[Garland]

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If you felt there was a strong possibility of collusion, then leave, or request a seat change (it's usually ok if you clear it with the players, yeah?). That said...

Another 2p2'er (Bdaddy) and I were once accused of the same thing. He was sitting on my right and every time it was folded to Bdaddy in the CO or on the button and he opened, I happened to have a hand that was likely ahead of his. And we never went to SD. After one player started barking at us (this was the 3rd or 4th time this happened over the course of an hour), I showed a flopped bottom two pair and he showed a flopped top-bottom pair. And I folded to his flop 5-bet.

That gentleman no longer made any comments. Point is, I think it's difficult to correctly suspect collusion in a short game just because the two people know each other.

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Re: seat change. No, it wasn't ok even if cleared by players. It was enforced by both the dealer and the floor.

In your case, it was suspicious to raise/4-bet/fold to a 5-bet simply because it's something that is "never" seen in live play. I can honestly say I've only seen it happen once in live play in the last 4 years, and I've played a lot of live poker in the last 4 years.

It's never difficult to suspect collusion. It is, however, difficult to correctly prove collusion. And even the appearance of possible collusion is very, very bad for the game.

Thanks for your thoughts,

Garland