Is this cheating?

[Ulysses]

Final table of tournament. 5 players left. Blinds 10,000/20,000. I have 500,000 chips in small blind. A very good friend of mine has 20,000 chips left after posting big blind. The other three players have 150,000 each. There is a big jump in prize money from 5th place to 4th place. Everyone is playing very cautiously because of the big jump in prize money from 5th to 4th. I have been stealing blinds with impunity. The jumps in prize money from 4th to 3rd and 3rd to 2nd are not nearly as drastic, though the jump from 2nd to 1st is huge.

Folded to me in SB. I have AA. I fold.

Is this cheating?

[MLG]

it depends entirely on your motives, which is to say it is entirely unenforceable as cheating. you can probably make more than the 20,000 chips your friend has in front of him if you fold this hand, and continue to steal with impunity. If that is your reasoning, then it can be a sound strategic decision.

[Cleveland Guy]

Technically I believe this would be cheating. It's a form of chip dumping.

However, doing it one time in the SB in a pot that the BB will get in a walk would not get you in any trouble.

If you did it say 3 or 4 times in a row, I think you'd have something.

It's still less than "ethical" play, but as an isolated one time play I don't see you getting in any trouble for it.

[MLG]

it is, in my opinion, only unethical if he is doing it in order to help his friend, as opposed to keeping an optimal game condition for his own chances at winning.

[Tosh]

For me it depends on whether you still do that if BB is not a friend. You could argue that folding here is correct as your ability to steal blinds and bully your way into a more commanding position is worth more than the chips you could win with your AA. However, I honestly think its cheating if you make the fold more because of helping a friend than your own edge; I think only you know that though so I can't say.

[Ghazban]

Did this really happen or is it just a thought experiment? Just curious.....

Its not cheating at all if you'd do the same thing were it someone other than your buddy in his position. If you only did it to preserve your buddy's tournament life, that's no good. In any case, I don't think you could be penalized for it as its definitely in your best interests as the large stack to keep the game 5-handed (so you can continue bullying).

[PokerSlut]

This came up recently in a CardPlayer article. The chip leader was accused of soft-playing when they were on the bubble (i.e. 8 players left, only 7 get paid, or something to that effect) when they layed down a big hand to BB in this situation, but the person justified it (rightly so IMO) in that it was to his advantage to keep the bubble player there in order to have a huge psychological advantage over the rest of the table.

I feel this might be a similar case, but it really does depend on your motives. If your goal is to keep your friend in so that you can continue to accumulate chips for yourself, then no it is not cheating. If, however, your goal is to give your friend a better shot at finishing one place up, then yes I consider that cheating.

[shawn_p]

[ QUOTE ]
You could argue that folding here is correct as your ability to steal blinds and bully your way into a more commanding position is worth more than the chips you could win with your AA.

[/ QUOTE ]

How does folding AA help to accomplish this?

[SossMan]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
You could argue that folding here is correct as your ability to steal blinds and bully your way into a more commanding position is worth more than the chips you could win with your AA.

[/ QUOTE ]

How does folding AA help to accomplish this?

[/ QUOTE ]

he keeps the "bubble mentality" going and continues to build his stack by stealing the remaining players blinds due to their reluctance to tangle w/ the big stack when there is a tiny stack that's about to bust out.

[Mez]

Clearly, he's acting with the best intentions of his opponent in mind. I don't know if its "cheating", but its probably morally objectionable if I were one of the other players. I would consider it chip dumping.

Suppose the same situation, and you min-raise and fold to your buddy's allin. This would be a little more proactive chip dumping.

Finally, suppose you had 27o in the SB and the button raises enough to put your friend allin. You push all in to force out the button and hopefully triple up your friend.

I think all of these situations are chip dumping/collusion, what you did was the least objectionable form (and least obvious). I personally would hate to be in a tourney with two people who refused to play against each other.

[The Student]

Here's a link to that CP article:

CardPlayer.com (http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_magazine/archives/showarticle.php?a_id=14228)

Like one of the posters said before, I think this is a question of why are you folding. Altough you'll miss out on great odds to increase your stack by 10% in order to maintain your ability to bully, I think this is still a good decision. However, only you really know if you folded to maintain your bully status or to help your friend climb the payout ladder. I think the other examples that Mez gave are much more obvious, and deplorable, examples of chip dumping.

ts-

[gergery]

It depends if you think JV’s mom would have called from the BB or not.

[ohkanada]

If you did it because your friend was in BB it is cheating. If you did it because you wanted to continue to steal then it is perfectly reasonable.

Ken

[jwvdcw]

yes

[Riddik21]

How do you all feel about something like this?

