Your situation is completely different. Read Drew's interview on Pokernews. He admits to multiple conversations with the guy and details of how and when were discussed.

Sorry bud but Drew colluded - not even a question at this point.

. I think it is like if 2 people say they are going to rob a bank no auctual crime has taken place until the bank is robbed. They agreed to collude but until they auctualy do it no real offense was commited.

No 'bud' i'm sorry, If there is no question as to whether Drew colluded how can you explain the preceding 500 posts? This is not exactly cut and dry and your believing it is makes you seem foolish. Couple of points:

-Drew makes it clear in his pokernews interview that he isn't sure if villian is telling the truth -

What if somebody tells you they are going to rob a bank and give you the money. This doesn't make any sense and you don't believe the person so you don't report it to authorities....If the guy goes ahead and robs the bank, have you commited a crime?

You could be charged as an accomplice to the crime if you failed to report it and other people heard it and reported it. Drews situation is that people heard them conspiring and it was reported to the TD and then the TD, survalence, security and MGC just watched and waited to see if they were just talking or would auctualy collude. Drew has been caught changing his story from 1 conversation to 2 and it has been said they met 3 times. So how can you believe anything he says now.

I don't necessarily believe anything he says. He may have been involved in blatant collusion. I just haven't seen any evidence of that. Sure he added details that weren't in his original story. That isn't good but it alone doesn't make him guilty.

I have to go back to that presumption of innocence thing. I just don't think anybody in this thread has enough information to be sure of Drew's guilt. I also don't 100% trust the judgement of WSOPC staff and believe there is a reasonable possibility they f'ed this situation up.

This is a poker tourney not a court of law where a jury or judge decides your guilt based on beyond a reasonable doubt. It was a decision by Harrahs and the wsopc staff and MGC had been called in and was on site at the time and evidently they did not object. The decision was based on players statements, Drews statement and the audio/video tape.

aggie:

If you really believe Drew did nothing wrong and he couldn't be expected to report a crime before a "crime" was committed, I propose that you volunteer to participate in an "experiment" which will validate your theory. At the next WSOP circuit event, you and I will both buy in to the Main Event. During the first break, because I am dazzled by your spectacular play, I will approach you, tap you on the shoulder, and whisper in your ear "Hey aggie, I'm really impressed with your play - you are one really great poker player!" During the second break, I'm going to approach you again and say, "You know aggie, it's getting late and my wife is busting my chops about going home but I don't know what to do with my chips." During the third break, I will approach you a third time and say "aggie, I've gotta leave pretty soon. I haven't got a really big stack, only about a quarter of your stack, but you've been playing so great - running over the table with your super aggressive style - that it just wouldn't be right for any of the other nits at the table to get my chips. Tell you what buddy, I'm gonna give you my chips!"

For whatever reason, I'm having trouble figuring out how to give you my chips, so I notice you getting up from the table and walking away. I approach you one more time and say, "Hey aggie, I'm not sure of the best way to do this. Tell you what, when you're in the big blind and I'm in the small blind, if the table folds around to me I'll bet with any two cards. If you've got any hand at all, raise me and I'll go all-in. Then you can call and I can go home! Good luck man. I hope you win the tournament because you deserve to win. You're a really great poker player, one of the best I've ever seen!" You won't have to say a word to any of this. You can just nod your head, say "I don't know man," or say whatever you want. You will be busy trying to figure out what the hell is the matter with this crazy bald-headed man.

I'm going to try and make sure we have all these "chats" away from the table but the dealer has really good ears, as do a couple of the players at the table, and I have a really high-pitched voice so there's no guarantee that several of those folks won't overhear our clever plan. Don't worry though, I'll try my best to keep it quiet. (This doesn't concern any of them, so why should they give a damn?)

Now, going by the way you interpret the rules, no "crime" has been committed since I have [not yet] dumped my chips to you. Since no crime has been committed - up to this point it's all just talk - you won't rat me out to the tournament director. (You're too smart for that, aren't you?) After a round of uneventful hands, the perfect situation finally comes up. I'm in the small blind and you're in the big blind. The entire table folds to me, so I bet, you raise, and I go all in. You call and turn over a pair of whatever - any pair will do. I must be one of the dumbest poker players in the world since I just went over the top with 7-2 offsuit. Your pair of squadush holds up and I quickly beat a path to the door since my smoking hot wife and I haven't made whoppee in a week and I'm really eager to get home.

