I am a regular at a generally soft underground 1-2 nl 300 cap game that plays more like a 2-5. Because I have a good record there, a friend of mine at the table started flashing me his hole cards when I wasn't in the hand. The following situation came up, and I'd like to get some feedback from other players:

Full ring 1-2nl with $5 straddle. Mostly loose-passive with one guy primarily controlling the action. He was the big stack with about $650 until losing about $250 after calling an all-in raise and all-in reraise with pocket aces on a made straight/flush draw board. About 6 hands after, villain is in the big blind and raises to $20 against 2 limpers plus the SB (My friend straddled on the button and calls with 4d6d after the rest of the limpers call. SB folds, so $85 in the pot. Flop is Kh 5d 7d. Villain bets out $50. While the other 2 limpers are contemplating before eventually folding, my buddy flashes me his hand as if to say "what do you think?" I jokingly make an "all in" gesture, and the next thing I know, my buddy goes in with the rest of his stack for about $300 on top. Villain goes into the tank and eventually calls with K9 no diamonds. My friend's hand gets no help and he is busted.

He says its no big deal and leaves, but I can't help but feel bad. I was really just kidding since I know it's one player per hand and I wasn't going to seriously look at his hand and tell him what to do. But after thinking about it, I think the move was really what I might have done anyway. The way I see it there was $135 in the pot already. By pushing, my friend has a good chance of taking the $135 that's already in the pot and probably pushes out better flush draws or something like AK or maybe even 2 pair (which is unlikely given the flop). Even if he gets a call he has as many as 15 outs (2 of which are to the stone nuts which would also qualify for the daily high hand worth about $250). If he just calls or make a smaller raise, he may well get no more action if he does hit his draw. Obviously results didnt end up favorably, but in retrospect I think this was actually the right move especially after seeing what Villain had. Thoughts?

Uh... one player to a hand? WTF.

The play is fine, yes. Your friend showing you his cards isn't. You making an all-in gesture certainly isn't. You'd be booted from any respectable game immediately.

One player to a hand. You should feel bad because you and your friend were cheating, not because he lost his stack.

Leave out the cards, bet sizes, and strategy talk and repost this in B&M if you want to be yelled at by a bunch of nits about how you broke the rules.

Repost in home poker if you want to hear people talk about how they deal with "informal" poker games where this sort of thing tends to happen.

Your friend was the favorite.

Exactly, 55 to 45...So: "advice" good, behaviour bad...

not my style. fine play by normal standards.

You cheated, you should feel bad.

You prob also got your friend called with your stupid joking- looking all in move. 2 strikes.

you cheated. its wrong. if the regs saw you do it, they'd only let go because they feel you're a losing player.

1 month chat ban IMO