Heads up agreement?

[ChuckyB]

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Does this practice become more acceptable in a tournament play, where 2-3 players check down a hand in an attempt to eliminate another player?

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If it's unspoken, it's fine. If someone says anything that indicates "hey, let's check it down and we have a better chance of knocking this guy out" it's wrong.

[LateNiteRush]

I agree that if it's unspoken it's fine. However, talking about it changes everything IMO.

[Magicmanu]

In a tournament, there is often an implicit agreement. I know, however, that to express such an agreement in words in a tournament is absolutely unacceptable.

[Magicmanu]

If instead of getting all in, those two players had folded (after putting in, say, $100), the two remaining players are free -- as heads up live game players -- to check, bet, chop the pot, run the board twice, etcetera.

Assuming the players' good faith, I'm not sure I see the difference or the problem.

And the fact is, colluding players don't want to get to the end; one of the colluders will fold to a river bet in an attampt to keep his hand concealed. (Although I recently played at a riverboat in East Chicago, Indiana, where the rule was that any player, once each dealer shift, could ask to see any hand, no matter when during play the player mucked.)

[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.

[Magicmanu]

Thanks to everyone who participated.

Bill

[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]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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.

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

[JohnnyGroomsTD]

Poker is an individual game, not a team sport. The scoring system for poker is money, and oddly enough one of the precepts from macroeconomics can be applied.

Every person will act in his/her own best interests.

When players start a hand with this understanding, and then suddenly two players depart from this understanding, something fundamentally wrong has happened. The original playing conditions have changed. This applies even stronger in a tournament, where not only is the all-in player affected, but every other player in the tournamnent is affected as well.

Lets say Player A flops the nut straight and the players enter an agreement to check it down. Player B, who makes runner runner flush agrees, and player A, who should have been busted, survives. because he does, the next guy busted gets one lower place on the payout. This agreement not only cost the all in player, it also cost a guy at another table, because player A didnt get busted.

There's my .02

[pfapfap]

[ QUOTE ]
Poker is an individual game, not a team sport. The scoring system for poker is money, and oddly enough one of the precepts from macroeconomics can be applied.

Every person will act in his/her own best interests.

When players start a hand with this understanding, and then suddenly two players depart from this understanding, something fundamentally wrong has happened. The original playing conditions have changed. This applies even stronger in a tournament, where not only is the all-in player affected, but every other player in the tournamnent is affected as well.

Lets say Player A flops the nut straight and the players enter an agreement to check it down. Player B, who makes runner runner flush agrees, and player A, who should have been busted, survives. because he does, the next guy busted gets one lower place on the payout. This agreement not only cost the all in player, it also cost a guy at another table, because player A didnt get busted.

There's my .02

[/ QUOTE ]


This is the most succinct explanation of this I've seen. QFMFT.