Heads up agreement?
 

I witnessed an incident recently and would like to hear the opinions from this forum. In a 2/5NL cash game, four palyers at a full table saw the flop. The flop action resulted in two players getting all in, and two players each with a couple of hundred behind. Before the turn, one of the players with money offered to the other player with money to check it down. At that point one of the all in players went ballistic, accusing them of collusion and demanding that their hands be killed.

It seems to me that in a live game for all intents and purposes this was a decision between two heads up players. Moreover, if they really were colluding, they would not want to get to the river.

Any opinions about whether this is permissible or not?

Thanks.

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

This is not acceptable. Of course their hands aren't dead, but with all-in players it is wrong to agree to check it down.

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

I play in a "hometown" indian casino and this sort of thing happens all the time.

But, we all know each other very well and have played thousands of hands together.

But, I have done this at Winstar in the 5/10nl game more than once also.

As far as I know it an acceptable practice. Not sure of the actual rules though.

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

Does this practice become more acceptable in a tournament play, where 2-3 players check down a hand in an attempt to eliminate another player?

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

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Does this practice become more acceptable in a tournament play, where 2-3 players check down a hand in an attempt to eliminate another player?

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it's 100% unacceptable in a tournament. assuming as the OP said that they verbally agreed to it.

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

This is collusion and unacceptable.


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Moreover, if they really were colluding, they would not want to get to the river.

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Of course they do. They are collusding to see that they both get the chance to make it to showdown.

The all in players are entitled to the protection that having the two players play individually would provide. Imagine an All-IN player has a set. Now one of the other players has top two and there is a flush draw and a straight draw on the board.

Player with top two very reasonably should be betting here to try get the draws out from the other player. But instead they agree to check it down and on the river the other player (who would have folded his pocket pair) hits a higher set on the river to beat you.

We have a situation here where you lost a pot because two players entered into an agreement to allow each other a free draw. that is collusion.

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

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Does this practice become more acceptable in a tournament play, where 2-3 players check down a hand in an attempt to eliminate another player?

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When they just do it (often incorrectly) they are trying to act in their best interest and not making an illegal agreement. If they say "let's check it down to knock this guy out" they are colluding.

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

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This is collusion and unacceptable.

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Hate to be a definition nit, but:

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collusion
n. A secret agreement between two or more parties for a fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful purpose.


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This seems more of a spur of the moment action. Still completely unacceptable.

But there is always "Player A shrugs, sighs, and says 'I check' before the turn is dealt and Player B follows suit". Is the non-verbal equivalent just as unacceptable? Or just less distasteful?

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

I disagree with the defining collusion as having to be secret.

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

I don't see how it is not collusion if two players verbally agree to put another player at a disadvantage that he would not have if they had not talked to each other.

In tournaments it happens all the time but usually it is a non verbal agreement, the turn comes and with out looking at the cards just looking at the other player someone very quickly says check the other responds with check and the same on the river (you don't really want to get involved with another big stack and your goal is to knock someone out of the tournament)

In a cash game you could easily lose value for a lot of the reasons psandman stated not pushing your opponent of draws etc. I guess you are probably losing that same value in a tournaments but other things factor in like knocking out people.

.02 from a noob perspective

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

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Does this practice become more acceptable in a tournament play, where 2-3 players check down a hand in an attempt to eliminate another player?

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If it's unspoken, it's fine. If someone says anything that indicates "hey, let's check it down and we have a better chance of knocking this guy out" it's wrong.

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

I agree that if it's unspoken it's fine. However, talking about it changes everything IMO.

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

In a tournament, there is often an implicit agreement. I know, however, that to express such an agreement in words in a tournament is absolutely unacceptable.

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

If instead of getting all in, those two players had folded (after putting in, say, $100), the two remaining players are free -- as heads up live game players -- to check, bet, chop the pot, run the board twice, etcetera.

Assuming the players' good faith, I'm not sure I see the difference or the problem.

And the fact is, colluding players don't want to get to the end; one of the colluders will fold to a river bet in an attampt to keep his hand concealed. (Although I recently played at a riverboat in East Chicago, Indiana, where the rule was that any player, once each dealer shift, could ask to see any hand, no matter when during play the player mucked.)

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

The problem is these players are NOT heads up though. They are still involved in a 4 way pot. They are the only two who can still have action but that does not make it a heads up pot. And they clearly cannot just agree to check it down any more than they can agree to just split the pot or run it twice.

And yes they're colluding, and yes they still want to get to showdown. They are not colluding in the typically thought of way of driving another player out to keep the pot to themselves. They are colluding to both get to showdown for free from that point on. They clearly both have SOME kind of hand at this point, assuming they were not working together before this but instead ended up all-in on some kind of actual hand. Keeping one hand concealed is not an issue since they both have a real hand and were presumably not raising-reraising simply to drive other players out.

