He should have taken the chop.

In a perfect world, they would have played each other without bias but that’s not how the world works. Did they collude? Absolutely. For anyone to think otherwise is foolish. But I actually put the blame not on Foxen and Bicknell but on Burns. They probably offered a chop for this exact reason. When he refused, he acknowledges the fact that he might be at a disadvantage because they won’t be gunning after one another with the same intensity.

As much as people say that they would have acted completely above board, the reality is much different especially because they are a couple. Could you imagine the heat he would have received for cracking her aces and busting her out of the tournament? Couch time for the rest of the series. Guaranteed.

I actually applaud them for offering a chop. They were open and honest about the situation.

So the WSOP should refer to the up-to-date database of all personal/financial relationships in the poker world?

They could pretty easily make a rule that you can't enter the same event as a significant other/relative/person who has over x% of your action/etc. I agree that enforcing it might not always be that easy, but probably still much easier in general than detecting collusion. If you asked me to rule whether Bicknell/Foxen are in a relationship my answer would be Yes and I feel very confident about it. But if you ask me to rule on whether they colluded in this or other hands, it's obviously much harder to give a confident answer.

Btw I don't think this event was part of WSOP (it was at Venetian).

You mean like when in a 3 player pot with 1 player all-in preflop, and the other two players just checking it down on flop, turn, and river, no matter what cards have fallen, for the sole purpose of collectively trying to knock out the all-in player so both can ladder up?

Are you referring to this kind of "collusion"?............

Checking down in a side-pot is a situation where both players are taking an action that, while it might hurt their chip EV, is beneficial to their own tournament EV.

The collusive incentive of two players playing on a shared bankroll is much different. In this case, situations might arise where a player could sacrifice their own tournament EV to benefit the tournament EV of another player.

This is the biggest differnece between touneys and cash games.

In tournaments, pots you are not involved in can heavily alter your ev/profitability

In cash games, pots you are not involved in don't directly affect your ability to make money.

Why can't we ban them? Not because they're doing this often, but they did it. It happened. Nothing you can do about it. It's on video, and anyone who's played 15 hands of poker and watched the stream, would know that what they saw was bull ****.


I get that 5k is 5k to the MSPT and Venetian, they don't care who has the money. But us as players, should DEFINITELY care. We should be upset that this **** was so blatant and obvious.

I'm not saying ban them from all poker tournaments, but if they do this **** at any venue, ban them at that venue. How is that so hard?

And anyone saying, "do we go after fish for playing bad", is friends with Alex or didn't watch the stream. These were professionals who acted like amateurs. If an amateur checks back the nuts on the river, even an old lady who didn't know better as Steve Zolotaw talked about years ago, she gets a 1 round penalty.

Two people basically tag team the 3rd for 150k, and nothing happens? Gotta love this game

And just to clarify I don't mean ban them for life. I mean like a year ban. Venetian tried banning me for a year for smoking a joint in the parking lot for ****s sakes

And by we, I mean Tournament Directors or anyone with the authority to do so

I wish you'd led with this statement, so I could put what follows in proper context

The live reporting didn’t specify exact chip counts when they started 3-handed play, but roughly:
Alex - 2.095m
Kristin - 1.942m
Kahle - 1.219m

Payouts: $270k, $169k, $120k
Chop: $197k, $192k, $169k

At one point Kahle got to 3m with Alex on 1.4m and Kristin on ~1m.

Kahle’s chop at that point was about $220k. As it turned out h finished 3rd for just $120k.

Not sure anything can be done in a situation like this. I’d insist though that the 2 can’t sit right next to each other so they can whisper sweet nothings in each other’s ear (which they did). Kristin should have been made to move a seat or 2 over, not that this would have really changed anything.

Maybe the 2 should be forced to chop anytime the 3rd player wants.

Some of the posts in this thread are sooooo laughable. I do think spacing them far enough apart so they can't whisper is pretty reasonable. Keep in mind that they were totally transparent, and many "solutions" would just incentivize people to hide relationships instead.

Jesus Christ, people are talking "spacing two people apart"? WTF has this world come to? If you have any reason to suspect two people are actively colluding, how the **** is there nothing you can do about it?

These aren't children these are professional poker players who have cashed for millions, who knew damn well exactly what they were doing.

AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, THE ONLY REASON ALEX FOXXEN AND HIS GIRLFRIEND OFFERED A CHOP, WAS BECAUSE THEY KNEW THEY WOULD COLLUDE

Feel like banning them because they're good at poker and are able to make it 3 handed is not the best idea.

They absolutely should have been spaced apart when play became three handed.

Do you think the Venetian also would have banned you if somebody just told them you might have been smoking a joint in the parking garage?

There’s zero proof anyone colluded here.

offering a straight 3-way split or an ICM chop seems like a perfectly genuine and reasonable offer from them.

It's close to impossible really to not soft-play in some manner on that spot, with the best will in the world. If I'm the 3rd guy there I would just accept that any perceived edge I might have over them is probably nullified by the situation, chop the money and move on. Also saves the other couple a lot of awkwardness too as even if they are trying their absolute best to play it straight up...gonna feel so awkward.

I'm aware of incidents in the past where 3 handed has broken to 2 guys one of whom has a massive financial interest in the other and the guy has just said, look i got 50% of this guy it's impossible to play this fairly so lets chop it up.

I got to 3-handed in a tournament against two buddies. There was too much money on the line to chop (casino wasn't going to pay out different amounts than the prizes, so we would have had to do it on our own). Once I busted one of the guys, the other guy went on stone tilt, and punted pretty bigly headsup, so there can be advantage to be had.

The straight up moral question aside, it still tilts me to this day to be involved in huge equity spots or big cash game pots when im playing against a 'same money' pair or couple. Most often they don't mean to soft play and whatnot or can't help being in the hand together from time to time ofc. but in some instances I've seen blatant collusion to screw 3rd parties such as myself out of a lot of money.

Couldn't have been handled much better. They offered a chop and kahle was cool playing it out knowing the situation. Not like they hid the fact they were a couple. Don't think there's much wrong with couples or friends entering tournaments just inevitably will get deep together some times.

But what if you have a very clear edge, why is it fair that you're forced to be in a situation where you have to take a -EV chop or be put in a 1v2 spot? You shouldn't have to give up equity for a problem the other 2 created.

I really dislike all the replies of "he should have accepted a chop".

Chops in general degrade the integrity of tournament poker, but you have to accept them if everyone agrees, since they could always just always just chop under the table, and doing this in the open is better than doing it in secret.

But pressuring anyone to accept a chop is always wrong. Pressuring someone under the threat of collusion is not just grossly unfair to the player, but harmful to the reputation of poker as a whole.

The casino should really just adopt a rule that two people who are dating cannot enter the same tournament.

These sort of restrictions are commonplace in many professions, where dating creates the potential for dishonest professional incentives.

For example, I am a professor, and I am not allowed to date a student in one of my classes. Now, is it possible that a professor could date one of their students and still grade them fairly? Sure, but the incentive is strong enough that almost all schools have determined this is not worth the risk, and even if the professor was fair, the appearance would still be terrible.

In the same way, it is possible for a couple to play fairly against each other in a tournament, but the incentive to collude is too strong and the appearance is very bad regardless.

It's not like there are a shortage of tournaments in Vegas for both of them to play.

Not allowing romantically involved people to enter a tournament just seems dumb and unenforceable.

IMO, it's just etiquette on the part of the couple to offer a chop, which they did, and it's also a bit of etiquette on the third party to just accept the chop, to avoid an awkward situation for everyone. Nobody asked for this situation, so just move forward with whatever makes the most sense for everyone.
Ok, so there will be situations where a third party is sort of forced into a chop. It's an annoying result to stomach for that one player, but I feel like there are larger issues in poker rn.

This +100
So many abstract lines/questions comes from this ruling making it nightmare to enforce in any way.

You are absolutely correct, if the individual player would have a big edge over the other 2 if the spot was completely straight then it's not fair on that player. At the same time though, the couple haven't done anything wrong - they both entered the same tournament (presumably with no intent to collude anyone) have gotten to a situation where their best interests and the interests of a fair game no longer co-exist so to avoid any uncomfortable situations they offer a chop.

I think that, it's so hard for them to play it completely straight (even though they might genuinely try) that it won't take much "incidental" soft play for the 3rd players perceived edge to evaporate pretty quickly.

Banning romantically involved couples from entering tournaments together sounds great in this context, but how on earth do you draw the line - people sleeping together are fine but if you're "dating" then no? Impossible to implement, all you can do is trust people to have integrity and do the right thing, which I really believe is to offer a chop in the spot this couple did here.