What an awkward spot. Kahle Burns was three handed at Venetian $5k ft for a quarter million 1st prize vs Bicknell and Foxen pokers latest power couple.

They were generous to offer a 3way chop, but he declined, and now accusations from pros on twitter including James Obst and Christopher Kruk say Burns wasnt given a fair chance. For the amount of time I viewed the 3 handed stream, I really didn't witness any impropriety.

How should a situation like this be resolved, when 2 of the final three are basically one?

I only saw part of the 3 handed stream but it was uncomfortable to even view it.

It clearly wasnt the fault of the Venetian or MSPT, but maybe there was a better way for the final 3 to resolve this awkward situation.

Honestly I think there is nothing to do there but put a cubicle wall between the 2 lovers. If they weren't part of the same table spread for the most part of the tourney then there's not much room for cheating but for sure put some kind of barrier between them.


If a couple has been together for a while then they know themselves left and right, blind poker is the only way to go or its just collusion town. Humans that synched up will offer nothing but trouble when it comes to that situation.


Neural wifi, that's a real term offered by professional brain experts. They have it and the 3rd guy doesn't.......... Nuff said.

2 lovers, 2 friends, 2 roommates, 2 co-workers, 2 action exchanged players in that 3 handed play, what difference? Probably some soft-playing happening in each of theses situations.
How this situation is more special and/or new?

I don't think there need be any rules against it if it not something outrageous like checking strong hands to player three times every time, folding to each other every bet very strong hands, signalizing hands in some way or similar.

Ya, neural wifi is 100% if they been together for a long enough time meanwhile the shared action players may not be that synched. If they are close freinds than its the same deal and they know each other enough to have that "feel" of what they are doing.

It would be super interesting to have a neuroscience expert explain why this is ****ed up on so many levels in both situations. It's like knowing how a used car drives, you just know whats up with the machine that is in action 100x more then the next person.


No bueno.....

Choose one, please.

That AA vs JJ hand is so strange. You can see it here:

https://twitter.com/Joeingram1/statu...54974741139457

Some reactions from top dogs:

Christopher Kruk: Come on. I agree knowing a strategy can allow for adjustments but these are both aggro players.Foxen is open Q5o on the button and Krissy is opening J2o but somehow we have AA vs JJ on J43K5 and the equilibrium is so tight that you can’t get 2 pot bets in? That’s a load of ****.

James Obst: This hand just indicative of the implicit soft-playing relationship meta we saw throughout FT. Can you imagine this playing out 3handed in the SHRB? It's potentially a huge problem in small field tourneys - happened to me once & is upsetting to watch happen to a mate

Two decent players playing the same money will have a nice edge against the third, if they choose to use it, especially at a final table, even if they are not signalling and never saw each other play before.

Ask Doyle Brunson.

This is basically it. You can't avoid something like this. If you are a normal human being, the urge to soft-play your "friend" and strong-play the 3rd person is just too much to overcome. To offer a chop is a nice gesture in that situation, which Bicknell did.

If your horse is a much better player than you, the chip dump temptation also comes into play.

If Burns was worried about the situation he shoulda just taken 3way chop offer.

I was in a single table at bellagio once for a 10k seat. It got down to me and Chad Brown and his then girlfriend Vanessa Rousso. Right away they could tell I was uncomfortable and offered to chop the seat value 3 ways.

I accepted without hesitation.

If he was playing against 2 players playing to win, why would he? He'd basically just be admitting he thinks he's going to lose to "them"

If he normally doesn't chop, then he shouldn't chop if things are normal

Tricky spot. This is a unique situation, as 2 pro's who are good friend/talk strat are likely still going to play their A-game vs eachother. They were clearly both playing very tight/passive against eachother and not aiming to knock the other out.

Do I think it was pre-concieved or malicious? No. However it's still not right. That being said, I don't know what the "correct" answer is. I don't know if it's reasonable to say they cannot enter the same tournament. Kruk's tweets had great points. It's not on Burns to be forced to take a deal, but is it on them to always chop that situation?, if for example the 3rd player is a rec and they clearly have an edge? What if the 3rd player is the undisputed best tourney player in the world -- should they now be forced to give up some equity so that the better pro doesn't lose equity for it being 2v1?

