Strange play seen... partners?

Hi, I saw the strangest play today at my $1/$2 Betonline ring-table. At first, the table was loose and the flop rate was good, so I stayed. What I noticed was that there were 2 players that kept going at it. I'll refer to them as Batman and Robin. Batman and Robin kept dueling. At first, I thought they were just both aggressive players that happened to butt heads over and over. But, it kept happening... and it seemed that whatever hand one was in, the other was in too.

STRANGE: for 2 players to consistently be battling over and over in a ring game. Whenever one saw the flop, so did the other.


And then I noticed a little bit of feeding to Batman. His feeder, Robin, made so many poor bets and kept calling. He went broke multiple times, but kept buying back.

STRANGE: Robin kept losing his bank, but bought back in. People that lose their bank don't keep buying back in -- they almost always quit in frustration eventually.


Along with some serious luck from Batman (he was playing stuff like 3,4 offsuit into $100+ pots and hitting rivers) and feeding from Robin, Batman eventually ballooned to $1400. Robin was at $450. Everyone else had between $150-$300. Keep in mind, the max you bring is $200.

STRANGE: for a player with shoddy decisions to have $1400 when the max you bring is $200. also, for his feeder to have the 2nd most money at a table.



The finale:
Although I did make some money off of them, their style of play (constantly raising preflop and calling everything and making a lot of magic happen) kept me in check. I was paranoid that they were working together, so I was extra cautious.

Batman eventually logged off , and Robin's bank quickly disappeared because he kept calling everything, seemed like for a draw, and of course, missed most of the time. He eventually lost all and left.... and since I added him as a buddy, I found out that he went to the $5/$10 tables right after.

STRANGE: Robin, who is seemingly a poor poker player, loses his bank multiple times. Although he had the 2nd most money when Batman was around, when Batman left, Robin's $ went bye bye. Also, he decided to go from $1/$2 to $5/$10, after showing poor play and losing a load of money.
This was the strangest thing I've ever seen. I'm thinking it was 2 buddies working together to give themselves better intel and odds (1+1=3).

What do you think?

My quick reaction is that if people are working together, it does them no good to battle each other. All that would do is give the site more rake.

Yeah, this seems a little strange to me, too. Generally, to make money, they'd need to "trap" a third person in the hand. Keep raising each other, and the "mark" until you get the mark to fold, then Robin quietly folds to Batman, a big pot is won and no cards are ever shown. There are other ways to do it, of course, but that seems most obvious.

Question.... If Robin was at $450, but was buying in for $200, where was that money coming from, and how were those hands playing out?

lol...

seems to me like they are just losing alot on rake, maybe one was bum hunting the other?

The rake part is true. But the advantage you get is worth more than what you got, don't you think?

Aside from trapping, I can see other advantages to having tag-teaming a table:
-better knowledge: if you've got a set against a flush draw on the flop, it'd be useful to know if your partner has some of those outs
-intimidation: if you know Batman and Robin are loose and bet hundreds on a $1/$2 table with poor hands, you don't want to chance getting caught in the crossfire unless you have the nuts or close.
-positioning: they were almost at opposite ends, so the dealer position would be twice hitting their team.


Robin stopped feeding Batman after Batman had about $600. I didn't pay too much attention to Robin, because all eyes were on Batman! He was playing poorly, a bunch of us were chatting about it, couple of guys were being sore losers, yet he kept winning, and knocked out 1 person. We were in disbelief.

check him out on PTR, see how his graph and the other guys graph is, might give you some more anwers