Had an incident yesterday. I was playing my last hand before leaving and flopped bottom set in early position. 3 players.

I bet , the middle player raises, the late position player folds, I push (I have the middle player covered) he is thinking about calling. It is obvious he is drawing to a flush. I want to leave a winner (I'm up around 500 , he has a little less).

I say to him "I'm way ahead lay it down and I'll show". I know I should want him to call but I really wanted to go home a winner. He folds showing a flush draw as expected , I turn over the set and the third player who had folded to the second players raise starts squealing I can't talk during the hand. I tell him its heads up and he is not in the hand so its not his business. He claims this is collusion.

Whats the rules say?

Most places allow exposing cards or talking about the hand to influence action when it's heads up only. However, I have read threads in B&M that say there are rooms with rules about no talking about the hand, period. I think that's the exception though.

You were fine. It could look like collusion though if the third player believes you were just trying to save your friend money, instead of trying to lock up the win before the next card.

Depends on the casino. But usually it's okay.

Try not to get dragged into silly little arguments at the table. You're trying to surround yourself with players less sophisticated than you are, right? Keep 'em that way.

"Oh, well, good thing I'm leaving, so you won't have to worry about it."

It was at the Borgata

I've never played anywhere where you can't talk heads up, but I know some casinos have rules that differ from other ones. I've played in places that do not allow you to expose your cards heads up, and got my hand mucked one time because of that.

Just curious though, why did you talk him out of calling? If he called and you lost, do you leave with a losing session? Set vs. flush draws are usually the kind of scenarios I don't mind getting called all-in.

This.

Check any thread in this forum about "checking it down" or "softplaying".

If I lost I would be down a small amount for the session. I know this is the ideal +ev situation, but after several losing sessions I wanted to post a win.

Bad move mathematically. Bad move in the context of poker being one big long game. Very good move psychologically.

Ah, this makes more sense. Sometimes a win to break a bad run is worth more to your confidence than to your wallet.

Bingo. This is 1 of those spots where I'd be happy to sacrifice value for low variance, because of the ancillary benefits.

Accept your fate like a MAN already and quit watching TV poker. There's something to be said for those who SHUT THE HECK UP during a hand.

Had the third player been whipsawed out of the hand, I could see him having a legitimate complaint but he folded to the first raise with only his PF money in the pot.

I see nothing wrong with the OP's actions in a heads up hand.

First of all, flopped flush draws hit like one time out of three. Learn to take those good mathematical spots if you really want to be profitable. Second of all, can you really blame that guy for thinking it's collusion? I'd be a little suspicious too. I mean, come on, you had a set, why wouldn't you want to get the most profit out of such a good hand? If I was there, I'd think there was something VERY shady about you telling him to fold when you really should prefer a call.

From a rules standpoint, I doubt most places have a problem with heads-up hand talking. From an ethical standpoint, it's a lot more questionable and situation-dependant. For future reference, just don't say anything.

Ever had a string of bad beats? Ever seen three one outers get hit against you in one 8 hour session? Ever had a strong feeling that if you let the guy see another card, you're going to lose?

The player who complained left the hand after the first raise without ever putting money in on the flop. Why should he feel it was collusion?

If it WAS collusion, this pair would be the worst ones at it I've ever seen, openingly talking about folding, then doing so and showing down a strong hand vs a draw?

How can you think it's reasonable to think it could be collusion? They both had reasonable hands, if it were collusion the player on a draw would have just folded to the shove without the OP offering to show.

I know you're not allowed to show hands heads up at the Borgata, but I'm pretty sure you're allowed to talk about the hand when you're heads up.

More than you will ever know...

I'm just saying, if I invest some money into a pot, fold it, then see a guy take it down with a strong hand but talks his opponent into folding when he should be trying to extract some value out of his big hand, it's a bit eyebrow-raising.

But both players had playable hands, they showed them down, if they were colluding, why not play it out and not LOOK like they were colluding? People who collude do not care which of them wins the pots, they're splitting it up later anyway.


Was it a -EV move, probably but he explained why he did it and with the hands that were shown down, VOLUNTARILY, how can anyone think they were colluding? If they were colluding, they would not have raised before it got to the player who folded.

It would have been OP check, MP bet, LP call, OP raise, MP re-raise and then LP probably folds. That is when the late position player might have a case for collusion. That way they would have gotten some more money into the pot before they forced him out. Once he folded, one player would have made a bet, the other would have folded and NO ONE would have shown down a hand.

But they raised on the flop, they made it too expensive for that player to stay BEFORE he put more money in the pot. And they did so because they both had very playable hands.

Then they SHOWED their hands.

Unless you want to talk the OP out of taking down small pots intead of stacking you when he takes down a big pot. If that is what you want to do, go for it.

this was between me and my heads up opponent. The outcome effects no one else at the table.
This has nothing to do with my being a man or woman or barnyard animal.
I simply wanted to go home a winner that day.
If I had to replay the entire scene I wound have finished racking up my chips and mucked the hand without even looking.

I'm an old white man. He was a young Asian kid with a few Asian friends standing around. It was completely obvious we didn't even know each other , let alone be involved in any type of collusion.

Also it was obvious this was my last hand. My chips were almost completely racked up and I was standing up ready to leave. Anyone who thought this was some type of planned collusion had to have eating mushrooms.

As stated before I was willing to give up a lot of equity to leave a winner.

Your wasting time affects everyone at the table. Your inability to just play cards, instead preferring to hollywood and engage in pointless banter in an attempt to extract every last possible picogram of (perceived) EV out of every single hand (or perhaps just the ones you feel angsty about when you're up), affects everyone at the table. Let me reiterate:



I don't know where you got woman or barnyard animal from. I certainly didn't mention either of those things.

BTW if your intention is to leave, then rack up and leave instead of playing more hands. Problem, solution.

Sounds okay with me. Not collusion and not even soft-playing. OP voluntarily gave up some EV for lower variance by giving out information and the other side chose the +EV option for them (folding). The third party got free information by seeing OP's hand if the villain folded and OP mucked.

I don't know what the previous person's problem was. THis was neither hollywooding nor pointless banter.

You're definitely allowed to tell people to fold. I do it all the time. "Pot's good, I'll take it now."

Did this hand take place by the table by the cage and you were in the 10 seat and the other player in the one? I heard about this.....

I was in 10

the other player was in 1

The player complaining was in 8

It was wed May 5

the table wasn't far from the cage

What did yiu hear?

I won't tell you what I heard, I'll just tell you what I know and what I further believe as a result.

I was at the table during the hand. And you lied..flat out lied about enough of what you wrote below for me to not believe anything you say about the hand and why you did the things you did. The player in the 1 seat...was not Asian. And he did not have a few Asian friends around him, or any friends around for that matter. (though through this lie you tried to make it sound like you couldn't possibly know him or be colluding - at least by your so called definition). It was not obvious it was your last hand. You were not standing during the hand -You were sitting the entire time with a woman behind you. And you were not racked up.

By the way..if you dont doubt I was there....you flopped a set of 9's.

Based on the number of lies you told in your post, I would not be suprised if you were colluding with the the 20 something in the 1-seat. It looked suspicious (thought I did not open my mouth) and the the floor was called over and ruled in the 8-seats favor).

Either way...it looked bad and now it looks worse. If I see you in the room again and see you do that again I will make sure to call it to everyone's attention as well as the same floor person's.

Just play the game straight up for now on please.

hello bitter 8-seat