Hi all,

There is a professional couple in my plo player pool. They put in long hours and are consistent winners. Unlike many other couples who play in our room, they purposefully play at the same table quite often, even when mutiple games are running. The husband was banned from here for physically assaulting another player but was allowed back a few months later.

A number of regs have privately told me they have seen signaling between them or suspicious betting when they are involved in hands together. For example, when one is all in the other has bet into a side pot with air to force the others out and will muck, allowing the other one all in to win with a very marginal holding. Or one will bet, including several calls before the other will raise and the original bettor will fold.

After I heard enough of this, I confronted them a couple times while playing. They called me crazy and a woman and asked if I took my meds. The husband threatened me. They continue to play together.

I’m wondering what we can do in this situation. Can the room prevent them from playing at the same table? Can they be banned?

Thanks,
DT

Of course the room can. They can ban anyone for almost any reason.

The question is will they. Do they believe they are colluding. Do they think enough players are concerned about it. Are they too lazy to investigate. But most importantly, is it affecting their bottom line negatively.

Get enough of your player pool to complain and something will probably happen. If you’re the only one, or if you only complain here, then probably not.

Talking to people is only a good idea if there's a realistic chance that they'll change their behavior. Example: Asking someone to bring no-shell peanuts or pistachios might be a good idea if they always make a huge mess with the shells. That's easily fixable.

Asking those players not to sit at the table doesn't serve that purpose because they'll obviously won't stop unless somebody makes them stop. In that case it's best to go to room management directly and ask other players to do the same. If 10 people tell the poker room manager that they suspect that couple to cheat there's a good chance that management at least tells them they're under extra surveillance (wether that's true or not) or are asked to play at different tables. Having multiple people file a complaint also decreases the chances that a single person gets threatened. It's way easier to tell one person that you're going to beat them up than telling that to the whole wrestling team.

Telling management one of them threatened you will get action taken faster than claims of team play.

Unfortunately collusion is hard to catch definitively. Your best bet is to take notes or even better video of specific examples of them working together, and to get more players to complain. One player bitching about another is easily blown off as a personal grudge. 10 players saying the same thing will have a lot more impact.

Over the years I have played with about 5 couples.

At Foxwoods they banned 1 couple from playing together at 20/40 LHE tables unless there was only 1 table open after a number of complaints to management (including mine). At that time there was rarely 1 table only so it wasn't a big deal. It was obvious they played differently when in hands together.

In Aruba when i played with a couple that were clearly cheating together I just stopped playing at their table. And I did speak to management about it (but nothing was done since there was only one 20/40 LHE table)

There was 1 couple at Foxwoods that played together in the 10/20 LHE game that absolutely didn't cheat ever so it is possible for that to be the case.

But any time there are people at the same table who in life are sharing money whether they are a couple or one player is staking the other, it is likely not going to be a good situation. I will typically not play long once I find out. And in some cases the couple make an effort not to be discovered as a couple...

don't play at the same table as them

As pros do, they often play in the best game running in the room, so avoiding them would really hurt my bottom line. We shouldn’t have to choose between game quality and game integrity.

Also, why should we - the non-offending party - have to change OUR behavior on THEIR account? That seems totally backwards to me.

Given your history, it wouldn't be surprising if management is less than enthusiastic about following up. But there is little point in telling you not to confront the couple directly. You should know this after other threads. As said above, find other players upset about the collusion and have them talk to management too.

Failing that, start spending time figuring out what their signals are and use the information against them.

Wasn't there a previous Thread about this? Not necessarily the same casino, but this is a very familiar discussion .. as many are in these Forums.

How do they end up at the same table? Via table opening .. table changes? It's gotta take some time for 2 Players to get to the same table normally, eh? Main Game with Must Moves?

Then I also assume they play the seat change game in order to be the most effective if they are working together somehow?


The obvious first place to start is with the Floors .. and then maybe talk to the Dealers away from the table. You can also try to backdoor discuss things with any Regs while the couple is not at the table to see if you actually have a quorum with which to take to the Floor/Supervisor.

As indicated above, typically without a big enough squeaky wheel you're not going to get much done in a Poker Room.

