[nige1]

Sorry I should have posted this to the water cooler

• I haven't played poker (straight draw and seven card stud) for ages after a better player explained to me how cheats can collude: provided the partnership isn't greedy, they can practically guarantee long-term success.
  
• Currently popular are games like Omaha and Texas Hold'em. In modern games, players more often have the nuts (what we called a lead pipe cinch). Hence the partnership edge seems greater.
  
• What do on-line poker-sites do about partnerships? For example, I presume, a gang of players can agree to share their winnings, when any two play at the same table? Or a single person can employ a bank of computers, using a variety of internet service providers?
  
• Many BBO bridge players also play on-line poker. How do you detect cheats? On-line, don't partnerships have an overwhelming advantage? For example, can't cheats tell each other their hole cards, greatly increasing the frequency of winning positions and helping them to avoid give-away play patterns?

[JLOGIC]

Collusion happens all the time. If it is just on the level of sharing hole cards and nothing else, it does not give you much of an edge at all.

If order to gain substantial advantage via collusion, you would have to change the way you play also. For example, if your partner has AK, you fold AQ. If you want to take it further, you can trap people between you (a classic limit hold em collusion). However, the more you do this the more obvious it is.

If you suspect people of colluding, you report it. The poker sites will look into this, and they can see what hands you're playing/folding. People can also do statistical analysis of how often certain things are happening, and that can make it obvious.

For an example of this go here:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/19/high-...y-tl-dr-757267/

cliffs: Stoxtrader, well known player who has written books and ran a 7 figure a year business in training/video training was caught initially by 2+2ers and banned. His company/brand name then merged with a different site (cardrunners) and no longer exists.

Every now and then you get an email from a site that you have received a refund because they caught some colluders.

So basically the more edge you try to gain, the more likely you are to get caught. You can gain a minimal edge without ever getting caught though, but it's not enough to worry about.

Recently a big group of colluders in double or nothing sit n go's were caught. This is a far worse crime since you can gain massive edge through chip dumping in those. But again, statistical analysis was able to make it obvious what they were doing.

[JLOGIC]

Also, to be honest this is much LESS of a concern online because it's much easier to catch with a large database of reviewable hands, and the sites ability to confiscate funds.

People have no idea how much of this stuff goes on in live poker, doesn't matter if it's a private game or a bellagio game or w/e, the regs are very often doing malicious collusion. The regs are not subtle about finding you and suggesting softplaying, or worse "if I give you the signal, raise it up and I'll do the same for you/we can split profits" type stuff. The raising people out of pots stuff does not happen much anymore, because it is too obvious.

For instance, all of those old time heroes, brunson, chip reese, etc etc were pretty well known to be colluding against the rich tourists/businessmen who came to vegas.

If you are that worried about this, you should not play poker at all.

[pretender]

There are many ways for colluders to gain an edge, and it often just depends on what game. The most recent big collusion scandal was this one. Pretty good read.

http://daleroxxu.blogspot.com/2010/05/49-p...scandal-on.html