#21
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Re: Soft Play (Collusion) in Tournaments
[ QUOTE ]
Don't dance around the issue, don't give them a chance to "change a little" to avoid embarasing the card room manager with their more obvious moves. That's silly. You have to take decisive and firm action. Understand you should have never let this get started to begin with. This will make it even more uncomfortable to deal with now but that is the breaks. You have to protect your card room. [/ QUOTE ] No need for this hardline on softplay. I don't think any poker room in the coutnry could stay in business if it tried to eliminate all forms of it. Softplay is like holding in football, it happens all the time and is just a question of how much the refs will tolerate. I suggest the OP gradually escalate the actions taken against the team. 1. Post signs saying that no softplay or collusion is allowed. 2. Give verbal warnings at the table so everyone can hear. 3. Signal to dealers to expose hands when one of the blatant softpalys occurs so everyone can see. 4. Impose ten minute or so penalties on those who are found. 5. Suspensions for those who insist on their right to softplay. |
#22
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Re: Soft Play (Collusion) in Tournaments
[ QUOTE ]
I do not cheat in poker tourneys, but I thought the normal way to go about it was chip dumping to either help team members survive or to build a couple of monster stacks to compete for the big money. Softplaying just maintains the status quo. [/ QUOTE ] Softplaying maintains the status quo in terms of number of chips for a number of players but they move up closer to or into the money every time somebody else is knocked off. When I used to play Party Poker they had a lot of freerolls for WSOP entries. 3500 entrants with 50 making the semifinals. In the semis 3500 entries with 25 making the money (15 top prizes of $10,000). Because of the payout structure it was not uncommon to see entire tables towards the bubble of the tournament colluding by never making a bet. And this collusion was overt. You could watch the chat box at the table and see people laughing about laying down AA pre-flop. Party Poker took different approaches to dealing with it based on who was handling the complaint. In one tourney, nobody was penalized and I got an e-mail later stating that "no collusion took place - so there will be no penalties". In another tourney, all chat priviledges were immediately revoked at that table and because there was one holdout the table was not able to collude. So in this guy's tourney, if the blinds escalate too quickly you could get situations where the final 8-15 guys would chop all prize money - making it profitable for 7 guys to slow play into that situation. There is a thread running right now asking about a 17 way chop at a tourney... |
#23
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Re: Soft Play (Collusion) in Tournaments
[ QUOTE ]
There is a thread running right now asking about a 17 way chop at a tourney... [/ QUOTE ] Link? |
#24
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Re: Soft Play (Collusion) in Tournaments
Oscar, if I can read between the lines, you either have an illegal game, or the 7 have some inordinate influence on your clubs operations. Randy gave you the best options, but I think there might be one other route. Sit the 7 down and explain why its in everyones interests that you run an honest room, and explain why what they are doing is wrong and hurting the viability of their room. Then explain what you will be doing to prevent reoccurence.
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#25
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Re: Soft Play (Collusion) in Tournaments
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] There is a thread running right now asking about a 17 way chop at a tourney... [/ QUOTE ] Link? [/ QUOTE ] That's not about soft play or collusion. It's just about the final 2 tables not wanting to do coinflips for huge blinds with everyone at less than 7XBB. |
#26
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Re: Soft Play (Collusion) in Tournaments
Here here to all posts following mine on the subject. Do something about it and keep at it and I'm happy as a customer of your room.
I've been the victim of end game open verbal collusion on two different occasions by the same player at my once favorite local card room. Great club, several live action tables every night, 20 to 50 player tourny's 5 nights a week. I was in heaven. But, the second time this happened on the bubble being victimized the the same player, I complained about it both times and the house did nothing each time. It won't happen a 3rd time. I won't be back. Funny thing is I brought about 15 players to this room over a couple of years, they won't get anymore from me. It's clear to me, if I don't shut up and take the screwing, my play was not welcome. You certainly must stand up for yourself in this game. I am still a bit tender about the experiance and maybe this is the cause of my strong feelings showing through in my posts. To Rotter, do only chickens and bunnies make it to the final table? ;-) |
#27
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Re: Soft Play (Collusion) in Tournaments
1st question. Are you doing everything in your power to make sure these 7 are sitting at different tables during the tourney? Obviously it gets difficult as players get knocked out and tables close but if you can keep them as seperate as possible then they will be forced to win through their own abilities anyway. If you still get 5 of them at the final table then it could just be that they know how to play.
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#28
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Re: Soft Play (Collusion) in Tournaments
Didn't read the whole thread but if you make the tournament winner take all then softplaying shouldn't be a very effective collusion strategy. If there are only a few dozen entries maybe this is viable?
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#29
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Re: Soft Play (Collusion) in Tournaments
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Preferential soft playing is collusion, not "maintaining the status quo." When you won't bet against your buddies, but you all play hard against the rest, you are cheating and should be banned. The status of the blinds, antes, bubble, clock, or payouts are irrelevant. [/ QUOTE ] I agree that preferential softplay is cheating. How are you going to prove it? Many tournament players won't get involved in big pots with other big stacks if it's close to the bubble or a big prize jump. In this case, assume that the evil 5 all have 50 BB stacks while the 2 victims have 4 BB. Which one of the 5 is going to want to be the one who blows up and busts out when there are 2 guys on life support? You don't have to agree that these are good strategies, but you can't ban somebody because they play that way. Hopefully if OP had some decent evidence of collusion like table talk or the guys splitting the money in the parking lot he'd have mentioned it. Until he gives me specifics of the collusion, I'm not going to assume it's going on. This is a guy who admitted in his second post in the thread that he didn't have any business running a card room. |
#30
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Re: Soft Play (Collusion) in Tournaments
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I agree that preferential softplay is cheating. How are you going to prove it? [/ QUOTE ] Fortunately running a cardroom is not like running a criminal court. You don't have to prove anything. If after watching these people play for several weeks the guy running the cardroom thinks they are cheating...they are probably cheating and it is reasonable for him to take action to stop them from continuing to cheat. He need not prove anything. Even if he is wrong and they aren'rt cheating, they are giving the appearance of cheating and that can be just as harmful. |
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