Here's the part that really gets me though.
Foxen's comment on the hand afterwards was that they know the other person is playing so tight pre that her calling range should only be kings, and she said she folded because Foxen has 0 bluff. Both of these comments are disingenuous, they both clearly know these statements are blatantly wrong if not flat out lies. If you know somebody is playing that tight, the correct strategy is to become more aggressive against them, yet we never saw that sort of adjustment.

The point being is they were both not playing to win against each-other, and they both knew it -- their explanations were meant to appease the general population. The only people who will care and know their responses are hot air is those of us on 2+2 who will talk about it in great length for a week and then forget it ever happened.

This is common knowledge Chainsaw.

How in the world does this guy turn down the chop?

To answer the thread question, anonymous final tables or possibly some type of committee system that monitors and penalizes collusion in real time are likely only ways to prevent 'situations like these.'

tbh I really don't blame these two for what happened, hands like the JJ/AA shouldn't have ever happened, bc we live in the real world and THE DUDE SHOULD NEVER TURN DOWN THE CHOP HERE.

**as to the committee system, I think it could be interesting if a panel was able after the JJ/AA hand to penalize in terms of prize pool rather than chips, i.e. 3rd player in this situation is awarded mandatory extra 3BI or something from payouts of offending players. Additionally final table play is reviewed and prize pool is held for a short amount of time before being paid to assure play and penalties are fair. It would be tough and revolutionary to figure out this type of system, but you have to think it would be effective. In terms of SHRB you could have mandatory reporting of swaps/interest and bans/penalties for offenders.

not a unique situation. very common just with friends not usually a couple. The germans do it all the time in the high rollers.

The thing is there is always plausible deniability. You can take a passive line with a strong hand if you think villain is bluffing, or just for pot control if you think villain is strong. Except for something crazy like folding the nuts there is always a case to be made for any action, even if it does look suspicious.

Soooooo many issues with this idea its not even funny....

Who decides who sits on the panel?
Who pays for said panel?
What qualifications should be required to be eligible to sit on a panel?
What happens if the panel is not unanimous in their thinking?
Would there be an appeals process?
What damage is done to the game from the thoughts of 'I have the nuts but what will the panel think if my opponent has the 2nd nuts vs the bottom of his/her range'?
How would this be replicated in a fair and consistent way across hundreds/thousands of card rooms across the country and/or worldwide?

Give me another 10 seconds and I can likely think up another dozen reasons why its just not workable.

But things aren't 'normal' and can't be 'normal' in a situation like that.

The right thing for the couple to do is offer a chop to the third party. That's what happened.

The only thing the tournament can do is to strongly encourage the couple to offer a chop in case they aren't willing to do it on their own. Of course they can't be forced to chop, but the casino can threaten to not let them play there in the future.

Nobody can stop implicit collusion. That's just not possible, there's absolutely no way to prove any wrong doing unless one player checks behind the nuts on the river, which isn't allowed anyway. Everything else can be filed under meta game aspects, even folding AA preflop.

We're going start penalizing players for poor poker plays? Great idea!

lol

We don't know anything about the offer. The right thing to do is be ecstatic that you are 2/3rds of the last 3 players and offer the 3rd player a small premium over ICM.

No reason the 3rd player should be forced to take straight equity.

This should be a rare occurence(for any 2 players at least) and the premium won't hurt them that much in the long run. Get a deal done if possible.

I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I've never worried about signaling and things like that.

Its important not to confuse the issue here. Everyone needs to understand we are talking about the difficulty of these 2 players knocking each other out because of how they may be playing against each other.

Maybe I'm a dumbass and have no idea how to play tourney poker, but how did the AA vs JJ hand not go all in. I thought that it would go all in on the turn.

Obviously the correct metastrategy is for the third wheel to plant seeds of doubt about the relationship.

"Oh, you two are dating? That's weird, I thought I saw him/her out the other night with..."

+1

the only thing to do here is make it known that these people are scumbags. name and shame

how dumb can u be, if u look down at JJ 3handed its not the time to collude on tv, u have to get it in to avoid this thread.

any attempt at policing personal relationships wont work and only brings more problems.

If somebody is three-handed for a six-figure payout, worrying about a potential message board thread with under 1000 views is probably not very high on their list of concerns.