Been playing in a live plo game, run by charities, where a few of the players seem to share a roll, and check down hands, and never bet the nuts against eachother.

What are some ways we can use this to our advantage?

Is there a better forum to post this in?

thx

Are you involved in those hands?

If they check the nuts to each other while being heads-up, there’s nothing you can do about it and also no way to benefit from it.

are these MTTs? if not it's irrelevant unless they do it when others are involved in hands, though I'd be concerned that other, actually damaging forms of collusion might be going on if this is for meaningful stakes (knowing that the ace of a particular suit is dead, for instance, can be huge in PLO)

if they are MTTs it's collusion, but whether you should be bothered probably depends on whether this is charity 'come and have some fun, nobody really knows what they're doing, we don't expect you to want to win money' and these are just whales being nice to each other, or whether this is charity 'there's a serious amount of rake going to charity but the game still offers a significant expectation for good players and players will play this game with the intention of profiting'. If it's the latter, report to TD, if there's no TD, reconsider whether you want to play this game.

if its asians thats normal. dont worry about it. they are losing players and having fun.
people colluding dont do it that way its too obvious. so let it go and win money.

Cash games not tourneys. Average stack generally $500-1,000. Not "asians" but without sounding too predjudice, the type of people who you would 100% think are drug dealers away from the game.

They are bad players, which is why I sit. But I wonder if I can use their soft play against them, or if they are doing any signalling.

Generally 2-4 players at the table who are friendly / run together.

i play in one of those game all the time. doesnt faz me a bit. i just let them lose.
they dont drive you out to check it down in pot limit as its too expensive when they are wrong.
they just play too loose because they want to be in hands. so let them.

seems unlikely to be much you can do, unless they're altering their play while you're still in a pot

Although not really within the spirit of 'the game', soft play is very common in a lot of cards rooms once certain Players are HU.

The only real issue you should watch out for is 'how' they are getting HU. If they are often re-raising each other on Flop or Turn and then soft playing each other then you can talk to the room staff, but it most likely wont go very far unless the true nuts is being shown down at the end of the hand.

That however is something you can attack by just flatting the first person's bet/raise and allowing the other to raise/3-bet 'for you', forcing the first Player to flat also, but inflates the pot and opens up the door for you to flat again or pot them both! With this being PLO it's much harder to isolate than NLH.

As others have indicated, this is very hard to eliminate, but IMO the main way to take advantage of this while your still in the hand (and they are being very aggressive to try and gain a HU spot) is to just slow play your hands by checking or flatting your way to a breaking point where you can pot yourself all-in.

No, that's not really optimal PLO play since a lot of bets are equity denying bets. But if you are staring at nut or potential nutted holdings, then you may have to consider slowing down. GL

+1 ^^^ good stuff ty

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Don't call the floor on them then lol.