If you really believe Drew did nothing wrong, then how could you be doing anything wrong by calling my all-in shove? If you agree with that, then you'll have no objection to being a silent participant in this experiment. After I've departed the scene, we'll see whether you get disqualified and 86'd from all Harrah's properties and barred (for life) from participating in future WSOP events. Wanna do it?

Former DJ

P.S. I'm being totally facetious in proposing this experiment. I'm just wondering if you can figure out where the "crime" occured in this hypothetical situation - or if you can even identify the crime?

The reason there are 500 posts is because the topic is interesting and most people WERE supportive of Drew based on his first and only post here. After his interview, his story changed and his credibility was shot.

Again, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck --HEY GUESS WHAT???

IT'S A DUCK!!!

Former DJ,

Great hypothetical - lol - I loved it!!!!

It's amazing how there still are some Drew apologists out there even after his damning Pokernews interview.

Okay, i got ya...Now i believe it's a totally black and white situation and couldn't possibly be in a grey area....Your hypothetical situation which is quite a bit different from what Drew says happened totally cleared things up for me....Totally on your side now. Thanks!

Change the cards to AK and 22. Now what?

KQ and 77. Now what?
QJs and 88. Now what?
JTs and 99. Now what?
A7s and TT. Now what?
A5o and K9s. Now what?

etc...

This thread has gotten so stupid.

No one cares what anyone says they would do in the same situation, you weren't in this situation. No one cares about the various theories people have for what "really" happened, we all have access to a couple versions of events, there's no need to make up more. No one cares about Former DJ's fairly obvious resentment of younger players, we get it, young people are stupid and have no respect. This isn't about criticizing the floor, or the dealers, or live players, or online players, and it sure as **** isn't about the appropriateness of anonymous sources (and you might be too old to know this Former DJ, but, fwiw the NYT did a fairly large revision of their policies a few years back, right around the time that one guy got caught for making up a few stories and faking heaps of quotes, and right near the top of their list of changes was massively reducing the number of anonymous sources they use, as they found it a practice that was too difficult to oversee and that it lead to lazy and often inaccurate reporting, not that there's any justification, outside of being an employee of the casino, for a source to remain anonymous in a situation like this).

Further, I think it's telling that, while tons of people have come forward claiming that they would act differently in this situation, no one has come forward talking about a similar situation. Given the age and (presumed) experience of many of the posters saying that Drew was acting unethically, I find it hard to believe that none of them have ever been in a similar situation. So I'd like Former DJ, Allen Kessler, big tex, and whoever else to wrack their respective brains for the time when they actually did what they're claiming they'd do.

Anyway, I'm going to ask my questions again, in hopes that someone will actually attempt to answer them with more than a condescending reference to a some irrelevant quote. I'll narrow them down, though, since obv lots of questions didn't work last time.

1. Has a floor ever had anyone report something like this to them?

2. What would be the floor's response if such a thing were reported? Can someone give me the rule for what's supposed to happen when someone claims someone else is trying to collude with them? Can someone be punished based solely on hearsay?

3. How can we expect McIlvain to report something for which he can't necessarily expect villain to get punished? What's the incentive?

People are asking McIlvain to go and complain to the floor about something that will likely have no consequences for the person that's actually at fault (and who has received virtually no criticism in this thread). What's the point of reporting it? What are the realistic consequences of reporting such a thing?

I have never been in situation like that but I've only been playing tourneys for a little over 2 years I was always a cash game player until Jan of 2010.

agree with this as well as zachvac posts

hell, the older live players don't even understand what collusion hurts them. They seem to be fearing one guy dumping his stack/eliminated to increase the stack of the other. What???

It's the soft-plays among the older players from an almost exclusive live background that raises my eyebrows the most in these events.

Yep, MyTurn, you hit the nail on the head - that's the problem with all us senior citizens ... we just don't like all these super great, immensely talented, highly skilled, superior "young guns" who run circles around us at the poker table. It's nothing but frustration for us old folks to be outclassed by all you great twenty-somethings who leave us choking on your dust. In fact, if there's one thing I could do over in my life, it would be to go back and relive my younger days when I was a whippersnapper. (It's always great fun driving "old people" nuts.)

Now, as far as us "old folks" being concerned about collusion and cheating, of course you're right about that too. We don't give a s**t about cheating because we know nearly every poker player cheats. Heck, some genius even said somewhere in this thread that "95 percent" of poker players cheat. I even recall reading a recent article in some poker publication where a fellow named "Drew" related that most poker players are "horrible people." This Drew guys sounds like a real smart fellow ...

