Define Collusion in online poker: Is lying about your hand during a hand collusion?

Is making a comment during a hand considered collusion? If you are bluffing at a pot and tell your opponent you have top pair when you don't, is this collusion? Can a poker site close your account and confisicate all your funds for doing this on one occasion?

That is NOT collusion.

collusion - Secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, esp. in order to cheat or deceive others.

In other words in poker it's 2 or more people cooperating to cheat another person(s).

It's not collusion, but you need to be very careful about saying things about the cards you have or have just folded. For example if only the two of you were left in the pot, everybody else had folded, then you said something about your cards then it's probably not such a big deal.

What people don't like is if you fold for example, there are still other people playing the hand and you say something about the cards that you have just folded, which could influence how other people might play the hand.

An example of collusion would be if you and your mate were at the same online table and were talking on MSN about what cards you have and how you are going to play it, with one of you folding and allowing the other one to take the pot, for example.

yea basically collusion is working with other people at the table to deceive the rest of the table...if you and at least one other person are talking behind the scenes about what cards you have or mucked, this can easily be used to your advantage against the rest of the people at the table...i dont think talking about your hand openly to the table after you folded or when someone is tanking is necessarily collusion, its just bad etiquette...im not sure if they can take ur chat privileges away for that but im sure if enough people complain about it they can do something about it...i know if you're live and do that ish people will let you know they dont like it...otherwise collusion is just working with someone to take advantage of the rest of the table

like another poster said

it would be 2 players chatting outside of the poker room chat and formulating strategy

they would at a minimum tell each other their hands ... they could plan to steal blinds by deciding to have one raise and the other re-raise to show strength and then they might just check it down after that with marginal hands

one player could "soft off" their chips to the other

it's certainly not fool proof and it can be easily detected and reported ... the poker room would/should just forbid those players from playing at the same table even with little proof, since it does not prevent either player from playing

in a similar way as if you transfer money to someone, then u can't play at same table

something to watch out for, but i wouldnt fear playing online b/c of collusion ... good players dont want to mess with cheating ... they feel their skills give them all the edge they need and while 1 or 2 reports against you might not prevent you from playing ... get 3+ and i imagine the poker room would ban you from real money games

All this being said, in a live game certain statements may be interpreted as a clue to an undisclosed accomplice at the table. Lying about your holdings is usually not one of them, but revealing your actual holdings is considered poor play and can ruin a pot for the winner. I played against a lot of cheats in my life and the toughest thing to spot is code between two cheaters and a really good card mechanic.

well but my take would be with online u dont need to use code (the cheaters could msg. txt tweet fb cell, etc. each other)

... but live game, yes, that would be a problem ... i would almost wonder if in live game that was more intimidation than cheating ... like 2 poker room regulars bullying good new players ?

Post 2 pretty much answers OP. And it explains what collusion is.

Sounds to me like maybe you were lying about your hand in chat and maybe the person threatened you with informing the poker room (??) but I dont think a poker room will care about this.

I may also be interpreting this wrong, but doing something that makes your hand look different than it really is to induce your opponent to do something that he would otherwise not do if he knew what you really had is .......... well................ kinda standard, isnt it??

(IDK what chat rules state in the small print, but TBO I would not worry about it, if I am reading the situation correct)

If you're referring to an actual situation that occurred, why not just post the HandHistory (with the chat).

I believe there are more online colluders than you might imagine... ie. the groups from China that were colluding in the DoNs on Pokerstars (can't recall how many acc'ts. &/or how much $'s was confiscated there, but for sure more than a few).

This is not collusion but that doesn't mean you should do it. The fact of the matter is, this is incredibly dumb. If you are out of the hand, stay out of the hand! Let the players that are still in the game determine the outcome. What benefit is there to talking about the hand you just folded except for to rile people up.

At the end of the day, there are times where I wish there was no chat in poker rooms. People do a lot more talking on the web than they would ever do in person. You almost never hear somebody, while a hand is still in play, fold and then shout "I had 2 pair, 10's and 3's but not quite good enough I guess ROFFLECOPTER!!" It is a dumb thing to say whether it is true or not and provides no benefit.

Also, poker sites can close your account for whatever reason they feel like. Depositing money there puts you at risk for site closure/other problems where you may never get your money back. In short: don't do anything that may even sort of be twisted to appear like it is breaking rules. Doing so puts you at risk for corrective action and you would have nobody to blame but yourself.