How would you handle this situation?

[bmk67]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, it's not exactly a home game, but it's live, and certainly not B&M.

Sunday night league tournament. I'm short stacked (6BB) and looking to chip up or bust out so I have time to make it to another tournament across town.

6 players, I'm UTG and open push. CO calls, SB calls. Both cover me by a comfortable margin. CO flips over his hand (88) and someone says "hold it, there's still action". CO says to SB "OK, let's check it down.". SB says "OK". I say, "You can't agree to check it down." CO shrugs, SB shrugs, dealer shrugs and deals out the board. Pot is shipped to the CO when SB and myself fail to improve.

I have no problem with CO mistakenly tabling his hand. Also have no problem with two players checking a hand down against an all-in player. However, I have a huge problem with two players verbally agreeing to collude, regardless of any justification that they might have.

Unfortunately, this particular league publishes only a minimal set of rules and does not specifically reference TDA, Robert's, or any other published set of rules. This specific situation, collusion in general, and a number of other common situations aren't addressed at all.

I did not make an issue of it at the table at the time because it wasn't until the pot was shipped that I realized how egregious the situation was. The game is player-dealt, so the dealer really has no power, and the "Tournament Directors" are of dubious quality.

After giving it some thought, the two colluding players should have had their hands killed. Correct, or no?

How would you hand this situation?

[Grasshopp3r]

Nope. Collusion is a violation, but it does not invalidate the current hand. The penalty can be expulsion, which is pretty severe in this case.

[pfapfap]

Any halfway decent tournament players would realize this anyway, and it's likely the result would have been the same. This is incredibly minor. Having their hands killed would be borderline angle-shoot, I think. Rude, anyway. This was not collusion.

[killsadie]

just idiots, who get away with stuff because theyre idiots

[PantsOnFire]

[ QUOTE ]
After giving it some thought, the two colluding players should have had their hands killed. Correct, or no?

How would you hand this situation?

[/ QUOTE ]
There's nothing to handle here. The hand didn't go as smoothly as a normal hand does but the cards fell and there was no unfairness.

Sure it is usually against the rules to verbally declare a checkdown but it is so common that it happens all the time without anybody saying anything. In a real cardroom, these guys would have been warned and that's all.

[Precept2]

As stated above, you're out of the tourney, and you're opponents are idiots. If I were the Tournament Director, I'd do the following:

First offense: slap on the wrist.
Second offense: KITN
Third offense: Banned from league