Poker Ethics Question

[GUMBY55]

I just had this conversation last night with somebody at a local tourament. He said he played a hand where he would have checked the hand down, but made a play because of the pre-flop raiser betting. He had no business being in the hand to start with with J-9 suited on a raise and an all in call, but that's beside the point.

He caught a straight flush draw and check raised his opponent all-in with it. His opponent called with his QQ and ended up losing to the donk. The all-in player had A-K and would've won with a pair of Kings on the turn.

I said that the guy with QQ should have bet to try and get more money. He was probably 60% sure he had the all-in player beat and 95% sure he had the donk call beat. It was the middle of a MTT and knocking someone out isn't that important at the time.

We talked about this for 10 minutes before I decided that I had enough and just realized that I could take all his chips. I did with 88 against his A-4. Hee Haw!

[Amy1970]

Ok, I'm not the best poker player and I haven't ever posted on here before, but...
Many times I have seen one person go over everyone else who has called an all-in...even post-flop. I don't see anything wrong with this, if that person has the best hand to knock him out, so be it. Also, isn't it smart to get as many chips as possible when the number of players get smaller?
Am I making any sense at all here?

[PantsOnFire]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, I'm not the best poker player and I haven't ever posted on here before, but...
Many times I have seen one person go over everyone else who has called an all-in...even post-flop. I don't see anything wrong with this, if that person has the best hand to knock him out, so be it. Also, isn't it smart to get as many chips as possible when the number of players get smaller?
Am I making any sense at all here?

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a different situation. Sometimes you want to isolate the small stack all-in player to protect your hands. For example, I have KK. Small stack moves in ahead of me. With a medium or large stack, I move all in as well. The reason for this is to get heads up with the small stack with a presumably better hand. If I just call the all in, I am giving pot odds to other players behind to also come in. I don't want to lose the pot to Ax. However, this is not the subject of the original post but another valid topic though that is close. You can actually prevent the issue in question by getting HU with the raiser.

As for checking down in a three way pot with a dry side pot, I feel it is only necessary if there is a good benefit to both non all in players such as a bubble situation or a significant pay ladder change.

In mid tournament situations, I would not bluff or bet draws but I sure would protect my made hands.

[QuadLaser]

There is no convention here. You should do what is best for YOU in all situations. If the size of the pot is 5% of your entire stack and means little to your chip count, check it down to increase the odds of a knockout. If you have >50% of your chips in this pot, go all in when you hit to prevent a suckout that cripples your stack. Its your call, and no one should berate you for what you choose to do.

[wazz]

In the right situations you can sometimes fold out a hand that beats you with a hand that beats the all-in guy. Say you have AK on a 10 4 2 board and you put your opponent on a medium pocket-pair 55-99 and the all-in person on a weaker ace betting is the right play, especially if the pot is a large % of your stack. Though obv there are certain similar situations where a check-down is called for.

Sometimes it can also be worthwhile to build the pot if you have a strong draw. AQ [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] on a 10 [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] J :club 9 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] 9[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] board, for example, is only ahead of a rag ace but has so many outs to improve if opponent only has two pair.

Another potential situation: you have AJ [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] and the board reads J [img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] 5 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 8[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], and a short-stack overbets all-in. He is called by a large stack who you cover. The large stack is quite tight so for him to call the overbet he has to have a strong hand like 2-pair or a legitimately strong draw which likes callers, like 7 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] 9 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] . You're generally behind the large stack but ahead of the short-stack who could be betting any draw or any pair. This exact situation came up for me recently and I even managed to fold out J8 who was convinced I had a set (he showed). I proceeded to win the £350 pot unimproved. J8 was kinda mad but a good player and I managed to show him why it was a good play.

The issue here is that most people don't have much concept of how the game changes around the 'protected pot' and do in fact confuse ethics (of which I see very little value in re poker with the exception of cheating) with strategy. If you are confident enough in your hand reading and how you think your opponents will react virtually any move will go in the right situation.

[Bantam222]

once in the money it is best for you to chek it down as there is often a large money jump from knocking out the players. But this early in the SNG getting the chips into your stack are much more important then knocking out a player.

Ethics? forget it, just because there is a guy all in doesn't mean you should stop betting (when you usually have the all in guy beat anyway). This question should be is it +ev to bet here.

[HP]

seems like some prisoners dilemma goin on here

[alanbrown]

This isn't collusion. It's a shared understanding of best play. Best Play being defined as what suits the individual player. While we can debate whether it suits the player in this situation (or any other) the idea that a shared understanding of how to play a hand is collusion is very misguided. It would only be collusion if one of the would-be-checkers suggests aloud that they check the hand down.

[Small Fry]

I don't see any ethics issue here. It's just playing out the hand in a way that makes the most sense, which I thought was fairly obvious.

There is no point in bluffing at a dry side pot.
If you get your other live opponent to fold you gain nothing extra, but you, and you alone must now beat the all in player, who presumably has a decent hand and probably has you beat at this point.

What your bluff has done is increase the likelyhood that this player remains in play. Without a hand that has decent showdown value there is no point in betting into the dry side pot.

Now in the OP's situation we have the improvement we are looking for and the very real possibility that he is ahead of both players. This situation imo clearly calls for a bet. You are going to charge the other player to draw and you're getting extra money in a side pot you expect to win. If he does fold you are heads up and are very likely to win, rather than lose, to the all in player.

As others have already pointed out if there is some type of verbal, or some other type of signal given, that lets both players know what each intends to do, while the hand is in play, then it's collusion.

[Jive Dadson]

You played it right. Why give the guy with the straight draw a free chance to draw out on you? Yeah, the short stack would be more likely to go bust, but you don't care who goes bust next, so long as it's not you. Winning $600 when you have $1200 left is significant.

The player with the flush draw was out of line to suggest colluding against the short stack(s). Did he say this before the turn or after the hand was over? It's a serious offense if he said it before the hand was over. What happened on the turn? Did you bet again?