Playing with friends in cash games?

[[Phill]]

Due to lack of tables offered - i will quite often find myself playing on a table with my housemate and good friend.

We have never played each other differently from the point of view of being a friend - though obviously we adjust since its rare we arent the two best players on the table.

The fact i know his game so well, and visa versa, means we obviously do things against each other that wouldnt wash with the normal players - from a bit of needling to making good solid read based play.

We never colluded and i never would.

I dont consider it unethical to avoid pots with a friend - but i have no second thoughts about stacking a friend too. Last time we played live together i won £320 and he lost £350 - a large chunk of which he lost to me in a couple of our encounters. But its swings and roundabouts and no one can ever claim we softplay each other [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Fwiw - ive seen friends agree to chop a pot preflop after squeezing out another player. One had AA, the other KK. They were both regulars and ive played them a lot since but whilst i know its within the rules i believe stuff like that goes against the spirit of the game and in many ways could sour it for a recreational player who is there to just splash around.

One of them said they would have split the cash later anyway which im 100% fine with - but if it happened tonight instead of two months ago when i was pretty new to live poker id have said a fair bit more. Ironically if they hadnt shown their cards it would have never been remembered and no one would have thought anything about it there.