Soft Play (Collusion) in Tournaments

[Popped Rod]

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... 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...

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This doesn't seem to be the same thing. Laying down AA with a medium stack on the bubble is good sattelite strategy.

I'd be more concerned with players donating to the shorties to keep them at the table.

Another form of collusion during a sattelite is for everyone to call a shorty's all-in and all checking down to the river. This increases the possibility that the shorty will bust out against the many opponents.