Does this feel like collusion?

[Divebitch]

Stu, he had it happened like 6 times. So while the 1st call might have been bad, seems like he caught on, and decided to play the bastidge. Sounds like collusion to me. Maybe report it, and let them do the work.

 

[vanquish]

He is overlimping with what he considers a speculative hand (an unsuited 1 gapper.. people do play these) Yet he expects his friend to bluff raise with ahigh frequency so he is planning on shoving if his friend raises.

Its caused by OP overlimoing rather than raising.

The same principle comes into play when you have a wide CO raiser, you are on the BTN with a medium hand that is ahead of CO opening range yet not good enough to call / raise a 3bet. The blinds are particulay 3bet happy and will 3bet very wide if the CO opens and the BTN calls. Therefore to prevent this you 3bet your weakish hand yourself to prevent the blinds from squeezing, yet would prefer to play the hand in a non-3bet pot.

you're really a stubborn one aren't you?

i bet if SB and BB high fived each other and openly discussed how they're going to split their winnings, you'd probably say "hey, that's not that suspicious, they're probably referring to winnings from the blackjack they played earlier that day, and are both in a great mood and are high fiving for fun"

c'mon man. you really think a limp-happy 1/2 game has legitimate backraising spots and these two "friends" are really set out on creating really uncommon super aggressive dynamics between each other, rather than just colluding (in a manner that's pretty lol-tastic and easy to identify, as OP did) to take some easy cash from some bad live 1/2 players?


if you're just arguing that this doesn't 100% prove they're colluding, okay i guess... but it's just about as suspicious as it gets.

i think OP did a good job of identifying a collusion spot in this game.

 

[Stu_Ungar]

you're really a stubborn one aren't you?

i bet if SB and BB high fived each other and openly discussed how they're going to split their winnings, you'd probably say "hey, that's not that suspicious, they're probably referring to winnings from the blackjack they played earlier that day, and are both in a great mood and are high fiving for fun"

c'mon man. you really think a limp-happy 1/2 game has legitimate backraising spots and these two "friends" are really set out on creating really uncommon super aggressive dynamics between each other, rather than just colluding (in a manner that's pretty lol-tastic and easy to identify, as OP did) to take some easy cash from some bad live 1/2 players?


if you're just arguing that this doesn't 100% prove they're colluding, okay i guess... but it's just about as suspicious as it gets.

i think OP did a good job of identifying a collusion spot in this game.

After seeing them do this 6 times I would

a) never limp with KTs (not that I would if I hadnt seen them do this)
b) limping with QQ+AK
c) limp shoving myself with some % as a high equity bluff.

If they were colluding it would make them easier to beat IMO.

 

[vanquish]

rofl ok

 

[poker d player]

It certainly "feels" like it to me. Esp if this pattern repeats .... That said not sure if it can be proved or what a casino could/would do in this case. This is where an online site might be more likely to take action as they seem track these types of patterns statistically (and have all the hand histories at their disposal).

I guess the easiest action is to get up and move to another table.

 

[rssurfer54]

At casinos, just change tables if there are (competent) friends at the table. Not worth the risk they are colluding. Even if they aren't explicitly colluding, they will almost always softplay each other.

When I go with my friends, I would never sit at the same table as them. When people do, I instantly find it suspicious.

PS. If the friends are bad/drunk, they will probably just encourage each other to be worse/drunker, so I would stick around.

 

[absoluthamm]

When I go with my friends, I would never sit at the same table as them. When people do, I instantly find it suspicious.

Do you play live very often? Because if you do then I would imagine that you would realize that it is fairly often out of your hands as to what table you're playing at. Many casinos don't have a ton of tables to choose from at your stakes, so if you're wanting to play, when your name comes up on the list, you're taking that spot. When I play with friends at the table, I don't slowplay them at all, they are just someone else at the table. I chat with everyone, so everyone at any given time can be a friend or an enemy.

 

[CuttleFish]

At one of our local cash games recently there were two friends sitting at the same table, and everytime one of them would raise to $35 (which was a strange sized bet) the other one would fold. It was almost their way of saying to each other "stay out of this one, Ive got a monster". It even got to the point where one of them raised to $35 and another regular at the table turned to the second guy and said "he just raised $35, I think you're meant to fold."

It was a weak plan but there's no doubt in my mind they had planned it out beforehand. i spoke to the dealer afterwards and he said he knew exactly what they were doing but it was impossible for him to prove.

Are there lots of ways of people colluding at a live cash table?

 

[Stu_Ungar]

It even got to the point where one of them raised to $35 and another regular at the table turned to the second guy and said "he just raised $35, I think you're meant to fold."

This guy is an idiot.

He is more concerned with everyone knowing he knows than the advantage he has by knowing.

If you could hear him commenting on the $35 raise, then the people doing it could too.

If people are doing things like this, why would anyone do anything that might stop them?

 

[CuttleFish]

If people are doing things like this, why would anyone do anything that might stop them?

agree. thing was though every $35 bet, everyone would keep folding (after it became obvious) and am sure they used this to their advantage to steal with less than premium hands.

 

[lilybo]

LOL, dj.

It has that feel, but;

 

[rssurfer54]

Do you play live very often? Because if you do then I would imagine that you would realize that it is fairly often out of your hands as to what table you're playing at. Many casinos don't have a ton of tables to choose from at your stakes, so if you're wanting to play, when your name comes up on the list, you're taking that spot. When I play with friends at the table, I don't slowplay them at all, they are just someone else at the table. I chat with everyone, so everyone at any given time can be a friend or an enemy.

Guess I didn't think of that, I play at Foxwoods live so lots of tables.

I don't slowplay my friends either, but I still would rather avoid playing with them. If nothing else, so people could never accuse me of colluding.

 

[Ubercroz]

Playing $200 NL trying to get a feel for the table that just started up. I limp from mp with suited K10 (3 limpers ahead). Two young guys who are pretty good friends are in the blinds. Small blind limps and bb raises to 27. Now, I'm saying squeeze and am happy to play my hand in position to this fellow, assuming everyone else will fold. The small blind shoves and his buddy 3 second folds. Now I'm in a shitty spot. I felt like this was a whipsaw.and was looking at atc here. I called and he showed 79o. I won but felt cheated. This limp/raise between these two happened like 6 times. Does this feel like collusion, and if so is there anything you can do about it?

I feel like we need to get some clarity here.

You had been playing for how long?
These two guys (maybe friends?) were next to each other. When the one guy (I'm guessing the small blind) limped the other guy would raise?
After the raise did the sb ALWAYS shove?

My feeling is this: Some people like to raise when other people limp. I don't know enough about the situation. I do know that people will limp with premium hands and then shove when given the opportunity. I also know that a limp call looks WEAK and FISHY.

What the sb's mistake was that he thought he could get you to fold a hand you limp called with when he shoved. HE did not anticipate running into a paranoid calling station.

Anyway, it could be collusion- or it could be that one guy was passive and the other guy liked to raise too much. Either way limp call call is... somewhat dubious.