my last session the following hand happened. there were a couple limpers, then a short stack went all in for 3x bb, then buddy reraises, limpers fold, so it is heads up with 8 bb in the pot and buddy folds immediately.

one of the limpers was irate and wanted to talk to the floor to see if that was against the rules. was it?


what if buddy had just called instead of reraising. would folding before the cards were dealt still be prohibited in that case?

Sounds like collusion if its heads up between shorty and the guy who raised

How did he fold...just toss his hand forward, or physically inserted them into the muck? What did the dealer do/say when this happened?

Folding to avoid showdown is not against the rules, but the circumstances of this instance are unusual and suspect. It looks a lot like collusion, raising the others out of the hand so his buddy wins the pot.

The floor should be called. If there's no history of issues with the players then probably no penalty, but everyone should be made aware it's unacceptable behavior.

Collusion requires some kind of deceptive element. Doing something so blatant doesn't qualify for that but it sounds very much like something we don't want to see at the table.

If he wants to give his buddy chips he should open his wallet and buy some for him.

Its collecting the limpers bets and handing them to the shortstack. When theres no more action the raiser shouldnt be allowed to muck like that

In tournaments you aren't allowed to muck an all in hand because it would allow someone to dump their chips. The mucked hand would be retrieved if possible.

In a cash games it's usually tolerated unless it's obviously being done to skirt the rules, such as two people buying in for the max and one player dumping it to the other so they can have a double stack.

Usually when something like this happens it's because buddy thought the hand was over. Worst case they were dumping 8BB to their friend to keep them in the game. This would be against the rules but hard to prove and even harder to get a floor to act on.

FLOOR!

While technically allowed, I'd put this in the angle shooting category. The raiser gets a stiff lecture about not doing this and told they'll be gone for the rest of the evening if they do it again.

Definitely qualifies as Slow Play and certainly is a legit Floor Call if you want to go down that road so it doesn't happen again.

Another spot where we may look the other way since the amount is so small, but then are forced to decide how much is 'enough' to draw the line.

Collusion requires that both parties know what was going to happen and how. It's pretty doubtful that they talked about protecting each other if they were working with a nub stack.

I think it's definitely something the Dealer should talk about immediately, but wouldn't blame any Dealer or Player for calling the Floor over. GL

Unless the 2nd raiser (buddy) didn't realize there was somebody else in the pot, it is collusion/cheating. It is possible that Buddy guy thought his friend folded and that he won the pot. However in that case he would have spoken up when the pot was pushed to the short stack.

Even if the short stack was totally unaware that this was going to happen, his buddy cheated for him by removing the limpers from the hand. It is also cheating to give chips from your stack to another player at the table which is exactly what happened under the guise of raising then folding.

If I worked in the room as a Floor I would ban the Buddy player for 24 hours and if it happened again I would ban him and possibly both of them, for a longer period of time. Cheating should not be allowed in a poker room.

If it was clearly a mistake (like he thought everyone folded) i wouldnt ban, but intentional foul play yea 24 hours isnt crazy to me

Dumb way to collude though isn't it? If my intention was to dump chips to the short stack, I'd wait for the runout, see what the other guy has at showdown, and then fold my hand.

For a wrinkle, consider this hand I was involved in:

Hero goes all-in, Villain calls. Both table their hands—88 for Hero, 99 for Villain. Dealer fans out a flop of 932 and Hero angrily throws his cards in the muck. Dealer then (robotically) deals a turn 8 river 8 and awards the pot to…..?

I believe you win because your hand was tabled.

Though there is a casino near Niagara Falls (US side) which would rule the 99 wins because you mucked your hand even though it had been tabled... At least that was their rule about 15 years ago.

Pretty blatant collusion and floor should be called. Floor should ruled the hand live if it's retrievable, run the board out, and give a stern warning or just boot him if this isn't the first time.

Cheaters are stupid. More at 11.

Correct. Tabled hands can not be subsequently un-tabled.

Crazy people want the same penalty for the woman who announced the ace of spades mid hand compared to this which didn't affect the hand at all.

Next time the guy should wait to the river to muck as not to rustle jimmies. If you're not forced to show down you're not forced to show down. Whining about when is just entitled poker players.

Collusion .. Collusion is a deceitful agreement or secret cooperation between two or more parties to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading or defrauding others of their legal right.

Let's get off the collusion train please .. it's soft play/chip dumping, not collusion.

It would be difficult to ban someone over this without first having a conversation with them 'in hopes' of some sort of admission.



As far as the 88/99 runout .. While you could get technical and say that the holding wasn't tabled 'at Showdown' I think we really need to lean on the fact that it was tabled after action was complete, which is certainly a backdoor to Showdown. GL

Hell no

H2O

OK, let's not call it collusion, let's call it outright cheating.

This is not just soft play. He cheated to give other people's chips to his buddy.

We're getting closer .. those were not other peoples chips anymore. The chips were in the middle and up for grabs to anyone making a 'Poker' play at them. Are we even having this discussion if someone makes the call and takes down the pot? Is there a clause/rule for 'attempted' slow play/dumping?

The issue is a Player surrendering their right to the pot when HU and action complete AFTER making an aggressive play for the pot. We also technically need to eliminate the fact that these two know each other and decide how to handle the spot from a point of neutrality .. perhaps. The knowledge that they do know each outside poker certainly can sway an opinion, but we still need to determine if any wrong doing has taken place first.

Remember Dealers aren't supposed to be in the intent business, so we call the Floor over .. get talked to .. and a warning is handed out. GL

I remember a tipping thread in which the question was posed how much can you tip out of your own stack before its bad for the game? Clearly nobody cares if its $1, but if someone tips half their stack then jams thats not ok. So lets say this situation occurred but instead of being for a handful of dollars shorty went all in for $200, two cold callers then the other guy jammed for 1k+, the two other guys fold and then he snap mucks. Would that be ok then?

If you can muck without showing on the river doesn't matter if you do it before the river. Force showdowns or don't.

so it was pretty clear at the time to me that the mucker in question was trying to help the all in win. however i don't think they knew each other off the felt. also the all in was female. so maybe it was more of a chivalry / simping thing. i don't think his intent was to cheat or rob the other players (although that may have been an unintended consequence). also i think there was some element of "play" involved. like he was just messing around in a small pot for jokes.

Tabled hand cannot be killed. Technically you could pick up your 88's and but a lighter to them such that the cards don't even exists and still win the pot. Ofc you should also immediately be given a ban when you are given the pot.

I don't know if there is a rule about folding your hand before the board is dealt. I've never encountered it, because no player who is actually trying to win would do this.

The situation described by the OP is definitely against the rules though. Someone is squeezing players out of the pot to intentionally benefit another player at the table. If he had just folded after the board ran out and the other player showed his hand, no one would have even known. By mucking early he pretty much proved he was intentionally making a play to benefit another player.

To me it's a blatant enough violation that I would agree with the other poster who said a 24-hour ban may be appropriate (only for the one who mucked his hand early). On the other hand the fact that he mucked his hand early also demonstrates that it's not some sophisticated advantage-play collusion, so I would be satisfied if the floor just gave him a warning.