Im not a HU sitngo reg, im a live cash reg. Sometimes I play hu sitngos tho, and have a winning ROI in them. I have faced teams occasionally and a few times I faced the same team. I noticed that while they appeared to be flipping they actually weren't. They put all there chips in the middle preflop in one of the first 3 or 4 hands, but I think some of these teams if they want to promote a better play do a an unfair flip, where they might let the first hand or 2 go until the better player has the best of it before they go in. They know they can only let a few hands go by before its obvious so they don't get to many hands to look at before they do this, like I said usually they they flip in the first 2-4 hands. While some teams who
a) either follow the rules to a tee or
b) have equal strength players

might not do this, but it is a pain in the ass to have to open up the other table in every 4 man I play to check if they are a team and if they flip the first hand or the second hand.

To trinh or others who play in teams who have chimed in, I'm not sure where I stand on allowing teams, but if they allow it I do feel if even once a player notices that the money goes in on a hand that is not the absolutely very first hand of the match that you should not be allowed to play these as a team anymore.

So whoever faces Trinh etc make sure they flip the first hand every time and report them if they don't.

Then play HU matches and stay away from 4 mans.



No, I really wouldn't. But these forums would be much more enjoyable if the mods would temp-ban people who have to insult or call others names just to make a point.

But I guess thats too much to ask...

Good to see that ethics in online poker can reach new depths.

These days I expect any angle that can add .0X% EV to any play, regardless of the ethics involved, to be used and defended voraciously by a crew of 2p2ers.

This "team play" in HU SNGS does not pass the smell test.
It is so open to abuse that it surely would be abused even if it was strictly monitored.
Given that no action was taken for chipdump in OP's HH, I doubt it is strictly monitored.

Seems like Stars can't see the forest for the trees on this one.

you're pretty ignorant you know

Saying that the "victim" has to win 2 games vs the team's 1 game is not looking at the big picture at all. Of course the team will win a lot more times than when they would lose. When they DO lose, they lose 3 times as much. There is no advantage gained from the team by doing this. The only thing they gain is more volume in at a miniscule advantage versus the variance of HUSNG. As a grinder, I want to lower my variance as much as possible. So I sacrifice my investment to profit ratio to do so.

Let's take roulette as an analogy. A column bet is simply put, a bet that the ball lands on 1/3rd of the numbers [exemption of 0/00]. A player can bet 2 out of 3 of the columns, and thus, have a higher PERCENTAGE of wins, but he will always lose hard when it lands on the column he did not choose. By your logic, the player has an unfair advantage, but in actuality he does not.

Come on OP, It happens in real life too. In 8 Mile Eminem had to battle rap the other gang the entire way. He didnt get a break either. They could study his tendencies too and develop a strategy against him. All you can do is keep your head held high and eat your spaghetti, spaghetti, spaghetti.

So I wrote to Stars to explain the situation and they sent my mail to a specialist so that he/she could investigate the matter. This is their response.

_________________________

Hello Trinh,

Thank you for your email.

We appreciate your time taken explaining this matter. Please be advised, we
do not condone the dumping of chips to circumvent transfer limits or under
any other circumstances. We must stress that any future activity like this
will leave us with no other option than to take further action.

I can confirm that your transfer limits have been increased in order to help
resolve this matter.

If you require any further assistance, please do not hesitate in contacting us.

Regards,

Ryan M
PokerStars Security

Epic analogy ITT.

When someone bets roulette, they know they are against the house. If the 4 man lobby stated "Team Play allowed" I wouldn't have a problem with it. But like all the other people who are unfamiliar with these rules, at first glance we say "Whoa, that's not right".

After listening to you guys explain the deal, I'm must admit I'm not as concerned as I was at first glance, but as a previous poster stated "It doesn't pass the smell test".

Instead of complaining when you have no clue how it really affect the state of the game, try to figure if fish like to find game faster (thanks to some people teaming in those) or if they feel cheated cause of that if 1>2 stars wont change anything.
Allowing teaming in 4 man increase traffic for everyone, full tilt made a different choice and 4 man got really low traffic.
As chiry stated stars HU are really different from ftp, ftp lobby looks like hu cash one with ****load of regs waiting for the fish(do you think fish like to see a sea of shark waiting for them ?), while stars dont have ****load of games waiting for the fish but some 4 man with some teams,
Either OP is +ev vs his opponent or he isnt but that has nothing to do with the fact that they are teaming but more with the fact that they are more likely winning players.
Ofc they can watch your game and gain ev, but you gain more ev from paying 2.5% rake than they would with 5% rake and some sort of unreliable read on you

4 man sng are like playing double your limit with half the rake and longer game and higher variance

1 man get more ev playing alone cause of the rake,2 man have same ev as in a 2 man but with less variance and lower hourly (if they dont multitable alot), 3 man only gain is the possibility to have a game going when they wouldnt otherwise since they lose ev and hourly compared to playing alone.

If your main concern is that fish feel cheated dont worry it s pokerstars concern more than yours, if your concern is that people are cheating i think you are missleaded

Team play in this spot should be prohibited because it sets a bad precedent for every other spot that it gives an unfair advantage. Regardless, allowing team play should be explicitly stated in the tournament rules.

My smell test kinda tell me a random donkament winner shouldnt play a guy that spend his days in the 5k husng lobby and they still play adonis or skilled sox.

"allowing team play" in tournament rules would make it more shady than it is and would prolly encourage more ******ed stuff than it would prevent. You add relevent rules not rules that will only make a situation worse with people more likely to have bad behaviors mentioned before, only important rule in that case is 'chip dumping isnt allowed' that s all, that s pretty much the only rule they need and can enforce.

