Suspicion of collusion

I had my first suspicion of colusion last night.
Playing at Bovada
I was playing a 6 person $10 Double or Nothing.

Table was down to 4 players with of course only 3 winning money.

Player 1 in SB = 2700 chips
Player 2 in BB= 3600 chips
Player 3 in UTG= 1200
Me on Button= 1500

Blinds were 150/300

Player 3 commits half his chips with 600 chip pre flop raise.
I fold, SB folds and BB pushes all in with 9-2, Player 3 reveals K-10 and his hand holds up.
Now I still have 5 BBs and knocked out a few hands later.
Am I wrong to wonder about collusion?

not necessary. the best way to make collusion there is to call his 600 raise and then fold after the flop because after the all in there is still a 32% of chance of getting busted with k10 which is too much of a risk. i think he didnt thought he was going to call his raise, or maybe he just wanted to risk a third of his stack to elkminate these player. it might be collusion, but not in this case i guess....

imo this isn't even near collusion....that KT dude is taking a risk that he's is losing 1/3 of the time to 92o....if the 92o guy flats...then minbets out on the flop and then folds to KTo's re-raise that is collusion....Not to mention it is very hard to collude in DONs....rarely will you see it being in those....pretty much collusion only works at a cash table....This would not be a case of collusion...no need to report it or anything

Doesn't look like it to me. More likely collusion if all players raise your BB here but fold to the other small stack. This I have seen at Bovada and elsewhere. At Bovada it would be easier with the anonymous players thing but I do believe "buddies" playing the same small DON SNG could collude to help each other out at the very least on any site.

Need more information. Last week I caught a couple guys doing it. But it was much different, when one of them would get short, the other would give him chips, by folding his hand, and vice versa. They were also raising the pot up for each other when there was three or more players. It was also at Bovada, on $5.00 double UPS.

ok i have quite a bit of experience from dons and most of my poker income comes from them now i also payed my way through uni with them so i can offer some insight here

firstly collusion is a serious issue in poker and colluding in dons is not hard to do at all its very easy it would just involve pooling funds and sharing profits. however theres also a lot of idiots, who can play so bad it can look like collusion but it just simply isn't.

now collusion in dons has hurt my income before so i am passionate about it, heres what you need to do.

the best thing to do is firstly note the tournament number and player names these are the records that the site will need if your going to file a complaint without this info its useless because the site are left with um we dont know where to look for the info.

secondly you need to sharkscope these players and find out how succesful there record is f they are losing players they either are just playing bad or suck at colluding either way bad results are a waste of time to report.

thirdly have you read up on Bovoda poker see i research any site before playing there.

suggestion if your playing poker only for fun and dont care about money and dont make much effort for poker then i highly recommend Bovoda poker for you.

However if you are playing poker with the intent of making an income and or make or are making a serious effort for poker then heres my suggestion cash out everything you have there and play somewhere else.

in short when you mentioned dons i looked them up as i regularly search for sites that offer dons, so wanted to know traffic registration fee and loyalty programs/ rakeback offers etc. heres what i found with 5 minutes research.

from a review

There is a long list of reasons why U.S. online poker players should choose Bovada:

Triple the cash game players of any other American online poker room
Fastest cashouts for U.S. players – Some players report cash transfers in less than 24 hours
One free check withdrawal per month
Low-skilled competition
Management dedicated to recreational players including intentional software deficiencies
$1,000 first deposit bonus that returns about 30% cashback
$100,000 guaranteed tournament every Sunday
Frequent tournament series

so the software is actually programed to shift the odds in favour of poorer players meaning pretty much everyone is losing to the rake, you might as well just play roulette.

i mean i have said on a number of occasions that i fear some sites may actually rig the software to keep losing players in for longer making good players either losing to the rake or barely doing better then breaking even. if it does exist on sites or comes into affect there is no longer any point in playing,

here is a site that it seems is open about doing just that, why the heck are you playing there??????

i imagine that you reported such a play,
why is he commiting 50% of his stack and keeping just less then 4BB? so unless is a mistake when put the bet, it looks like a collusion, but what is the sense of this play? to be eliminated? because if he were giving chips away to help another player he would have had a big stack so he could afford to lose some chips but in this case is strange, so probably it was a mistake but obviously affect your position

Thanks for everyone's response. Now that I look at it more, probably not collusion. Not sure what to think of your post Luke.

LukeSilver said:

ok i have quite a bit of experience from dons and most of my poker income comes from them now i also payed my way through uni with them so i can offer some insight here

firstly collusion is a serious issue in poker and colluding in dons is not hard to do at all its very easy it would just involve pooling funds and sharing profits. however theres also a lot of idiots, who can play so bad it can look like collusion but it just simply isn't.

now collusion in dons has hurt my income before so i am passionate about it, heres what you need to do.

the best thing to do is firstly note the tournament number and player names these are the records that the site will need if your going to file a complaint without this info its useless because the site are left with um we dont know where to look for the info.

secondly you need to sharkscope these players and find out how succesful there record is f they are losing players they either are just playing bad or suck at colluding either way bad results are a waste of time to report.

Click to expand...

Bovada is anonymous, so there are no player names to research. You *could* report tourney# and player# and they should be able to investigate, but I'd be highly surprised if they did.

Being anonymous, they are a breeding ground for collusion and multi-accounters. Bovada doesn't really care because they've plainly stated they don't cater to "winning" poker players and consider them a detriment to the poker economy. It's why I personally boycott them.

