Two uber-lags at a 2/4 NL B&M game, collusion?

[Albert Moulton]

I sat in for a session of 2/4 NL ($300 max buyin) B&M game where two very young men, who appeared to be friends, sat in seats 1 and seat 5 at a 9-handed. They were playing super loose-aggressive pre-flop.

Hands would routinely play like this. Stacks are between 400 and 1200. Button is seat 4, SB 5 and BB 6: limp, fold, seat 1 raises to 50, fold, call, fold, seat 5 reraises to 200, folds to button who goes all-in, folds to seat 1 who goes all-in, and then folds back to seat 5 who calls. Then the preflop holdings in a hand like this would routinely be something like: seat 1 has A9o, seat 2 has JTs, and button has 99/TT/JJ/QQ/KK/AA/AK or AQ. People were litterally playing back all in with almost any decent cards because they were pretty much certain to having the best hand vs these two going into the flop.

On closer inspection, I'm not so sure there wasn't a method to their madness. Lets say in my example that it's 3-way with button having KK. The EVs for the hands break down like this:

pokenum -h kd kh - ac 9d - js ts
Holdem Hi: 1370754 enumerated boards
cards win %win lose %lose tie %tie EV
Kd Kh 768614 56.07 599119 43.71 3021 0.22 0.561
Ac 9d 330797 24.13 1036936 75.65 3021 0.22 0.242
Js Ts 268322 19.57 1099411 80.20 3021 0.22 0.196

If we assume the two lags were colluding, then adding their combined EVs to the dead money from the limpers and callers to the original 50 raise preflop, isn't this kind of collusion (which would obviously be against the rules and completely unethical) nevertheless be +EV? Especially if you add in the $ from hands in which everybody else folds and the times one of their 2 hands suck out to crack AA or KK (as happened several times).

For 5 hours I wathced them go broke, rebuy, build up to $1500 on crazy suck outs, and utimately go broke again.

I'm posting this in the theory forum because I was wondering if this kind of illegal pooling of EV for marginal hands in large pots vs one other player for their combined stacks + fold equity + any dead money from limp/callers prior to the reraises all-in is a long-term +EV strategy. I mean, disregarding for a minute that I'm suspecting that they were engaging in illegal and unethical behavior, I was wondering if that kind of cheating is mathematically +EV.

At the time, they just seemed like they were aweful LAGs. But after I thought about their play some more, I think that maybe they were cheating in a manner that could actually have a reasonable expectation of making $.

I'd never seen this kind of play before. It went on until both players eventually ran into big hands that held up enough times that both busted out.

Is what I'm describing a form of collusion that would expect a postive return on thier $ if they weren't caught and if they had a deep enough bankroll?

Or, this this style just plain -EV and if they were colluding, they were doing it badly?

[Machinehead]

It sounds like they're probably just a couple idiots and not colluding. Having JTs and A9o allin preflop vs KK is all good news for the KK. He's getting better than 2 to 1 on his money and he's over 50% to win.

[Albert Moulton]

Oh, and I'm not looking for advice on how to cheat. I don't even know if they were actually cheating. But if they were cheating, I'm intellectually curious to know whether they were mathematically smart or stupid if in fact they were trying to cheat.

[jtr]

Albert, I think your pokerstove analysis is a step in the right direction, but remember that these two guys basically need to hit 67% or better combined equity for their strategy to be profitable. Remember that when they lose, they lose two stacks and when they win, they only get one.

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
Having JTs and A9o allin preflop vs KK is a typical situation in small stakes brick-and-mortar NLHE.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually I don't play much $2-4 or -5, but it's certainly standard for $1-2, and probably not all that rare in $2-4 either.