On the AA vs. JJ hand she basically told him what she had on the turn when he bet and she snap called without any thought. She knew when he then bet the river he had her beat. I also agree with others that against any other player he goes all in on the river.

This is just absurd. What is the line of "dating"? What if we are FWB? What if we are on-again, off-again? What if we meet during Day 1, go out to dinner/breakfast and sleep together before Day 2?

Can I enter the same tournament as a decent friend? Can I swap 5% with someone in the tournament? Can I enter the tournament with my best friend? Can I enter with my cousin? My brother? My dad? My horse/backer?

And when you start doing this, you just start incentivizing people to hide their relationships instead of doing what they did and disclosing it.

I could see trying to prevent this in a SNG, for example, but in a tournament with hundreds of entries, it is so rare that this situation will arise that it seems a drastic overreaction to say that no one who is dating can play the same tourney. So now poker couples have to decide which one of them gets to play the WSOPME in a given year?

The professor situation is different for two reasons, for one, there is a difference in power level there, same reason why most workplaces it is OK to sleep with a colleague but not a subordinate. Also, as the professor, you are guaranteed to have the opportunity to unduly influence a grade, whereas 2 people entering a 500 person tournament are extremely unlikely to have any meaningful opportunity to collude.

I had a similar situation happen and I had to explain to the TD she was just a ratchet ho I was banging out with no emotional commitment and dont give a damn if she cashes deeper. It was so awkward.

True. And both staring very intently at each other on the turn and river.

Yes, they should. Also best friends. Same collusion would occur with best friends. And maybe they should extend the rule out to 2nd and 3rd bests friends......because maybe if you are playing with your 4th best friend, you don't like them enough to soft play with each other but would rather bust them. So, yeah, definitely need a rule to ban romantic couples and people who are in the top 3 best friends.

How to handle it better might be to prohibit shared bankrolls from playing in the event, but that'll never happen.

LOL, nice level.

Also, can't wait to see the SJW Riots and Rainbow Protests when a gay couple is banned from registering because, well, they're a couple.........

The number of female participants would drop from 2% to 1% in any given event if people were excluded who had a relationship with another player in the field in the past.

Or would we just prohibit the male partners? But how would we handle LGBT situations?

And are professors banned from playing in an event if one of their students registers?

On a more serious side note, the first thing that would have to be banned were players who have >10% of another player in the tournament and players who have sold more than 10% of their action to the same backer than other players. That would leave some of the bigger buy-in events pretty empty though..

LOL Hilarious!

I agree with all your points.

The couple entered the tournament in good faith and offered a chop in good faith. They did not do anything malicious, yet the situation was still created due to them, even if not intentionally.

You can't out-right ban them from playing, but since the 3rd player had absolute nothing to do with creating the situation, any sacrifice of EV should be from the couple -- it's not "fair" since they technically haven't done anything wrong either, but its "more fair" then putting any of the responsibility on a completely innocent 3rd party.

In what way would we have them give up EV to make it fair? -2% on ICM chop? Idk, the exact answer to that question is incredibly complicated on what exact procedure should/could be in place, I'm simply stating that whatever procedure doe get implemented should be slightly unfavorable to them instead of people saying "he should have taken the chop, his fault".

In summary, very unique and complicated situation with no clear answer on how to prevent it from happening again.

There's a hundred tournaments in Vegas going on right now, and they chose to enter a 180 man 5k at the Venetian. Together. If they solely enter the same tournaments together, then I would doubt that they are both trying to win individually.


They got exactly what they hoped for, dreamed of, and planned. They wanted 1st and 2nd. They got it. How it happened, is what this threads about

Not that I agree with this idea in the first place, but it probably wouldn't have had an impact on this particular situation. They're not a married couple, they are just dating, so they don't have a shared bankroll in any meaningful (or more importantly, enforceable) way.

To Chainsaw's actual question – and thread title, for that matter – I don't really believe much can be done "better" per se. I'll be that naive snowflake whatever who credits Bicknell and Foxen for offering the chop. In doing so, they weren't saying, "Please take this chop, or else we'll team up and collude against you." Rather, they were effectively saying, "Please take this chop, because being human beings we will end up effectively working as a team despite any conscious efforts to do so." (At least, I would HOPE that's why they make such an offer.) So they did exercise at least some duty of care.

One realistic policy I could propose to address what is likely a very, very rare situation*: if you get down to three-handed play and two players have a pre-existing relationship (a term which can be defined as needed), the TD automatically informs the third player of the situation and offers a chop. In other words, take that onus away from the other two players.

You could even offer that third player a little "sweetener," in which he/she receives a little bit more than what a straight ICM calculation warrants. Yes, the couple would lose a percent or two in equity, but they would know it before entering the tournament. I'd rather have them go in with this slight disadvantage than the outright banning suggested by some people in this thread.


[*Note: it could be four-handed, five-handed, etc. In fact, it could also be mandatory when reaching the final table that any such relationships are then disclosed by the TD. And pre-existing relationships could also include situations in which a backer and horse end up at the FT together.

Put simply, there is some wiggle room as to how this policy would be designed and implemented. I'm only giving an example.]


EDIT:

Jeeez, all I had to do is scroll down a bit more and I would have seen this. GMTA, though!

I can behind the idea of banning 2nd and 3rd best friends, but I think w first best friends it's pretty severe to ban them, come on, that's your bestie. Don't ban them I say.

So, what if these two are entering every tournament together and playing nothing else, there's nothing wrong with that?

When playing a tournament and you see someone you know playing the tournament, people will say, " Hey good to see ya, hope you get 2nd behind me". That's competitive conversation between friends that doesn't implicate colluding or cheating, and says that both players want to win individually.

