Another "Is this collusion" thread....

[jaded848]

Ok so I was playing a 9-man sng and was a pretty big chip leader with me and 2 other players left. One of the players was short-stacked, had about 1000 chips or less, and the other player had around 2500. The positions were such that the SS was to my immediate left, so I was always in the SB when he was in the BB. Well, doing what I usually do, I tended to fold my hand in the SB unless I had a real monster so I could milk more chips out of the middle stack (b/c he didn't want to bust in 3rd). I don't do this to be a dick, I do it because often times it just gets to the point where both other players are at < 1000 chips, making HU play for 1st an absolute breeze. The player with the 2500 chips accused me of collusion. Considering I am doing this play to help MYSELF, and NOT the BB, because I want to win 1st, is this really collusion???? It wasn't like I was calling bets down to the river and then folding, passing chips over to the BB. To be honest, I really hadn't been getting good hands in the SB anyway, and finally I shoved K4o just to shut the other player up and the SB called with A2o and doubled up. The other player FLIPPED out and said he was sending the HH to full tilt. Could I get in trouble for this????

 

[WiZZiM]

no, and no, tell them to stfu.

 

[cjatud2012]

what you were doing is perfectly fine. just turn your chat off and play your own game imo.

 

[PC69]

Send the chat to the site and get his chat banned.. FFs have been doing that to me for years. LOL

 

[dwolfg]

Not collusion. Not cheating at all unless you are folding quality hands, then it would be soft-playing, which is also against the rules.

 

[jaded848]

Not collusion. Not cheating at all unless you are folding quality hands, then it would be soft-playing, which is also against the rules.

I wasn't folding quality hands, so no problems there. However, I've always wondered.....let's say SS was real short, like 300 chips. And let's say I had a quality hand. Is it against the rules for me to fold and keep the SS alive in order to maintain leverage against the other player? I could see it being cheating if the top 2 places were paid the same, but they obviously aren't, so doesn't it make sense that I would employ the best strategy for me to secure 1st? Curious about that one...

 

[WiZZiM]

Sorry, if you were on the bubble doing this is fine, if your ITM already, then just ship it try and take him out

 

[shinedown.45]

what you were doing is perfectly fine. just turn your chat off and play your own game imo.

This is the perfect solution.
I always play with all chat off, helps me pay more attention to the players playing styles.

And no, it's not collusion.

 

[fletchdad]

I wasn't folding quality hands, so no problems there. However, I've always wondered.....let's say SS was real short, like 300 chips. And let's say I had a quality hand. Is it against the rules for me to fold and keep the SS alive in order to maintain leverage against the other player? I could see it being cheating if the top 2 places were paid the same, but they obviously aren't, so doesn't it make sense that I would employ the best strategy for me to secure 1st? Curious about that one...

If you were fave, why not take him out? With 300 more chips and one less player to suck YOU out of chips, why would your leverage be better allowing a SS to stay in? SS could suck you and other player out and triple in chips, other player could take SS out next hand and be 300 stronger and so on. If you are fave to win, your best strategy to secure first is to take SS out IMO. And on top of that, 1st place normally comes to one who is willing to be aggressive at the right time, so if its the right time, thats a no brainer for me. But as stated, definitely not collusion.

As far as doing that being against the rules, I dont know how carefully all games are inspected, but that COULD look like soft playing, I dont think so if it was the only time, but folding when you are a fave to win wont look like strategic play.

 

[jaded848]

If you were fave, why not take him out? With 300 more chips and one less player to suck YOU out of chips, why would your leverage be better allowing a SS to stay in? SS could suck you and other player out and triple in chips, other player could take SS out next hand and be 300 stronger and so on. If you are fave to win, your best strategy to secure first is to take SS out IMO. And on top of that, 1st place normally comes to one who is willing to be aggressive at the right time, so if its the right time, thats a no brainer for me. But as stated, definitely not collusion.

As far as doing that being against the rules, I dont know how carefully all games are inspected, but that COULD look like soft playing, I dont think so if it was the only time, but folding when you are a fave to win wont look like strategic play.

Fair enough- just to clarify, I was never the fave against him, which is why i folded so many of my hands in the SB. His stack as so small that I knew he had to call, and when you're getting hands like 92o you don't really feel like handing SS more chips. However, since he would always win my blind, it would get him enough chips that he was still willing to fold when i shoved from the BTN w/ ATC, forcing the other player to fold and allowing me to gain more chips.

 

[dwolfg]

I wasn't folding quality hands, so no problems there. However, I've always wondered.....let's say SS was real short, like 300 chips. And let's say I had a quality hand. Is it against the rules for me to fold and keep the SS alive in order to maintain leverage against the other player? I could see it being cheating if the top 2 places were paid the same, but they obviously aren't, so doesn't it make sense that I would employ the best strategy for me to secure 1st? Curious about that one...

http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/site-terms number 6

http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/tournaments/rules/ number 20

 

[WiZZiM]

http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/site-terms number 6

http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/tournaments/rules/ number 20

LOL, good luck proving that im deliberately folding to BB, just play stupid, they cant do anything about it. It's like in a MTT, a super short stack shoves Sb and bb call and check the hand down, it's a form of collusion, its like an unwritten law between players, nothing is said, it's just what people do. In sng, good players do this all the time, so do bad players, Stars simply cannot ban you for this, unless youve written something stupid in the chat box.

 

[tbdbitl]

Absolutely Not! Some people get in their heads that it's the Big Stacks job to push everyone around. When I'm the Big Stack my number one job is to not chip up the short stacks!

