How To Beat 4 Poker Colluders

First time poster. I play a lot of poker for fun, usually high limit sit-n-go tables. Heres my post...

I was playing a 450 dollar No Limit Holdem Tournament Sit N Go at a 6 player table at mysportsbook.com. Im no donk, I've been playing poker for years so this was fairly subtle to detect. At the table I believe there were 4 people colluding against me. They were from the same geographical area (Phoenix, AZ), never raised eachother, were constantly chip dumping, and seemed to only play the best hand against mine...so it was practically 4 on 1; well 4 on 2 if you count the other guy.

I reported this to the site administrator and havent received a response.

My main question is...how do I beat 4 poker colluders against just myself (a good player) at the table. I could understand strategy against 2 players, but against 4...how do I do it?!? I understand telling the admin, but what happens when they dont answer. Should I just loose my money because colluders at 2/3 the table cant be beat?

Simplest way to beat them, if you are right and you could be, is get the hell out with whatever chips you have left. If I feel fishy action anywhere, and it happens lots, I get out. Making reports is good, I recently reported a suspicion to stars and they did a thorough investigation indicating I was wrong, which is OK. But next time I see the same ones at a table, I will not join. 6th sense if u will... don't swim against the tide...

Whoops just noticed it was a SNG, I was thinking ring... If you were right, then you are toast mate...

I think people make too big a deal over the advantage of collusion. Yes it's an edge, but it's not a huge edge. Just remember, they can't see your cards. In poker overall you should be only reaching showdown when you think you have the best hand (not exactly true, but hopefully you get the point, that's when you win the most money/chips), and no matter what the colluders do they can't get a better hand. The differences would be a little less dead money, for example you flop a set vs. TPTK and a lower set, if they're colluding the TPTK would fold when they may call without collusion. Other than that though they don't have as big an edge as you think, unless they are squeezing you as well, which is a telltale sign of collusion and the site would definitely pick up on that (ie you're in the middle of the two players, one bets extremely small, you call because of odds, other guy raises, you've given away that money, so you can't play for implied odds as much). Basically if they're doing anything to gain a huge edge, it's so obvious they're doing it. Other than that all they can do is make there be less dead money in monster vs. monster pots, and they can also gain the extra like 2% edge that knowing one spade's been folded and there's less of a chance of the flush hitting or 6 non-spades have been folded and there's more of a chance. But that's such a small edge anyway.

If it's a one-table 6-max SNG, then collusion would be pretty stupid, wouldn't it? They'd basically be splitting your entrance fee (plus the other guy), minus the site fee. They'd have to run almost 100% for this to be profitable.

Might be worth shifting to a bigger site like Full Tilt or poker stars if you don't get a satisfactory response from the admins. If you're playing for high stakes, you want to be sure that the site is doing whatever it can to keep the game fair.

Thats what I did. I logged onto Full Tilt today and set up an account. I dont think there is any way to beat four determined people. As a matter of fact its probably pretty profitable. I mean thats 960 dollars between the four of them for about 20 minutes of work. I guess Ill play on a more reputable site.

What Zach said ^^^^

It's not as big of an advantage as some would think. Mostly it would come from squeezes and the fact that one of them would always have position on you. The way to combat that is to play push or fold poker. That would completely take away any positional or postflop advantages, such as knowing if outs were "out of the deck".

At any rate, I can't imagine colluding would be profitable in a 6 man sng. They would HAVE to win ALL the prize money to show a profit. Even if they won every one, not winning first and second would result in a loss

dwcheston said:

Thats what I did. I logged onto Full Tilt today and set up an account. I dont think there is any way to beat four determined people. As a matter of fact its probably pretty profitable. I mean thats 960 dollars between the four of them for about 20 minutes of work. I guess Ill play on a more reputable site.

Click to expand...

umm no.

Instead of 4 on 1, think of it as 1-on-1. That one person has to pay 4 times your entry fee, meaning if you beat the opponent 1 in 5 times you profit (well minus rake) and they must win 4/5 to profit. The one person is then dealt 4 hands and can pick the best one to play. Theoretically using this strategy, assuming equal skill, you would all break even. Think about it, your hand will be best 1 in 5 which is what you need to break even. So if you are better than the colluders at actual poker, you would be better. Now if they are good at colluding, they will execute the squeeze moves we're talking about, but just remember, every squeeze move costs them double chips. ie they are risking the chips of two people to only win one. So say it's a typical situation, one has flopped bottom set, and they execute this move, trying to trap your dead money. When you have a top pair type hand they get some more money than they would have, but when they have a set over set situation, they lose TWICE what they would have (well or at least a good amount more if not twice entirely). So that move doesn't come without costs either. And of course the dead hole cards are unlikely to ever make a difference. How often would you for example fold a flush draw when you know you really only have 7 or 8 outs instead of 9 when you would have called with 9? Is collusion cheating? Certainly, and it does have these slight edges that if exploited by good players can make money. But if they're good, you won't know they're doing it. If you can recognize the collusion, they're probably just bad players that think if they collude they'll win, and they most likely lose.

I doubt any of the people here complaining about it being impossible to beat colluders could do any better colluding than they could playing one hand. Colluding would be all about long-term edges, and if something in the short term is noticable, they're probably doing something that is sub-optimal and we all know that the way we win is when opponents make mistakes.

hit them with a little ghetto gospel!

Well said Zach.

No one is unbeatable, not even these colluders. They may have slight edge as seen from a mathamatical point of view but then there is a better than average chance they have less skill negating that advantage.

Reporting them was a good thing, hope the site takes care of the problem.