If two players were friends and they were colluding only by way of avoiding big pots against each other, does that even disadvantage you at all? I don’t mean collusion where they sandwich you into big pots. I don’t think mateship light collusion would affect you much would it?

If you're the last 3 in an MTT this would give you a huge disadvantage.

If you're just having fun at the casino in 1/2 cash games, it probably won't matter much.
Just be careful when you're in a hand against both of them, but don't worry about it too much.

Keep up your guard, but don't go psycho ...

Colluder one - I have kings, I raise
Colluder two - I have queens, I'd better fold
Cfoye - I have aces, woo hoo, a double up! And nothing of value was lost

don't play in that game?

What you describe is softplay, not collusion.

It’s only collusion if the secret agreement between the two friends is meant to gain them an advantage over other players. Prime example are spouses playing from the same bankroll who are open about not willing to play pots against each other. That is certainly softplay and also might violate the rules of the card room. But it’s not collusion.

Soft player one - I have tens, I raise
Soft player two - I have queens, I’d better fold
CFoye - I have jacks, woo hoo, a double up! And nothing of value was gained

Yes, this is 'soft play', not collusion, most of the time. 'Normally' the soft play doesn't start until they are HU but if you can get into a spot where you see them doing this multi-way then I see it as an advantage of sorts.

By pot controlling with their buddy in the hand they may be allowing you to realize decent pot odds spots that you would normally fold out of. The flip side of this is that one of them may be slow playing a monster that they would 'normally' play differently.

What really matters is that you are seeing this and can react on a hand by hand basis.

I've seen basically the same spot where you wouldn't know if it was collusion or 'fast' play when a couple of 'friends' go at it at the table. In some cases it could be a colluded squeeze play ... but in another it's just two buddies going hard at each other just like any other sport/game. GL

In NLHE cash, the two key things which make collusion detrimental are blockers and the fact that you don't get the 'protection' of the open raiser's range strength as a cold caller.

someone who isnt me told me that the edge that 2 guys have from sitting at a table and sharing info isnt that big at all, u basically have a bit more info on blockers which makes like a 2% difference at most lol
reopening action /meat sandwiching some poor sap is a different story

Nah, saying blockers make a 2% difference is a misunderstanding. In most spots blockers don't make much difference, but in some spots relevant blockers can make a huge difference. For example, knowing half the trips combos are gone on a paired board, or knowing that nut flushes are impossible in a spot, or so on.

It's definitely not as bad as squeezing, but generalizing blocker knowledge to an "avg per hand" effect is a poor way of looking at it. In most spots it does almost nothing but then in a few spots it generates a ton of extra ev.

Soft play gives incentive to change how they play against you. There are a lot of spots where it’s beneficial to know you don’t have to worry about one of the remaining players. For example three ways you bet, friend 1 calls with friend 2 behind, with a hand he normally wouldn’t because he doesn’t have to worry about friend 2 waking up with a hand.

Or the obvious squeeze spots. You’ll never know if a squeeze is “real” or incentivized by the squeezer knowing he doesn’t have to deal with the raiser. It could be as simple as value raising wider because you don’t have to worry about the first aggressor. It may not even be intentional.

for sure i see what ur saying.. and trips is a good example of maximized effect. but i have these friends.. cant tell u how many times one of them has had the nf card/double blockers to str8 etc and the other jams only to get snapped by 2p.. or both stack off v the mark for combined equity n triple him up (thats my favorite)
its more like curly and moe
its not nearly the massive advantage ud think. for team sports to really have an insane edge i think ud need 50% of the table on ur dole or b playing plo5

tldr its a much bigger edge in theory than in practice imo
unless its more than 2 people and theyre doin the ol prison pin n plow routine

If someone was sharing hole cards its a huge deal....

Say hero in in CO with like A5o/98o/T9o/AXo type hands and friend is BTN and has 92o

Can effectively increase your CO rfi range by a reasonable amount which can you give you quite the EV boost. Or even just knowing your bud folded 92o and you RFI co and flop comes 994 or something.

I think we're taking this thread a little too far and turning it into a MP situation. We went from soft play to sharing hole cards in a flash. Most casinos are harping on device use with live cards .. so we go back to baseball and 'signal' use if we even want to consider some sort of communication between two players. I'm sure it's possible to come up with a 'suit' system, but to add on rank would be quite a feat IMO.

Depending on stack depth, soft play keeps both stacks 'in play' instead of creating a large stack (which 'Hero' may not cover) and a short stack. A negative of this is that it may reduce the possibility of new chips being put on the table by a the reduced stack. You can look at it both ways ...

It's certainly a mistake by either Player to attempt a slow play while other Players remain in the hand .. which is an advantage to the rest of the table IMO. GL

I think it's an interesting debate but in order to quantify the value of the edge you'd need to have a multiway solution, and this is one of the reasons there's no necessary reason to think that exists.