 

[dwolfg]

LOL, good luck proving that im deliberately folding to BB, just play stupid, they cant do anything about it. It's like in a MTT, a super short stack shoves Sb and bb call and check the hand down, it's a form of collusion, its like an unwritten law between players, nothing is said, it's just what people do. In sng, good players do this all the time, so do bad players, Stars simply cannot ban you for this, unless youve written something stupid in the chat box.

but technically it is still cheating if he is folding good cards.

 

[lektrikguy]

but technically it is still cheating if he is folding good cards.

It's more of a strategy. It benefits you to have more players in the hand to knock him out, you're not raising and folding to your friend's reraise to dump chips and can't be considered cheating.

 

[bhood1776]

What you did was fine and I would have done the same. The part where you said you shoved with K4o just to shut the guy up is the problem here. You let another player influence you into making a decision you didn't want to make. This is what you should worry about.

 

[jasdell]

If this is collusion, I am screwed...

I do this all the time because I think it's a sound strategy... the bigger guy won't call w/o a monster cause he wants 2nd place and the smaller guy is always staying alive and hoping he can hit good or snag second as well.

and then when they are both down to about 1000 I shove ATC on both of them.

Yea, this does benefit the shorty, but only as a side effect of my main goal, to obtain as many chips as possible before heads up play. Its not collusion in my mind... its just the luck of the draw... if they had switched places I would be doing the exact same thing. Sorry man, and don't put yourself in this position next time by letting me steal all the time

 

[Poker Orifice]

Not collusion. Not cheating at all unless you are folding quality hands, then it would be soft-playing, which is also against the rules.

That's not true at all. You can (& in many instances 'should' be) keep the SS alive so you can aggress on the med-sized stacks, 'especially' during bubble play. It wouldn't matter if you folded AA in SB & BB had only 1/2bb left in their stack.
Also once ITM, you can attempt to make it so that the other two players are basically playing for 2nd (which I believe is what OP is referring to here).

 

[Poker Orifice]

If you were fave, why not take him out? With 300 more chips and one less player to suck YOU out of chips, why would your leverage be better allowing a SS to stay in? SS could suck you and other player out and triple in chips, other player could take SS out next hand and be 300 stronger and so on. If you are fave to win, your best strategy to secure first is to take SS out IMO. And on top of that, 1st place normally comes to one who is willing to be aggressive at the right time, so if its the right time, thats a no brainer for me. But as stated, definitely not collusion.

As far as doing that being against the rules, I dont know how carefully all games are inspected, but that COULD look like soft playing, I dont think so if it was the only time, but folding when you are a fave to win wont look like strategic play.

fetchdad... picking up 300chips from SS is puney in comparison to how many you'll be picking up off the med.-stack when you're shoving in on their blinds w atc's. Med-stack is not going to call with <QQ+ (usually.. but of course depends) when there's a SS on the table who has like <3bb's. So... for sure it can be far more beneficial (at times) to aggress on the med.stack & keep the SS alive. This is like abc itm & bubble strategy stuff.

 

[Poker Orifice]

20. Poker is an individual (not a team) game. Any action or chat intended to help another player is unethical and is prohibited. Unethical play, such as soft-play (playing less aggressively against a partner) and chip dumping (intentionally losing chips to a partner), may result in penalties, including seizure of funds from the offender's account and/or termination of the account.

OP's actions aren't to help out another player, they are CLEARLY to help out themselves. He's not raise/folding in BvB play (ie. BB with 300.. 50/100 SB Min-Raises to 200 & folds to BB's 300 shove... only needing to put in another 100 (1bb) getting 6to1 or whatever). This is FAR different!

 

[Poker Orifice]

6. Soft playing or chip dumping is not allowed. Any unethical play may result in the suspension or termination of the offender's account

Choosing to not 'aggress' on another's blind is NOT softplaying.

The rule examples (imo) REALLY don't apply to OP's situation here. If they did, then would that mean that correct bubble & ITM strategy would be cheating? I don't think so.
You'd even be hard-pressed to say it did if CL folds his BB to a 1.5bb SS shove (although obviously alot more suspect).

 

[jaded848]

What you did was fine and I would have done the same. The part where you said you shoved with K4o just to shut the guy up is the problem here. You let another player influence you into making a decision you didn't want to make. This is what you should worry about.

Good point, I should probably just turn chat off.

 

[fletchdad]

fetchdad... picking up 300chips from SS is puney in comparison to how many you'll be picking up off the med.-stack when you're shoving in on their blinds w atc's. Med-stack is not going to call with <QQ+ (usually.. but of course depends) when there's a SS on the table who has like <3bb's. So... for sure it can be far more beneficial (at times) to aggress on the med.stack & keep the SS alive. This is like abc itm & bubble strategy stuff.

I understood his question to be, he had a premium hand and it was him and SS, so he folded to keep SS alive. I didnt understand why anyone would want to do this. As far as attacking MS when SS is alive and MS would rather fold than becoming SS himself, well, yes, this is pretty clear. But if the choice is eliminate SS now, or let him stay, and I am chip leader, I want him out. Do you leave SS on table to bully MS later, if you are fairly certain you can take SS out now?

 

[kmixer]

At a table the other day someone stated to me "you two have played before". I asked if they were saying we were cheating and what was the proof that we had played before. The person was upset that I was folding my SB. I did it like 4 times in a row and that is when I got called out.

 

[WillySmackYoAss]

I think that's a fine strategy, you know the middle stacks trying to move up, so by keeping the short stack around, you can steal more from the middle stack. I love keeping short stacks around when people are just trying to improve their place. No way is that collusion.