As I've commented before, there's been spots where I didn't really care that two Players tried to work together .. just change your strategy to deal with it. Granted my most common spot was dealing with a raising war PF trying to take down the dead chips and not so much post-Flop. GL


PS .. As seen in Rounders (and in my own experience) the Regs typically stay out of each others way when the Fish sit down and then go back to 'fighting brothers' once the marks leave the table. This may not be the case in your poker world.

You made it worse by confronting them directly. You shoulda reported it discreetly to a shift manager, and also encouraged others to do the same. If they were colluding, they now know people are on to them and will make it even harder to prove it if it was true (tbh I wouldn't even wanna play at their table whether they were colluding or not).

Ding ding ding. There’s the real reason Dumbo doesn’t want them playing on the same table. The pro couple taking up 2 seats in the best game in the room is hurting his bottom line.

You made a bad situation worse by running in there like Leroy Jenkins without a plan. Next time be a little more intentional with your actions and don’t accuse people of cheating without a shred of proof. Maybe talk to the floor discreetly or better yet have someone else do it for you since you seem to have problems with delicate social situations.

Two things. First, if you're uncomfortable with frequently having both of them in the same game you should talk to poker room management. They can easily separate them.

Second, I highly doubt the cheating moves you're describing, That's because to protect a hand they're putting extra money at risk and that's not the way sophisticated cheating is done. On the other hand, for instance, if you were to notice that they virtually never both play in the same hand, then things would be different. (Or perhaps in plo they're never in the pot together on the flop.)

Mason

It’s funny you mention not playing in the same pot because I’ve noticed that quite often as well. I’ll keep an eye out for that.

We put together a petition and over 20 regs signed on.

You said they were sending each other signals, that's considered cheating, not soft playing each other and/or getting out of each other's way (that goes on every day between friends, spouses, family, and all kinds of relationships but sending signals about their hands is collusion).

How many tables are normally running? If 20 regs is a decent amount of the people there, I'd do more than just sign a petition. If enough of these players are at the table when the 2 cheaters join, I'd get the group to all stand up together and let the floor know they're not playing with known cheaters.

Normally 2-3 tables. One time that’s what happened, she transferred over to his table (he was losing) and I quit and said I wasn’t going to play with both of them and the game snap broke. I even went over to the floor and let them know.

The problem here is that the vast majority of poker players can not be subjective on this matter. It's tough to tell how many of these players truly think something suspicious is going on and how many of them just want to get two good players out of the player pool.

If it's as obvious as some of the regs seem to think it is, it should not be difficult to provide management with specific examples of their colluding ways.

We provided examples, yes.

If there's usually only 2-3 tables going and you get 20 regulars file a complaint because in their opinion the couple is detrimental to the game, that might be enough.

Maybe not to ban them outright but at least to disallow them from playing at the same table. Which might make them quit anyway.

Then this is going to be 100x more useful than a petition, imo.

To me, this is the worst decision management could make.

If they aren’t colluding or doing anything wrong, they should be allowed to play wherever they want. If they are colluding, they should be banned. Just separating them is admitting that they are doing something wrong without any real consequences imo.

It's a pretty straightforward business decision for them to make with all parties involved being professionals.

The problem is that there isn't proof of collusion.

If management doesn't split them up then people will stop playing and it will hurt business. If management does split them up then there will be little loss of business. Typically its the couple who will stop playing because they have been outed and it is embarrassing. Also they won't be doing as well.

The real consequences of splitting them up will be that they will each likely lose money at their separate tables (or they will make much less than they were before). That's what happened at Foxwoods when the couple was split up.

I actually see it as the best decision in terms of justice. If they are not colluding they will continue to win at roughly the same rate and the fact they do will provide evidence that they were not actually colluding. If they were colluding they will not win as much and possibly even lose back to their victims some of the money they gained by cheating. And BTW if they are colluding separating them is a very real consequence as it stops the collusion; if they are not colluding this gives them a path to show that the evidence against them was not interpreted correctly when it was judged possible collusion.

Colluding is cheating, and cheaters should be banned. Separating them is admission that you believe they are cheating without the proper consequences.

This is rather silly and implies there will be some attempt to track and compare their win-rate from when they play together to when they are on separate tables.

OP is certainly suggesting there is a lot of hard evidence.