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

Thanks to everyone who participated.

Bill

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

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I disagree with the defining collusion as having to be secret.

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By definition, in an economic sense, it does. Collusion is a form of fraud where rival businesses agree to terms which damage a third party (either another business or consumers) without that party's knowledge.

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

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I disagree with the defining collusion as having to be secret.

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By definition, in an economic sense, it does. Collusion is a form of fraud where rival businesses agree to terms which damage a third party (either another business or consumers) without that party's knowledge.

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words have many definitions. Finding one definition doesn't preclude others.

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

Poker is an individual game, not a team sport. The scoring system for poker is money, and oddly enough one of the precepts from macroeconomics can be applied.

Every person will act in his/her own best interests.

When players start a hand with this understanding, and then suddenly two players depart from this understanding, something fundamentally wrong has happened. The original playing conditions have changed. This applies even stronger in a tournament, where not only is the all-in player affected, but every other player in the tournamnent is affected as well.

Lets say Player A flops the nut straight and the players enter an agreement to check it down. Player B, who makes runner runner flush agrees, and player A, who should have been busted, survives. because he does, the next guy busted gets one lower place on the payout. This agreement not only cost the all in player, it also cost a guy at another table, because player A didnt get busted.

There's my .02

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Poker is an individual game, not a team sport. The scoring system for poker is money, and oddly enough one of the precepts from macroeconomics can be applied.

Every person will act in his/her own best interests.

When players start a hand with this understanding, and then suddenly two players depart from this understanding, something fundamentally wrong has happened. The original playing conditions have changed. This applies even stronger in a tournament, where not only is the all-in player affected, but every other player in the tournamnent is affected as well.

Lets say Player A flops the nut straight and the players enter an agreement to check it down. Player B, who makes runner runner flush agrees, and player A, who should have been busted, survives. because he does, the next guy busted gets one lower place on the payout. This agreement not only cost the all in player, it also cost a guy at another table, because player A didnt get busted.

There's my .02

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This is the most succinct explanation of this I've seen. QFMFT.

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

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words have many definitions.

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Yes, they do. There are even a couple types of definitions. I think that ultimately misses the point though. To me, this seems to be a poker corollary to Godwin's Law.
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Finding one definition doesn't preclude others.

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No, it doesn't, but it helps to realize where a word comes from when one is going to extrapolate its use to other venues. Collusion has become way overused in poker in senses where it doesn't really apply. The concept of implied collusion has muddied the waters a bit as well.

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Poker is an individual game, not a team sport. The scoring system for poker is money, and oddly enough one of the precepts from macroeconomics can be applied.

Every person will act in his/her own best interests.

When players start a hand with this understanding, and then suddenly two players depart from this understanding, something fundamentally wrong has happened. The original playing conditions have changed. This applies even stronger in a tournament, where not only is the all-in player affected, but every other player in the tournamnent is affected as well.

Lets say Player A flops the nut straight and the players enter an agreement to check it down. Player B, who makes runner runner flush agrees, and player A, who should have been busted, survives. because he does, the next guy busted gets one lower place on the payout. This agreement not only cost the all in player, it also cost a guy at another table, because player A didnt get busted.

There's my .02

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How is such an offer to check it down any different than any other table talk? Let's say player B when he hits his runner runner suddenly bets out. Can Player A call the floor? What should the penalty be for reneging on the agreement? How is such an agreement much different from chopping agreements when it gets down to a certain number of players in the tournament? Are those not just as fundamentally wrong?

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Poker is an individual game, not a team sport. The scoring system for poker is money, and oddly enough one of the precepts from macroeconomics can be applied.

Every person will act in his/her own best interests.

When players start a hand with this understanding, and then suddenly two players depart from this understanding, something fundamentally wrong has happened. The original playing conditions have changed. This applies even stronger in a tournament, where not only is the all-in player affected, but every other player in the tournamnent is affected as well.

Lets say Player A flops the nut straight and the players enter an agreement to check it down. Player B, who makes runner runner flush agrees, and player A, who should have been busted, survives. because he does, the next guy busted gets one lower place on the payout. This agreement not only cost the all in player, it also cost a guy at another table, because player A didnt get busted.

There's my .02

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My only quible with this is that this is a microeconomic concpet rather than a macro.

Re: Heads up agreement?
 

[ QUOTE ]
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[...] oddly enough one of the precepts from macroeconomics can be applied.
Every person will act in his/her own best interests.

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My only quible with this is that this is a microeconomic concpet rather than a macro.

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A bigger quibble should be that the invisible hand doesn't apply to poker for most people.