Taking skill out of the equation, and for the sake of this lets say there is no rake. In a winner take all 4 player HU shootout you must win the tourney 1/4 times to break even. Because you are only putting up one buy in. They have to win the tourney 3/4 times to break even. So in that sense they have no edge.

ofcourse as we know there is skill involved. If they were good players and they were team playing/ ghosting or whatever. I can see that they can have an edge. But if you were good enough to beat those games I would guess you will be better than the other three, otherwise why would they be cheating? If that is the case in the long run you could still probably beat the team and if it were me, I would not really care.

Should obv be illegal. This will kill the games in the long run. BTW I wouldn't be surprised if this "teamplay" is using team viewer.

I can imagine all three guys chatting up about weaknesses during the first match.

I guess Stars should prohibit this for optical reasons. That being said, this is a pretty low rent way to gain some sort of advantage. Mostly regs at that level, so the advantage of sweating for 7 minutes has to be pretty minimal.

To everyone saying..."If youre good enough just beat them" thats just a stupid argument thats not even worth my time addressing. I usually play 16-24 tables of NLHE. I decided to play Sit N Gos on this particular evening and had no idea that you could play as a 3 man team in a 4 person sit n go. This is one of the more expensive sit n gos Ive played recently and to find out I was getting worked by a team stealing my EV is what is so troubling here. Its very simple....I have to play a 1st round match.....they do not.....they get to scout my 1st round match.....I do not get to scout their 1st round match....that is what is wrong with this situation. Not only am I not able to get reads on my opponents....but I could very possibly get a bad read on my 2nd round opponent thinking his 1st round match was a real all in and super light call and not a sham match. How am I supposed to know that the 1st match is just a sham and doesn't even matter. Don't you see the implications of having heads up matches going on where teamates are playing each other with no implications as to the winner?

Just because this rule would be hard to enforce does not mean teams should be allowed in 4 person HU SNGs. Multiaccounting and many different rules of online poker are very hard to enforce, but that doesn't mean that they are allowed.

By using stars' analogy in the examply they send me 127 out of 128 teams in a tourney could be working together. Now extrapolate that theory out and realize that if I am forced to play a real match every round that my opponents can scout, and all of their matches are just shams....do you really think I am still at the same EV as I would be facing 127 random accounts? The answer is clearly no. In a 4 man HU SNG they definitely gain an edge and that edge is just magnified when you use the 127 team examply. I really hope stars changes this rule, this makes no sense to me. Either that or explicity state that this kind of action is allowed in the lobby or something.

Imagine if this was a live 4 person HU SNG. All 4 opponents sit down at 2 serperate table side by side. I start my match vs random, and on the other table the two guys go all in and call blind, then the winner gets up and proceeds to watch my entire heads up match. If I won my 1st round match do you really think it would be fair that my 2nd round opponent got to stand ont he side and watch my whole match while I had no opportunity to do the same??

For everyone making the argument I have to win 2 matches and they have to win only 1 out of 2 that really has no bearing. The large issue at hand here is that pstars allows for the other 1st round match to be a sham while I am forced to play a 1st round match they can scout. Even if my opponents can pick up small tendancies in that 1st match they may be able to use that to their advantage against me in the final round....where as I have no opportunity to do the same.

I really think stars just dropped the ball here and I think if this issue makes it high enough up their management chain that this rules will be changed as it makes no sense to me at all. Stars obviously loves these guys paying 3x the rake but they need to realize how wrong this rule is.

yeah and they should hire 25 rocket scientist to find leak in your opponent plays... you overestimate potential edges in husng, your underestimate the huge loss of ev from 3 people focusing on one game instead of playing and if i had to bet 3 people taking decision over 1 live is a bad idea and more confusing than anything, you could argue that the most skilled guy could take every decision but i doubt that would be + ev overall, since the guy could play alone and get more profits, that might be a valid point at higher stake with less action overall

I admit the edge they gain is small....but you also must admit that THEY DO GAIN AN EDGE, and even if its the smallest amount of EV it makes the situation wrong.

It makes me sad that people on a poker/gambling forum think that an edge is meaningless.

Ohh noes you want me to admit that having some information help, ofc it does, is it significant in that case no, watching a single husng give you pretty much nothing, you arent the opponent they play dynamics are unlikely to be the same , sample size is so little that you can hardly rely on it.
You d be better opening a 2nd table if you are a winning player and can follow action on 2 tables.

Discussing this in nvg is just priceless. One side is making well thought out points and the other sound like members of the flat earth society.

your argument is ridiculous. You admit they are able to gain information that will help. That ends the conversation. Just because they could make more money by investing their time in playing other sit n gos rather than studying my play has no bearing on the situation as you have just admitted they are able to gain information that will help them beat me int he 2nd round. Whether or not they choose to take advantage of the situation that is presented to them doesn't matter, the fact remains that in the present situation they are able to gain an advantage which is all that matters....and which you already admitted to.

Internet poker isnt fair , some people use hud when some other dont, that s unfair they gain an edge, we should stop that internet poker stuff cause of tracker and huds that pokerstars allow on their site

Imagine entering one of these tournaments and watching a player on the other table shove allin (if you even have time to catch it happen) with a rubbish hand. If you haven't read this thread or one like it, and are unaware of the teamplay, you would gain an impression that the player is a complete maniac, because the full information of what is going on is not available to you, whereas it is available to the other three players. I see this as being unfair. They come to the table with additional knowledge of how the game will be played, that is not available to the fourth player.

Of course if I see someone shove allin with 27o , I am going to regard them as tilting, or wildly loose, or whatever. And this would normally be a reasonable assumption to make, however in the case of where you're up against a team, you're gonna be mislead that they are a certain kind of player, whereas they are in actual fact a very different player, benefiting in the way that I outlined from a non-public agreement with their partner/s in the tournament.