DONs also certainly have a reputation as being easy targets for collusion but honestly I think it's overblown and undeserved. Sure there have been some highly publicized collusion ring scandals, as happened with the Chinese ring on pokerstars a few years ago. But DONs aren't the only game that have been exploited by organized cheating rings.. I've played hundreds of thousands of DON hands and have either never seen a case of clear collusion or they've been so bad at it that it didn't matter.

LukeSilver said:

thirdly have you read up on Bovoda poker see i research any site before playing there.

suggestion if your playing poker only for fun and dont care about money and dont make much effort for poker then i highly recommend Bovoda poker for you.

However if you are playing poker with the intent of making an income and or make or are making a serious effort for poker then heres my suggestion cash out everything you have there and play somewhere else.

in short when you mentioned dons i looked them up as i regularly search for sites that offer dons, so wanted to know traffic registration fee and loyalty programs/ rakeback offers etc. heres what i found with 5 minutes research.

from a review

There is a long list of reasons why U.S. online poker players should choose Bovada:

Triple the cash game players of any other American online poker room
Fastest cashouts for U.S. players – Some players report cash transfers in less than 24 hours
One free check withdrawal per month
Low-skilled competition
Management dedicated to recreational players including intentional software deficiencies
$1,000 first deposit bonus that returns about 30% cashback
$100,000 guaranteed tournament every Sunday
Frequent tournament series

so the software is actually programed to shift the odds in favour of poorer players meaning pretty much everyone is losing to the rake, you might as well just play roulette.

Click to expand...

No, that's not what it means. It means they design their software to thwart tools like HUDs and trackers. They don't publish real-time HH's, you have to request them 24 hours after a game, and they have the aforementioned anonymous tables. They don't offer RB/VIP rewards because they feel that's a tool to benefit winning players and is also bad for the poker economy.

I have a lot of gripes about Bovada, but believing they're rigged isn't one of them.

LukeSilver said:

i mean i have said on a number of occasions that i fear some sites may actually rig the software to keep losing players in for longer making good players either losing to the rake or barely doing better then breaking even. if it does exist on sites or comes into affect there is no longer any point in playing,

here is a site that it seems is open about doing just that, why the heck are you playing there??????

Click to expand...

Again, they're not rigging. If you insist on believing -- and claiming -- so, then take your theories to the rigtard thread so as not to contaminate or derail this discussion.

dmorris you still playing dons what network/site would you say is the best to play on?

I now have a pc so am longer resticted to mac software, I find reasonable traffic but not a generous reward program and the registration fee is high which eats into my profit.

if you could let me know which site/sites or network/networks you believe are best for dons at the moment that would be much appreciated.

if u ever suspect collusion, email Bovada support with the tourney # and tell them about it. i have received refunds due to collusion

LukeSilver said:

dmorris you still playing dons what network/site would you say is the best to play on?

I now have a pc so am longer resticted to mac software, I find reasonable traffic but not a generous reward program and the registration fee is high which eats into my profit.

if you could let me know which site/sites or network/networks you believe are best for dons at the moment that would be much appreciated.

Click to expand...

I only play 6-max DONs, which for US-facing players means a Revolution or WPN skin. Merge dropped 6-max DONs awhile ago. My preferred site is intertops but Lock basically destroyed all the Revo traffic with their antics before abandoning (or being being booted off) the network, and I don't know if they'll ever recover. Nobody's traffic is very high, especially at the higher stakes. A couple years ago I was playing every DON that would fill between $15 and $80. Now the highest I ever see running are the $15's. The $30+ games *never* fill. 6 months ago I could have no trouble keeping 6-8 6-max $15 DONs running on Tops, but now it takes forever to get even one going, and I'll often finish it before the next one starts. I would drop down the $6 games out of boredom but even they don't run much anymore.

So I've basically given up playing for awhile because I hate WPN software and I'm crossing my fingers that Revo traffic will recover. In the meantime I'm pursing other hobbies that I had set aside for poker.

For non-US players I can't really say as I don't tend to research sites I can't play. What I remember of Stars is that they dropped DONs for Fifty50's, which are NOT the same and not as profitable, so they never got my attention.

nc_royals said:

Thanks for everyone's response. Now that I look at it more, probably not collusion. Not sure what to think of your post Luke.

Click to expand...

On my post, I wasn't saying Bovada, is a bad place to play. On the contrary it's probably won the best places for U.S. players. Don't let a couple of guys that are playing partner poker determine whether or not it's a good or bad site. There always will be a couple of ass holes everywhere you go. LOL. I hope my post didn't discourage you from playing at Bovada!

It would be very interesting to follow the stats on bovada. I see whay to many straights and flushs on that site I believe. Wish there was some other place to play.

so the software is actually programed to shift the odds in favour of poorer players meaning pretty much everyone is losing to the rake, you might as well just play roulette.[/QUOTE]



I don't understand what you mean by everyone is losing to the rake

As Dm stated, Bovada doesn't track such things, but most every other reputable site does. And don't be mistaken, the site does not do this, the agency that tracks and test the sites RNG are the ones that catch it, and they then report it to the site. In rare instances the players can catch the rascals, but i have only seen it once, personally, and i believe they were first timers, but they really racked it up until all of us left the table, they were pretty obvious.With all the tools they need to pull off their schemes, one very handy site being Skype, it makes it easy for the amateurs to try it. I don't believe the sites are 'manipulating' an RNG, albeit not out of the realm of possibility, small sites such as the merge skin Carbon, are not going to put up with a handful of bad apples as it's hard enough for them to make it as it is, even with the stories you read all the time, Carbon tries to keep the site clean, and free of collusion. bodog- Bovada USED to be my favorite site, but after the change to anonymous player format, it is now a last resort site.