That's not the case in this situation. "They" want to win. Not wish the other luck in getting second place.

How do people not see this?

Yeh, well you're right for sure. He should probably get a slightly +ICM deal, obviously if he would have a natural advantage then he certainly deserves extra, but the main reason is that he's sort of forced into the deal - "basically we should chop it up or we might accidentally cheat you" even with the best will in the world, and i think really it's that they should be compensated for. (not trying to figure out who has what edge etc)

So yeah basically, very difficult situation this - a stunning conclusion

Happy to help

But there is a difference between seeing someone you casually know and 2nd/3rd best friends.

Not in terms of winning individually. Swapping with friends 10% is one thing, agreeing that you'll chop half the winnings no matter what in the same 180 man, before the tourney starts, is a different thing. They intended to get 1st and 2nd in this tournament, together as a couple. I have a huge problem with that. I might be mad because I"m broke and getting no pussy right no too. It's problem...

But seriously, I watched every ****ing hand of that live stream 3 handed. That's why I'm really mad. I can't imagine many others ITT watched the full live stream.

This is poker, we come up with solutions to spots all the time. I'm not saying these 2 are the new norm of cheaters. I'm not saying that these two are even bad people. I'm sure they don't steal, and I'm sure all of you have had a conversation with them and thought they were oh so nice.

What I'm saying is, that these 2 were in a situation that will come up again and again. And again and again, the 3rd player will be cheated out of the money. We use our heads in poker to find out whether a situation or spot is profitable. I find it amazing that something like this comes up, and because there isn't an equity calculator to simplify it, immediately we say, "Oh, nothing you can do about it"

**** that. People anted since the beginning of poker and now we have the big blind ante structure. People love it. We're poker players and this is a sticky spot. A very very different situation. There's no reason why a solution can't be found to combat this. It may not be simple, but a solution is out there.

If banning couples from entering the same tourney seems crazy, I agree. But if we see that every couple who gets in this situation, does the exact same thing, then it seems much less crazy. Horses backed by stables, will not do this every time, and everyone knows that. Two people who are ****ing? That's a different story

So a situation occurred, they offered a generous 3way chop straight up, dude affected by it declined nor did he counteroffer, they played. Chainsaw makes a thread about it ?

I agree. Don't ban besties. But BFFs and PICs – you better head to separate card rooms.

I would not support a ban on who can and cannot enter a tournament, that's just ridiculous. Would such a ban include the Main Event? How about the Seniors Event? Where would you draw the line? Can the Mizrachi brothers play the same event?

I'd say do nothing unless the 3rd party speaks up. If you are the potentially aggrieved party, then you need to speak up, not to make any accusations but just to alert the TD. The first thing to do is if ensure the couple are not seated such that they can whisper to each other, as Alex and Kristin did. Second, a chop must be offered immediately and it's up to third party to accept or not. Other than that, not sure much can be done.

For the last ****ing time they only offered a chop because they were going to collude and they knew it. Have you played with Alex? Do you think he's chopping 3 handed with 30bbs and the chip lead?

I've played with him and I don't

How about this for a possible solution, couples are allowed to enter the same tournament, but couples aren't allowed to play at the same table, and if they enter the tournament, then the highest they both can get, is 1st and 9th.

Full tilt did this with their Multi Entry tourneys. If you had two stacks, and you made it to the final table with multiple stacks, you'd get 9th place money for one, and the other would keep playing. The shortest stack gets 9th place.

Full tilt might of combined your chips but they were ****ed up and that's not something I'd call for. But this way, a couple could enter the same tournament if they wanted, without ever causing a disadvantage to the other individual players. Why a couple is entering a 5k 180 man together in the middle of summer in Vegas is beyond me. But again, I'm sure they're good people. Honestly they could of done this by pure accident. But what happened happened. And the situation isn't right...

They'd still win 5x+ their buyin tho, plus have their significant other still in the tourney. That's awesome. And I say 5x, because 9th place in the tourney they played in was 24k and the buy in was 5k. If they played the colossus 9th would get like 55k+. And they'd be rooting for their significant other.

That may not seem easy to police with backing groups, but for one, backed players and players ****ing are two completely different things. It's nowhere near as weird to see backed players play at the same final table. Although, the tournament directors should watch more carefully, especially when it's live streamed and talked about non stop. I mean how much rake do they take? How about give a round penalty or some sort of penalty if they spot soft play. I mean the TD at this final table stood around for hours doing nothing. The third player talked about them cheating. And still nothing


Just a possibility but think about it like this, even if Alex and Kristen are perfect and have never done anyone wrong, or done anything wrong in their life. They look horrible in this situation. It can make two of the cleanest pros look horrible. It's gotta be fixed

The other side of the argument which hasn't really been covered.

Using the JJ vs AA hand as an example, suppose the guy went all in with JJ, and it's on the girl with Aces. Im sure thats actually a -EV call overall for her, so would it be perfectly fine for her to fold? Nothing collusive has really happened she's just in a spot where if she calls she loses money - in the same way if someone very tight shoves 25 BB from UTG you can't call in the SB with 96s and expect to make a profit.

Are we to expect her to make a play which directly costs her money to essentially protect the EV of a third party who she doesn't know? Kahle Burns might be a super nice guy or might be a scumbag who would steal EV from her in a heartbeat if possible (not saying either are true of course just devils advocate)

I dont know how much i agree with what I've written, just musing.

Yeah this was just straight up collusion, not even implied. At least in this case other players could have known about it which isn't always the case with backing/swap agreements all over the place.

Not much you can do about it other than calling them out and declaring them scumbags. In this one case they might not care at all but maybe those idiotic stables etc suffer some damage if we just call them out at the tables.

Doug polk just uploaded an entire video on this topic.