have alot of hands like this:

I see no reason to think this is collusion. Seat 4 has tens up facing a scary SF board on sixth. So he checks for fear of getting raised. And on the river, seat 5 figures that if he bets he is just throwing away money, since seat 4 is not going to fold the river for one more bet when he has two pair, which is pretty easy to deduce here.

for what reason seat 5 is in the hand at all?

why is he calling on fith?
why is he leading on 6 into two players?
why is he giving up on seventh is he got one to fold?

why is seat 4 not folding the fith?

i suspect seat 5 was just in the hand to get me out

edit: i have several hands in the 8-game facing very strange plays like this. cant explain them unless there is something shady going on

Seat 5 is just a bad player playing badly. On 3rd he can catch a 5 and has two hidden spades in the whole (it looks nice to him). On 4th he catches a pair and his 6h 7h look nice on board. Might slow the action down. He is probably not thinking about it or maybe it entered his mind, who cares, doesn't really matter he caught almost as good as he can catch. Catches an A on 5th. He probably doesn't care that you are representing aces at all. He now has another card that he can catch to help him. He is just trying to catch something, another pair, a 5 to make an open ended draw on 6th and now an ace. On 6th his board just looks nice and he fires a bet without too much thought behind. (probably that's it and nothing more). He doesn't really care about anything else. On the river he checks and hopes it's good.

I doubt they are colluding. Just bad play IMO.

maybe they have seen you betting most of the way down with the worst hand before and decide to just start playing with you.

why didnt you check on 5th and try to get the free card.

thought one of them has to fold at least. i was shutting down anyway after both of them called on fith

it happens all the time this wasnt any collusion. matter of fact if they were playing together you wouldnt have seen the show down as one would have bet and the other folded.

an as far as the sixth street bet i do that bet frequently when i think its going to be bet anyway and my board could be the nuts. as you never know who may now fold the winner and it costs you the same as checking and calling.. now you just learned a new play for your arsenal.

dont wanna argue with you ray, but with an openpair in the hand im checking behind unless i have aces up or better unless im tilting.

after going threw a lot of HHs i would say i might have got carried away with this collusion thing and i am simply facing unexperienced players.

i still decided to stop playing as haveing this collusion mindset will make me play bad and tilt fast if i see anything that could be interpreted that way. im gonna ban my account 14 days and come back later maybe.

"Cant explain them unless there is something shady going on": the player in Seat 5 is a fish. Don't ask me to explain fish-think because I can't. No tellin' what he was thinking, or even if he was thinking at all.

1) He's got: 6, 7, A. Yeay! I can has Ace! Me calls!
2) Yeah! I can has 8! Me bluffs!
3) It just dawned on him that he can't beat two deuces, and it never occurs to him to fire that last barrel, repping a made flush/straight since up till now, that's the "story" he's been telling.

If this were collusion, and this guy was trying to run you off, I'd expect the action on 4th would have gone: bet, raise, call, re-raise, re-reaise. On 4th, he has a credible four flush draw that could be semi-bluffing with four hearts and a couple of suited overcards.

I would expect him to pop it again on 5th, where he caught an off-suit ace that could credibly match the A he could have in the hole. Even if he wasn't colluding, I'd expect a raise by 5th at the very least, given that he's been catching scare cards on his board. But, he's a fish and doesn't understand scare card play. All he sees is co-ordinated hearts and an ace and all he can think is "Pretty". I guarantee you: he isn't thinking ahead to the next street, he isn't thinking about what his two opponents have and he isn't trying to get a line in their play.

Stick around poker tables long enough and you will see some of the G-D-est things. A fishy player is liable to do just about anything for no discernible reason that makes sense to anyone but Mr. Fish (and probably not even then).

exactly and you dont know what fish may do. and who knows if this guy thought he was playing split and bet his low hand on 6th street. it happens more than you think.

and long time the bet on 6th i was talking about was from the fish that bet. not what you would do. i pointed out his bet wasnt such a bad one. i hope people understand what i am talking about. that is how you get good.

The key is probably 8game. You see all sorts of clueless stuff during the Stud rotations as most NLHE/PLO players have not got a clue - which is good obviously