doing this I would allow them to sit at the same table because I wouldn't see them as really trying to game the system.

No one wants to be 3 handed vs 2 playing out of the same roll; you're basically playing against 2 hands.

Geez. How brutal would that be to be playing against two hands in a 3-handed pot?

Eh? So if there is no bet it's like one opponent holding 2 hands.

Edit: They don't have to play in a way to beat each other, only you.

I mean i posted a syllogism and there was no refutation of it, just rationalizations of why i should be ok with it happening.

It is obvious collusion as the colluding players have an advantage that i do not, I have to play against 8 opponents and they only have to play against 6 (assuming 3 colluding players).

if they are winning players, if it is good/bad for the game, if it is hard to prevent have no bearing on whether or not they are acting in agreement in order to gain an advantage that other players do not.

David - kudos to you for your post and would love to see more interaction. I just checked my phone and it was a 16 minute call that started at 5:50 so i cant challenge your timeline. I do not recall being offered first spot on the list, but i was upset, confused, did not ask to clarify, and was ready to leave based on what i saw at the tables already.

what is the definition of collusion at fortune poker?

While I agree poker would be better off without any soft play, I think it is pretty telling that basically no one has agreed on your take of the situation.

A few weeks ago two people were banned from Fortune for collusion. They would raise and reraise when in a pot with a third person. They also were putting their chips in certain positions on their hole cards to indicate their hand. A player asked to see all hands after one pot because he felt something was going on and one of the colluding players was raising with nothing. The management reviewed the footage of the session and tossed the two players.

I don't like to see people soft play either but usually when they check it down there is a big made hand. At least from what I have seen.

What game was this in?

As an aside anyone who is looking to play bigger Carribean has been running 2+ 5-10 games on the weekends. Obv it’s kind of goofy w the $300 max bet but it’s a good game w lottttttttts of money on the table.

Uncapped on Tuesdays, $2,500 max BI on Fridays.

It is quite goofy but it's still less goofy than any PLO games in WA, lol.

Would love to hear the reasoning behind uncapped one day and 250bb cap the other day w a 30bb max bet. I’m all ears.

Had to do with lack of black chips. Now that they have them, I expect the rule to be revised. Friday needed more chips given the traffic.

it should have read soft playing is collusion
in the last line.

but it is faulty anyway as soft playing isnt always collusion

you are correct in how the conclusion should have read. My argument is that soft playing is collusion.

How do you distinguish between soft playing being collusion or not?

Well, good luck finding a room that forbids players checking down.