That's fine, but if you're trying to win every dollar from a stranger, and not from your friend, it's still collusion.

I have found the more Hands I lose , the more friendly other players at the table are to me. You know stuff like " I would have called too" or " That straight he had was well hidden" or "You can't play that hand any better, poker is weird sometimes" That's casino friends in action. Home Game Poker Friends often are real friends away from the table.

I've been playing poker for well over a decade and I can honestly say that I have no poker friends. Yes, there are many people that I am friendly toward, but I don't have a single one of them on my phone. I see them playing poker and that's it. I think its partially because we are so directly trying to take each other's money.

Contrast that with something else I like doing, which is bowling. I bowl in a couple of money leagues where the competition is at a pretty high level. There's no soft-playing in bowling. In fact, going easy or sandbagging is greatly frowned upon. So bowling your best and playing to win is what's expected. When I look at my phone, I see a bunch of numbers from my bowling friends. Most are not even from teams I have bowled with. So I know it sounds kind of trite, but my serious advice is to get bowling lessons and show up at league meetings prior to the start of the season (usually September or May in the summer leagues). You will probably land on a team that needs players and you'll start making some real friends.

It depends on what kind of friends you have and what kind of friend you want to be.

If you believe that helping your friends get better and trying your hardest to beat them at the table are mutually exclusive, then you do have a choice to help your friends XOR try to beat them. If you realize that both of you can improve your winrates, then it's AND.

As a matter of fact, I'd boil it down to this one question: what percentage of poker knowledge do you think you know? If it's low - either because you don't know very much or because you think there is a lot to know, you tend to do better sharing. Only when you think you know a high percentage already (either because you are truly exceptional or because you're unaware of how much there is to know) does it make sense to withhold.

People keep bringing this up like it's unique to poker. It's not, really. Non-pokerers compete for promotions and commissions, and in lean times, compete to retain their jobs - all of which is direct competition.

This thread is still plugging away ...

As within a 'real' family, the brothers can, and will, fight each other and yet find a way to remain a family (most of the time). But should anyone pick on a brother then the rest will come to their aid. When you have reg v reg in the daily grind, it's a lot like the 'brother' theory. But insert the 'guest' at the local room and everyone gangs up on them.

My family is out of town for Thanksgiving and I've mentioned this at the table a little bit due to an 'hours' promo at our local room and that I might choose to log some heavy hours during those 4-5 days ... I'm not expecting any dinner invitations even though I may spend more time with regs than I do my wife during some months of the year. GL

Can't tell if this is sarcasm. But yes, I would say more than half of the people in my player pool are not petty bishes who can't handle friendly competition and take losing personally.

LOL. Yes, those are the friends who always try to invite you to home games, feed you drinks, and play on the same table as you. Somehow they always want to sit on your left.

me and my friends were friends before poker. we all knew each other before poker. then we started playing gambling games and other random card games. eventually it progressed to poker. we played home games all the time. mostly same core friends but once in a while a random would be invited. we would play .25/.50 or sometimes .5/1 blinds. then later some of us started going to the casino to play. so we were friends before the casino. honestly i wouldn't try making friends with anyone at the casino. not a good idea.

Poker is a lone wolf type game, imo.

I'm sure we were all drawn to this forum to be lone wolves.

These AI bots are getting really good at simulating real conversation!

if we could only teach this to the dumb-ass wanna be pros who sit there sourpuss faced chasing away the fish

one of my friends ending up marrying a woman he met in a room
every Saturday they both played the noontime tourney
starting dating and married in vegas 2 yrs later