Heads up agreement?

[dizzle98]

The problem is these players are NOT heads up though. They are still involved in a 4 way pot. They are the only two who can still have action but that does not make it a heads up pot. And they clearly cannot just agree to check it down any more than they can agree to just split the pot or run it twice.

And yes they're colluding, and yes they still want to get to showdown. They are not colluding in the typically thought of way of driving another player out to keep the pot to themselves. They are colluding to both get to showdown for free from that point on. They clearly both have SOME kind of hand at this point, assuming they were not working together before this but instead ended up all-in on some kind of actual hand. Keeping one hand concealed is not an issue since they both have a real hand and were presumably not raising-reraising simply to drive other players out.

[psandman]

This is collusion and unacceptable.


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Moreover, if they really were colluding, they would not want to get to the river.

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Of course they do. They are collusding to see that they both get the chance to make it to showdown.

The all in players are entitled to the protection that having the two players play individually would provide. Imagine an All-IN player has a set. Now one of the other players has top two and there is a flush draw and a straight draw on the board.

Player with top two very reasonably should be betting here to try get the draws out from the other player. But instead they agree to check it down and on the river the other player (who would have folded his pocket pair) hits a higher set on the river to beat you.

We have a situation here where you lost a pot because two players entered into an agreement to allow each other a free draw. that is collusion.

[AngusThermopyle]

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This is collusion and unacceptable.

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Hate to be a definition nit, but:

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collusion
n. A secret agreement between two or more parties for a fraudulent, illegal, or deceitful purpose.


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This seems more of a spur of the moment action. Still completely unacceptable.

But there is always "Player A shrugs, sighs, and says 'I check' before the turn is dealt and Player B follows suit". Is the non-verbal equivalent just as unacceptable? Or just less distasteful?

[psandman]

I disagree with the defining collusion as having to be secret.

[TobyG]

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I disagree with the defining collusion as having to be secret.

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By definition, in an economic sense, it does. Collusion is a form of fraud where rival businesses agree to terms which damage a third party (either another business or consumers) without that party's knowledge.

[psandman]

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I disagree with the defining collusion as having to be secret.

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By definition, in an economic sense, it does. Collusion is a form of fraud where rival businesses agree to terms which damage a third party (either another business or consumers) without that party's knowledge.

[/ QUOTE ]

words have many definitions. Finding one definition doesn't preclude others.

[djcarter66]

I don't see how it is not collusion if two players verbally agree to put another player at a disadvantage that he would not have if they had not talked to each other.

In tournaments it happens all the time but usually it is a non verbal agreement, the turn comes and with out looking at the cards just looking at the other player someone very quickly says check the other responds with check and the same on the river (you don't really want to get involved with another big stack and your goal is to knock someone out of the tournament)

In a cash game you could easily lose value for a lot of the reasons psandman stated not pushing your opponent of draws etc. I guess you are probably losing that same value in a tournaments but other things factor in like knocking out people.

.02 from a noob perspective