I'm the large stack in 10 person SnG, it's down to 4 ppl and they are just letting me run over them trying to get into the money. However one of the players in has been talking insane amounts of trash the entire time and had been targeting another one of the players still in specifically. I had admired how the second player was taking the verbal abuse so I basically decided I was going to try very hard to get the [censored] player out 4th. I wasn't exactly laying down AA, but I stopped stealing the classy players blinds unless I had a very solid hand and just put constant aggression on the jerk player until he finally busted 4th.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

Not cheating at all. Just sound strategy. The fact that the BB is a friend is a red herring.

If you're the big stack, then the longer it takes the tiny stack to bust out, the better it is for you. It gives you one more orbit to "steal with impunity."

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

I think all of these situations are chip dumping/collusion

This situation is clearly *not* collusion. He benefits immensely by not busting the small stack. Fossilman posted a similar situation a while back. It was a bubble situation where he was a the big stack, he stole from everyone at the table *except* he folded when the small stack was on the BB. His purpose was to keep the small stack in the game as long as possible so he could continue to build his stack due to "bubble-fear"

[spamuell]

I remember discussing this with you a while back on IRC. As I said then, I think it is cheating if you are doing it to help out your friend, but not if it's for strategical reasons that benefit yourself.

[Cry Me A River]

No, it's not cheating - You made the optimum play. That it's a win-win situation with your buddy is irrelevant. What, you're supposed to make a sub-optimal play in order to prevent any appearance of collusion? How is that supposed to be any more "fair"?

[whiskeytown]

Mike O'Malley covered this in a couple CP articles....

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_magazine/archives/?a_id=14131

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker_magazine/archives/?a_id=14228


basically, you're doing something that gives you a positive expectation - you're raping the table and you don't wanna bust anyone out yet... - you're not assisting others...

sorta the same way with checking it down with an all in - it's purely selfish to help you move up in the money yourself (someone else may tag along, but not at your expense) - not helping someone else like chip dumping or softplaying...

so it's legit...though some would call it stupid...hell, he'll probably muck anyways.

RB

[RacersEdge]

Funny, I was just reading Skalansky's book TPFAP, and he metions a similar situation: there are x+1 players left where x are in the money and the chip leader is at a big advantage in this environment, so when the short stack goes all-in, he folds QQ to keep the situation the same.

Interesting strategy, and it makes sense.

[emp1346]

as much as everyone is trying to bring up the bubble-fear aspect of this situation, and while i find it interesting and an aspect of the game i hadn't realized could be so crucial, that's kind of pointless in this discussion IMO...

the question was clearly asked due to the fact that the BB was a close friend, implying rather directly that this was chip-dumping...

so yeah, it was techincally cheating, but no one at the table had any idea, friend included...

[cockandbull]

I think this is fine, i don't see how this can be cheating. Ok you have AA and you fold, but if you wanted to give bb some chips isnt call and then fold to any bet a better way to do it. Ok he only gets an extra 10000, but thats 20% more to his stack. Anyhow if you go allin, the bb is probably going to call with any reasonable hand due to your table image and river you anyway. Another reason why your fold can not be cheating, as you knew this was going to happen, i mean how else did you get so many chips. You make big calls and big lay downs. AA preflop is a big lay down.

[Dov]

I think it depends why you did it.

Would you have done that if anyone else was in the blind? If not, then I think it could definitely be shady.

Of course no one says you can't fold your hand, so...

I think it is unethical, but it is not cheating. (again depending on why you folded.)

Soss,

I am taking the risk of being called pig-headed but I cannot fully comprehend this 'bubble mentality' stuff. If hero raised and made it heads up with his friend, won the pot with a showdown, wouldn't this entice the 3 remaining opponent to fold more often in future hands upon seeing hero's monster hand?

Could you please elaborate? Thanks.

[37offsuit]

Here there is a distinct jump from 5th place money to 4th place money and a small stack that will bust soon because of the size of the blinds. The other players are hoping that the small stack will blind out, giving them a higher prize simply by waiting.

The big stack in this situation stands to do two things in this situation. The first is get a lot of chips by aggressively attacking the medium stack's blinds. They will not likely play against him without a monster for fear of finishing in 5th and losing the big jump in prize structure.

The second thing the big stack will do is wear down the other stacks pretty evenly, since they are each losing their blinds.

Once the small stack is taken out, then the remaining three medium stacks will begin to play more aggressively. So if they have been warn down and he now has a 6 to 1 chip advantage instead of 2 1/2 to 1 advantage, then he stands to win much more often.

If he takes the small stacks money here, he loses a lot of edge.

[DonT77]

Does the BB have compromising pictures of you?

[fabcunha]

I don´t see this as cheating. Since you were constantly stealing the blinds, it is good to you that all the players continue in the tournament so you can build up your stack. It is clear to me that all the players were playing very tight, waiting for you friend to be out of the tournament. Then, with the bigger prize, they can be agressive again. So, it is good to you that this small stack player continues on the tournament. The fact that he is your friend is just a nice coincidence.

