Collusion in canterbury 30/60 game?

[Vehn]

hmm yes I finally won a real pot when some idiot had AQ and justice had AK and they had the misfortune of running into my 33. some people don't understand simple poker concepts like 333QQ>AQQQK>AKKQQ. unfortunatly I departed while the 8 seat still had like 1.5 racks, I'm pretty dumb.

[fivesense]

Vehn,
you left and around 4am i left with ~6.5 racks
thanks for leaving a glorious game
<3

[Vehn]

meh I surely would have lost my shirt anyways I'm terrible at poker and basically try to hit one set and win a rack and leave every day. so far its been working out.

[Nate.]

five, Vehn, hopp--

Take this to the LC thread, perhaps?

--Nate

[pocketpared]

This is part of what I refer to as "subconscious collusion". It isn't collusion at all but appears to be. Take the big game, for example. Same core players for the most part for a long time. Now, fast forward to Doyle Brunson and Chip Reese on tv for a perfect example. Player limps in, Doyle raises with QQ, Chip reraises with KK. When it comes back to Doyle he folds immediately. Of course, 2 bet from behind from a top player is not the greatest spot to be, but almost any other player, if he were to fold, would have given a lot of thought before laying down the 3rd best possible hand without being sure he was already beat. To an outsider laying down here may have looked funny. It was just the two of them having played together so long Doyle knew he was beaten. Anyone else that hadn't played together for eons probably would have played the hand differently. This is part of, I believe, what makes the big game so tough for even a skilled player like Negraneau, let alone lesser outsiders.

[mosch]

[ QUOTE ]
Things such as playing tough in a multi-way pot and then checking it down after the stranger folds. Raising and three betting to steal blinds, posts, and especially kill pots and collection pots.

[/ QUOTE ]

The former could be but there are occasions where the action makes perfect sense as well.

The latter is just poker. Raising and 3-betting to steal blinds and posts is just good poker sense. If you're not doing that, you're losing because you suck at poker, not because you're being cheated.

That said, pointless and inaccurate conspiracy theories belong in other forums.

[Nate.]

pocketpared--

Agreed that there's no collusion involved in playing quickly and accurately against a familiar villain.

threeonefour--

Agreed that such behavior is annoying, but if they aren't cheating you, they aren't cheating you. They're probably not very good at LHE. So what if they check it down (an action which, again, is almost always [in practice] neutral-EV for the third party)?

--Nate

[threeonefour]

this isn't from Canterbury but it speaks to the issues of this post so i hope its not considered a hijack.

-Nate

i think the sum total of the little things can be tantamount to cheating. in my example, i would consider everyone asking for your cards to be flipped over every showdown to be cheating even if the floor doesn't recognize it due to some backwards policy.

another example, in this game i played in there were about 8 to 10 pairings of the 9 players at the table that checked down their hands virtually everytime they got heads up. i would guess on average 2.5 hands were checked down at somepoint per rotation of the blinds (its actually a fairly tight game), this is based on a couple of sessions during the height of the problems i was having at this place.

there were constantly situations where the flop was 3 way with me in it and action would be like:

dude1 bets
i call
dude2 raises
dude1 reraises
i fold my gutshot or whatever i had
dude2 elects to call and they proceed to check down the future streets.

is that cheating? obviously it is not, at least there is no grounds to conclude that from the evidence given alone. however, its pretty damning when 3 bets NEVER go in between these two when i am not in the hand, and if i happen to elect to call it always gets capped (well nearly always to be fair). still, thats just one tiny piece of evidence.

but combine this with not being able to muck, seeing players pass money back and forth between each other for buyins and such, its just a hostile game. to the point where even if they aren't actively cheating (i am pretty sure there was no anti-outsider conspiracy) the game was hostile to the point it simply isn't worth playing it. i rather play the 4-8 game where i don't have to worry about a hundred things extraneous to the actual cards being played.

i guess my point more than anything is that floor staff and regular players who depend on outsiders for income should try and make sure that the game isn't going to be *percieved* as sketchy even if it isn't.

even little things like a regular tossing a 5$ chip back to another regular after calling a river bet and losing can seem kind of weird to people new to live play. i see asians do this a lot with other asians, i have even had one a guy give a girl 5$ after the river action was:

guy bets river
i call
girl call

girl and i lose, guy gives girl 5$ from the pot (i get nothing obv). if this girl knew she was going to get 5$ in advance, then she has a much stronger incentive to call, which [censored] things up for me because there is a good chance i really don't want her to overcall, clearly it would be cheating if he told her in advance that he would pay her to call but its pretty hazy since there is only an implicit possibility that he might based on their previous relationship. they actually chatted a bit before the call 'do you want me to call? because if you do i will?' but didn't actually discuss anything beyond normal stuff you hear at the table. of course i am sure they meant no harm, but that action distorted the game and definitely shouldn't be allowed in non-heads up situations.

[Vehn]

sorry didn't mean to muck up this oh so serious thread.

[chillrob]

[ QUOTE ]
even little things like a regular tossing a 5$ chip back to another regular after calling a river bet and losing can seem kind of weird to people new to live play. i see asians do this a lot with other asians, i have even had one a guy give a girl 5$ after the river action was:

guy bets river
i call
girl call

girl and i lose, guy gives girl 5$ from the pot (i get nothing obv). if this girl knew she was going to get 5$ in advance, then she has a much stronger incentive to call, which [censored] things up for me because there is a good chance i really don't want her to overcall, clearly it would be cheating if he told her in advance that he would pay her to call but its pretty hazy since there is only an implicit possibility that he might based on their previous relationship. they actually chatted a bit before the call 'do you want me to call? because if you do i will?' but didn't actually discuss anything beyond normal stuff you hear at the table. of course i am sure they meant no harm, but that action distorted the game and definitely shouldn't be allowed in non-heads up situations.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have played with a lot of Asians in California games and have never seen this (luckily).

I think this is way over the line and I probably would complain about it. This should be a rules violation if for no other reason than people generally aren't allowed to take money out of their stacks except to tip a dealer. This sounds like the "tipper" is taking money out of his stack to give it to another player.