You're a very astute fellow too, MyTurn. I'm sure I'll see you on the final table of the WSOP Main Event later this year where you will dazzle us with your brilliant play. (Please say "Hello" to Ben Lamb and Pius Heinz for me.) I extend my warmest and sincerest "Congratulations" to you in advance. I'm glad you straightened me out on all this.

Former DJ

Nope, the reason the few people changed their mind was because Drew seems to be an ******* based on the interview. Definitely no argument there from me but I'm just not convinced he's a colluding *******.

Every single person I've heard use this saying has been a complete ****** devoid of any logical thoughts. You seem to be no exception. In fact the irony of it is that the phrase is a logical fallacy in itself.

Also I'm gonna assume that the people crying collusion (apparently with the exception of bigtex, who although I believe is being a bit harsh on drew, seems to at least have a brain. Although then he said he switched from cash games to tourneys which makes me think he must not have a brain ) don't have much experience playing live tourneys.

Also just because of icm I don't even think Drew getting a 70/30 for his entire stack is even that +ev. Lotta people being super results oriented but these facts are the main reasons I think even DQing him from the event was harsh, let alone also a total 86:

1. If he really wanted to give him chips and avoid detection, it'd be pretty easy to just tell Drew to call pre/flop/turn then shove river and he'd fold. Even if people suspect collusion and look at hands it wouldn't show anything as long as villain doesn't have the nuts. He could honestly say he was bluffing and had to fold to the river shove.
2. Everyone at the table had their ev increased (even if it's small) because of that hand.
3. If you look at the actual ev of the hand, I'm assuming Drew's ev didn't even go up that much. ~1/3 of the time he loses and doubling up definitely does not double his ev in the tourney.
4. Drew is being completely honest about all these conversations. If he thought it was actually collusion he would either admit it or try to cover it up. So unless it turns out he's lying about what was said (which seems unlikely because as I mentioned if there was more conversation/planning they would have just picked what I mentioned in #1), he clearly had no reason to believe the guy was actually telling the truth.
5. In the discussion they actually had, the "plan" was actually something completely different from what happened.

Also the point needs to be made that rulings such as this are really bad for attracting new players to the game. There's already enough **** to deal with when transitioning from home games to the casino. You have to make sure not to string bet, remember that oversized chips are calls, keep track of action and only act in turn, are probably concentrating on not giving off tells, etc. I realize this is nvg and most of you can't afford 1.6k but it being a ME there are actually probably a decent amount of people who are playing it as one of their first live tourneys.

There were probably some satties and it's reasonable that someone with a good job would treat themselves to a tourney in that price range to start out, maybe after playing a couple low-stakes dailies or w/e, but the bottom line is the reason these things are considered pretty soft in the first place is there are a lot of people who are inexperienced with casino play. So now you have these people worried that they could be banned from playing as well as DQ'd from their first big live tourney just because they don't report a ****** telling them something? They have enough to deal with. The sad part is the people saying this is a good DQ/86 are probably the same ones who are likely to be angling tourists every chance they get.

I play cash games about 40-50 hours weekly at the Horseshoe in Tunica except when traveling for circuit events, have played in about 12 circuit events with about 12 cashes with 3 final tables including a main event final table. So I play more than most people. As far as being harsh on Drew no more than anyone else that breaks a major rule. I don't believe he set out to do collusion but when offered to him he could not turn down an opportunity for free chips.

RELAX FRANCIS.

I liked the damn quote so I used it.

Tell you what Mr. Mensa- the fact you have over 10,000 posts on this site and will insult posters who are new and trying to enjoy what 2+2 has to offer shows me what kind of dirtbag you actually are.

Oh wait, I'm not being obtuse am I Zacheepoo??

huge lol at a 70/30 not being at least a decent way to dump. Pretty sure tournament players are more than happy to get it in 70/30 as much as possible.

+1 !

The old dirty cop do not seem to understand basic tournament concepts.

I can bet you these geezers soft-play eachother on the edges of the rulebook

The other 500 posts you've made where you went out of your way to let everyone know how solid your "WSOP Circuit Reg" status is wasn't enough, so thanks for the refresher.

FormerDJ,

given you think internet poker is dirtier than live poker, I probably will not find much common ground with you as I disagree completely.

DumpThroat is an A+ gimmick name