[Phishy McFish]

And YES. It is.

[random]

The same thing has been said over and over in this thread. I will add this: It would be interesting to see this play made at a final table on TV. While reading your post, I didn't consider the advantage you had leaving the 5th person in... fortunately for me, I'm not a MTT player. Yeah, fold. I hope your friend finished 4th-2nd and didn't end up busting you.

Folding blind would have been pretty sweet. Announce fold and roll your cards one at a time /images/graemlins/smile.gif. Of course that would likely be detrimental to your tourney results and probably make the other players really pissed off, but wouldn't you feel like a badass?

Slightly OT: Where was this? What was the buy-in? Field size? How'd you do?

[fnurt]

Some of the people who unequivocally responded that this is not cheating appear to be auditioning for a job as your lawyer.

The fact is, your motivation makes all the difference. If you would have folded in this situation no matter who was in the BB, then you did nothing wrong. If you acted differently because it was your friend in the BB, then it absolutely was cheating.

For those who point out that you can never prove someone's motive, and thus could never punish this instance of cheating, you are of course correct.

For those who feel that our inability to identify and punish each and every case of soft-playing means that there should be no rules against soft-playing at all, I respectfully disagree. Catching only the stupid cheaters is better than catching no cheaters at all.

For those who feel he should have made a big production of folding AA, or folding blind for that matter, just because your motives are pure doesn't mean you should be an ass about it. If someone made a big display of folding AA in this situation, and got punished for soft-playing by the TD, even if it was the worst decision of all time, I'd say they got what they deserved.

[Jason Strasser]

Guys, lets be real.

This is not good behavior in general. The stack sizes are not overwhelmingly tilted. Sure, I understand the argument that everyone has been playing tight, etc., so that Diablo can steal and further increase his stack, yadda yadda...

But lets be real. He has 500,000, the opponents have 150,000. I want to eliminate as much people as possible. Sure this is a bubble spot, but not a bubble like a sat where only 4 to go Aruba and No.5 gets 33 bucks.

Diablo loses one all-in confrontation with a medium stack, he will be tied for the chip lead. The opponent has 20,000 in front and 20,000 behind... Which is a nice sum of money. I'm sure Diablo would not mind an additional 50k or so to his stack.

I personally think this hand is bull$hit. Diablo has not told us how the rest of the play has gone (IE, has he been bullying everyone a ton? He said they are playing tight, but how tight?).

If you fold to the small stack, he will have 50k. It's not hard to see how he could come back and be a player, and even win. This is not an extreme situation, and only extreme situations call for folding AA here.

Diablo would not fold this hand if the BB was an unknown. It's not sound tournament advice, unless the opponents were absolutely incredibly weak tight. IE, they would fold QQ-TT or AK-AQ to Diablo's button raise (as they might in one of those aruba thingies)

Yes, this is cheating and I personally think it sucks. If I was your friend in the BB I would be very mad at you for folding, and thus hurting your shot at winning. I would also be mad at you for making a really dumb decision.

The rest of you that posted a nice little 'Diablo let me kiss your A$$' post need to seriously reread this question.

Fire back. This hand is cheating in my book.

-Jason

[Riverman]

I would be shocked if the player in question was actually El DIablo. That said this is not only blatant cheating but really dumb if done online because it will get you banned from the site.

[cockandbull]

[ QUOTE ]


[/ QUOTE ]

Sure, but if you can avoid getting into a allin confrontation with one of the medium stacks for a few orbits and steal a few blinds, you give yourself a chance of only losing maybe 120000, and im sure that you could make up halve of that amount in stealing. It also leaves you with around 400000 which is more than enough to carry on with your game plan.

If you think your good enough to fold AA and make the play work, then dont you also think that you'd be good enough to avoid this allin until that works in your favour as well.

With regards to making this play online, sure you may get yourself in trouble, but if you are a high stacks player and can explain why you did it then im sure the company wont want to lose you and your rake.

laters

Harry

[cockandbull]

[ QUOTE ]


[/ QUOTE ]

Sure, but if you can avoid getting into a allin confrontation with one of the medium stacks for a few orbits and steal a few blinds, you give yourself a chance of only losing maybe 120000, and im sure that you could make up halve of that amount in stealing. It also leaves you with around 400000 which is more than enough to carry on with your game plan.

If you think your good enough to fold AA and make the play work, then dont you also think that you'd be good enough to avoid this allin until that works in your favour as well.

With regards to making this play online, sure you may get yourself in trouble, but if you are a high stacks player and can explain why you did it then im sure the company wont want to lose you and your rake.

laters

Harry

[Jason Strasser]

This aint no deep stacked NL. The blinds are 10k/20k, hero has 500k, that is 25 BB.

