Collusion

   Collusion is when two or more players at the same table work together as a team to help each other and therefore gain an unfair advantage over the other players.
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   In all the time that I've been playing poker, I've been accused of collusion twice, and both of these times involved online games. The first time was when I was playing a tournament on Fulltilt Poker.  This was a few years ago now but I can recall the basic details. I'd been in a couple of big hands with 'Player A', and ended up losing chips each time. Then, when I found myself once again folding to a big bet on the river from this player, I typed a joking comment into the chat box, something like, 'just trying to chip you up mate'. There were two other players from Germany at the table and they immediately started chatting back and forth in German. Then one of them said something like, 'this is not right, you can't do that'. I told him it was just a joke but he kept on complaining about my 'cheating' and said he was going to report the incident. After that I just kept my mouth shut and eventually I eliminated Player A. I don't know if the complainer reported me to the site, but I never heard any more about it. After that, I never made a joke of this type again.
   The second incident happened just last year, on 888 Poker. I got involved in a big hand against 'Player 1', putting in big bets, which he kept calling. Then on the river I put in a small bet because I had a very good hand and was hoping for a call. Player 1 then folded. Player 2 then made a comment to Player 1, something like, 'doing a bit of chip dumping?'. At first I took no notice of this comment, but then I decided to go to Google to find out what 'chip dumping' was. That's when I discovered that it was a practice used by colluding players to pass chips to each other. I was somewhat surprised to discover that I'd just been accused of cheating. So that's what I said on returning to the table: '' did you just accuse me of cheating?'. He replied that it looked suspicious to him, Player 1 folding in the face of such a small bet, with so much in the pot. I didn't take this accusation well. I was absolutely seething and pretty much played the rest of the SitNGo on tilt. I spent the rest of the game trying to knock out my accuser and ended up playing heads-up with him, but in the end I didn't get my revenge, finishing in second place.
   The most serious case of collusion that I've ever come across happened a few years ago at a live tournament I used to play in every Friday night. A family group started turning up each week: mum, dad and a few of their kids. It became increasingly obvious that there was something odd going on during the game. The betting patterns seemed to change depending on who was involved in the pot. Often there would be big raises from one of the family until all the outsiders had dropped out, then things would quieten down and get much more friendly. There were dark mutterings from the locals about this situation, but as far as I know, no one ever confronted the family about their teamwork. It's a lot harder to accuse someone of cheating face to face than it is by typing something into a chat box. I don't know why, but the family eventually stopped coming to the game. Maybe they sensed the hostility of the locals, or maybe somebody did talk to them, or maybe they just moved on. In any case, we locals were all glad to see the back of this particular group.
   Although I haven't actually seen it myself, I've heard of a possible case of collusion at a local game. A player I know told me that he went to one of these games and gained the distinct impression that he was playing against a team. In fact, at one point one of the locals said something like, 'what makes you think you can come here and take our money?' Although this is the only time I've heard some doubts raised about this game, I have heard one player from this club make comments that suggest that she is not unfamiliar with signals that might be used by colluding players to communicate with each other. On the strength of this, I think I will avoid playing at this particular game. There are other similar games available which I haven't heard any bad reports about, so I think I'll err on the side of caution and stay away from a game where the odds may well be stacked against me.
   I play in a tournament every week on a Friday night and it's here that I sometimes encounter a milder version of collusion. A lot of the people who play in this tournament are regulars, and many are related to each other in one way or another. There are husbands and wives, sons, brothers, nieces, cousins and any number of relationships going on among these players. Although the organiser always tries to put spouses on different tables, he can only juggle the names to a certain extent, and there is nearly always a couple of people with some sort of connection on each table. It's not unusual to see a certain amount of soft playing going on between these people, especially if they're the only two in the hand. It's not unusual to see a hand get checked down in this situation. Although this kind of behaviour is at the mild end of the collusion spectrum, it still has the potential to affect the outcome of the game, and it really shouldn't be allowed. But in an amateur game, played among friends and club-mates, what can you do? I don't really want to be the one who starts complaining about people not playing hard enough against their girlfriends/sons/brothers or whatever.
   Sometimes I find myself in this kind of spot when I'm at the same table as my wife. We've had a number of discussions about the fact that I raise a lot, and she calls a lot. She is a pretty passive player and comes from a background of friendly games where players typically just bet the minimum or call and hands are often checked to the showdown. So she sometimes takes exception to me raising her, especially if we're the only two in the hand. But I've made it clear that I'm playing the same way against everyone, and if I bet or raise, it's because I have a good hand, so she should just fold. However, although I only bluff occasionally against other players, I never bluff against my wife, so I guess you could say that I'm guilty of collusion too.
   There seems to be a fairly relaxed attitude to partner-play at these local live games. This may be in part due to the Inter-Club tournament that many of us participate in. This is a teams competition that actually encourages collusion among team-mates, something that flies in the face of the basic principal of poker as an individual game. But I've also seen enough of these players' behaviour to realise it may actually be a more deep-seated attitude. I had a conversation with one player, S, a nice guy who I get on with well, who told me about a game he played in where his friend failed to carry out his plan to play as partners. He didn't seem to see anything wrong with this and treated the whole story as a bit of a joke. I've also been in a situation where I was in the final three with a father and son, both of whom I also get on with well, who were 'joking' about playing to knock me out and split the top two prizes between them.
   So in my regular live tournaments, I keep my eyes and ears open. There's not much I can do about the low-grade collusion, but I'm always aware of the possibility of serious cheating going on. It's funny how poker works. Deception is at the very heart of the game, at a number of different levels. It's perfectly acceptable for an individual to lie through their teeth in so many ways, as long as they don't do it in tandem. In short, poker is not a team game.