[Buzz]

Wiseheart - Suppose two partners had an agreement to split fifty-fifty, and also knew their confederate's cards.

Colluding would not so much be a matter of soft playing their confederate as getting out of a split pot hand when they were both going the same one-way, and simply choosing to play the better hand of the two while folding the other hand.

When I have suspected people, it has mainly been when they greedily raised inappropriately on the third betting round and then folded on the fourth so as not to have to show their cards. That particular facet and other telltale signs of collusion (such as soft playing each other in a tournament) could be avoided. Partners could use the extra information cleverly enough so that nobody would know they had an unfair edge.

Omaha-8 is not always highly dependent on a mathematical evaluation (odds or E.V.) - but sometimes it is. Sometimes it would definitely be a big advantage for partners to know the whereabouts of those extra four cards. I think they could use the information subtly enough that you would never even guess there was collusion.

I have seen people cheating at cards by colluding. Thus there is no doubt in my mind that some people will cheat by colluding if they think they can figure out a way to get away with it. If two or three individuals playing in the same on-line game and making their cards known to their confederate(s) were not blatant, then IMHO [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] they'd be virtually impossible to catch, and if they played well, they'd have a huge advantage.

I haven't spent much time thinking about how to cheat on-line and not get caught, but it seems to me that it would not be difficult at all, so long as you were not excessively greedy.

Buzz