[Brocktoon]

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is soft-playing each other just unethical or illegal as well? if it isnt, you have a case, it looks really suspicius...

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Multi-way is definitely illegal but its very hard to detect and enforce at all effectively. HU is somewhat of a gray area I believe but I'd bet that most serious players agree that it violates the spirit of the game and is quite unethical if not flat out illegal.

I think there was an issue with this a while back involving Stars and some multi-tabling mid/high stakes NL players where Stars basically said it would allow players to check down hands against one another when they are HU if they want. IIRC a lot of people here found that to be a controversial stance and done as a means to placate players who provide a lot of rake, not in the interest of the game.