Is this a situation to avoid?

[candyman718]

Played in a home game tonight. It was a 10 person $50 SNG. NLHE. 1st place $300, 2nd place $150.

There were 3 friends at the table. Whenever they got heads up against each other in a hand they would check it down to the river. How does this fact effect my chances of winning?

This was the only anomaly. I saw no evidence of chip dumping or any other collusion. There are quite a few mindless maniacs at the table that seem to make this a good game to play in. Should I keep on playing?

[phish]

Without intending to, they are in effect cheating. It's impact on you is tremendous. Think of this example:

You're in a pot after the flop with 2 of these guys. One guy makes a decent sized bet, second guy has a mediocre hand or draw he'd fold in normal circumstances. And you have a hand that could call HU, but can't really overcall. Now second guy would normally fold, but now knows that if he calls and you fold (of course he doesn't know for sure that you would fold), then he won't need to face another bet on the turn or the river. Hence by making that call on the flop, he gets to showdown if you fold.

This gives him enough incentive to call, which causes you to fold perhaps the winning hand.

Now they may not have planned these strategic advantages in advance, but anyone who's smart will realize the implications of that their unspoken agreement of not betting each other, and act accordingly. So, while perhaps not pre-meditated, it becomes very clearly collusion of the worst sort.

[Wabbits]

I agree. Not a fair situation for you to be in.

[Talmage]

You should always want action in hands you aren't involved in. Obviously the more people who get knocked out improves your standing. In a cash game this wouldn't be quite as bad if you adjusted your play to take advantage of what you know could very likely be unusually weak calls, but in a tournament it's horrible.

[candyman718]

[ QUOTE ]
You should always want action in hands you aren't involved in. Obviously the more people who get knocked out improves your standing. In a cash game this wouldn't be quite as bad if you adjusted your play to take advantage of what you know could very likely be unusually weak calls, but in a tournament it's horrible.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is unclear to me. In this tourney 2 spots pay. Is it easier for me to cash if 1 player doubles up on the first hand or if they slow play each other? Let's take a more extreme situation. 6 maniacs at the table. the first 5 hands are all-in fests that you stay out of. The hands end with player 1 at 3000 chips, player 2 at 3000 chips, and the other 4 players at 1000 chips. You are now 2000 chips behind 2nd place. Do you still like your chances of finishing 1st or 2nd? or would you rather those players had played more conservatively?

[JaredL]

I agree with the above. Phish has provided a good reason.

Another reason has to do with tournament strategy. Often on the bubble you will face situations where you will go all-in and would not want your opponent to call even if you were a favorite to win the hand (say you had a small pair and your opponent had AK). The reason for this is that due to the payout structure of the tournament losing your chips is worse for you than winning the same amount. Obviously the caller in the above paragraph would (usually) rather not call as well.

In other words, coin flips for a large amount of chips tend to be bad for both parties involved, including the slight favorite. If it's bad for those involved it must be good for at least some of the others (as it's a zero-sum game). It is especially good if you are a small stack and two other players go to war. It can be bad for you if you are a big stack, but you will be a small stack more often than that will happen.

If two players check it down it will be very bad for you because you will not benefit from these situations as the friends won't bust each other.

Notice that this argument is particular to tournaments where the checking down thing is devastating. If you wind up with two down checkers as the final 3 with about even stacks your EV will suffer a great deal.

To see this a bit better consider this quick and dirty model. It's not perfect as it greatly simplifies things, but it should make it more clear.

Suppose you and two guys that won't play against each other each have 1 chip. You are all equally skilled meaning that if you play against each other you are 50/50 to win.

Because the other guys won't go up against each other you will have to with one of them. Thus you have a 50% chance to get 3rd and get nothing, and a 50% chance to go heads up with a 2-1 chip lead. In that case we'll say you win 2/3 of the time and get 2nd 1/3 of the time. Your tournament EV is then (2/3)(1/2)300 + (1/3)(1/2)150 (+ (1/2)0) = 125. Your opponents are equivalent here, so they will split the extra 450 - 125 = 325, getting 162.5 each. So they each have a much higher EV than you because of this.

The above is an oversimplification, but should give you a good idea that they are gaining an edge over you because of this.

edit: fixed typo in formula

[Talmage]

[ QUOTE ]
This is unclear to me. In this tourney 2 spots pay. Is it easier for me to cash if 1 player doubles up on the first hand or if they slow play each other? Let's take a more extreme situation. 6 maniacs at the table. the first 5 hands are all-in fests that you stay out of. The hands end with player 1 at 3000 chips, player 2 at 3000 chips, and the other 4 players at 1000 chips. You are now 2000 chips behind 2nd place. Do you still like your chances of finishing 1st or 2nd? or would you rather those players had played more conservatively?

[/ QUOTE ]

Let them have big stacks early. They'll probably squander them. In a tournament, it's always the big stacks with everything to lose. 2000 to 3000 isn't nearly as big of a disadvantage as you might think. Consider the following two scenarios:

1. Al has 8000 chips, Bert has 8000 chips, and I have 4000 chips.

2. Al has 4000 chips, Bert has 4000 chips, Chuck has 4000 chips, Doug has 4000 chips, and I have 4000 chips.

Ceteris paribus, I'd much prefer the first situation, even though only two spots pay. The giants can kill each other and I'd wind up placing. This isn't as likely in the second situation, since three people would have to get knocked out for me to place without catching any cards. Not to mention, if I win a pot or two, I can improve my standing tremendously.

[JaredL]

BTW to calculate the EV of the other guys in my post above, you could also do this:

For either opponent:
- half the time they will be the one to play for their chip with you. In this case their EV is the same as yours, so they get 125 half the time.

- the other half of the time they will be at a 2-1 chip disadvantage heads up. In that case they will get 300*(1/3) + 150*(2/3) = 200.

So their EV is 1/2 * 125 + 1/2 * 200 = 162.5

[candyman718]

Thanks for the answer. I can understand it clearly once you get down to the bubble. For some reason though, I still don't know how it hurts you early in the tournament.

The effect of this type of play on the bubble is enough to make me not want to play there again.

On a side note, this angle did not have any impact on my placing 4th. For that I have only the Gods of Poker who decided to give me K6 in the BB and get made a shortstack by someone who limped with KJ on a KJ6 flop.

[PantsOnFire]

This is called "soft playing". You'll find most if not all online poker site clearly state that this is against their rules in tournaments and is grounds for having you account frozen and being removed from the site. I also believe this is true in most B&M cardrooms as well.

Here is an interesting article: http://www.cardplayer.com/magazine/article/15231

And here: http://www.pokergazette.com/simpnews...mp;newsnr=2392

And here is Daniel Negreanu's take on it: http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/140189