So basically, edge smedge. F*** it, I'd like to here one good explanation why the hero should fold here. 25xBB stack, hero can either win 1BB uncontested, or play with AA against a random hand for a 1.5BB investment, or lose .5BB.

Gimme a break. How many final tables are you going to be at where you have an advantage so large to pass on this.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say none.

-Jason

[Jason Strasser]

One more point. If there is a big jump in prize pool money from 5th to 4th, wont there be an ever bigger jump from 4th to 3rd? What's to say there wont still be bubble conditions??

Every second I think about this I realize more and more that if I was involved with this hand and knew exactly what was going on (friend to friend), I would be infuriated.

-Jason

[Prime Time]

MLG, great post.
I never would have thought that way, unless you opened my eyes to that. Of course I would have thrown my chips at it, and killed the golden goose.

[Tosh]

[ QUOTE ]
One more point. If there is a big jump in prize pool money from 5th to 4th, wont there be an ever bigger jump from 4th to 3rd? What's to say there wont still be bubble conditions??


[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah I did wonder that too.

Personally I wouldn't ever fold here, but I still see the major point is whether or not El Diablo makes this play if BB is not a friend. If he does, there is NOTHING you can argue either way. It would not be unfair cheating if he folded when he had no connection to BB, maybe its bad play. But there is no rule against making a bad play.

[eMarkM]

Good post, I feel exactly as you do. I can't believe people here are defending this soft play with a lame "I-get-to-keep-stealing-the-blinds" excuse.

[ohkanada]

Actually I am fairly sure that in the past year or two, Fossilman discussed how mucking in this situation makes a lot of sense. The fact that El Diablo added that he is "friends" with the BB, only makes the situation more interesting.

Would I muck? Probably not, but if you are stealing with impunity vs the others and gaining your stacks as the others are waiting for the low stack to get busted, it is +ev.

Ken

[eMarkM]

Folding a borderline hand, sure, even a fairly strong hand. But aces? Where did Greg advocate that?

[ohkanada]

Unfortunately I only vaguely remember the post or discussion. I can't remember if AA was discussed. If you are willing to fold any average to above aveerage hand, then I see no reason why you wouldn't fold AA. I will email Greg and see if he can respond to this post or let me know if I remmeber things wrong.

Ken

[KuQuAT]

If you're going to fold AA (and therefore presumably any two cards) in the SB under these circumstances, you could avoid implications about which hands you would or would not play by not viewing your cards in the first place. Just dump 'em when it's your turn without a peek. Obviously, if another opponent called or raised, you'd look. Otherwise, just ship 'em to the muck.

That said, the table might be more disgruntled, not understanding your motive. They might think that you were chip dumping for external reasons, and not to keep the bubble from bursting.

Further, you'd be announcing to the table that you intend to continue to run them over, which may or may not be good tactics. Of course, if you're intentionally driving them toward tilt, you could (if legal in your tournament), make a big show of not peeking, flash your cards quickly so that everyone can see, and muck. You'd have to understand psychology better than I do to risk this, though.

[Ulysses]

OK, as a number of you guessed, this hand didn't really happen. About a month ago (when I decided to play some tourneys) I went back and read a number of old Fossilman posts. I was pleasantly surprised when reading the results that I made the same move as Greg in almost all the situations. There was only one where I made a completely different move than Greg - it was a situation where I thought the move was to raise but Greg folded to keep the short stack around. I couldn't find the post easily (else I would have just used the numbers/scenario from the post instead of making something up), but I do recall the situation was such that each round of blinds wss similar to the amt he could win from busting the small stack. Anyway, this thread stuck in my mind, since I hadn't considered folding there and Greg's reasoning made a lot of sense.

When I posted this message, I had just read Felicia's post about cheating in a tournament and Greg's post came to mind. I started thinking, are there situations where people would not give a second thought if the players were strangers, but would really question the act if the players were friends?

Given the number of "this is cheating or not depending on your intentions" responses, this seems to be such a situation. Does this mean these types of infractions should not be against the rules? I sure hate the idea of such subjectivity coming into a TD's decision process.

Here's another scenario I've noticed in satellites. Let's say there are 18 seats and 20 left. There are two small stacks who will blind out if everyone just folds. The big stack has a huge advantage and there's almost no way he can lose. He just folds every hand. Except for the times when a real loudmouth idiot is in the blinds. Those times, he goes all-in. If the loudmouth loses all his blinds, he could bust out before the short stacks. Is this cheating, playing more aggressively vs. a jerk?

Finally, what about the standard calling of a short-stack then checking down. That happens all the time and often one of the players has a hand that he would have bet were it heads-up. Is he soft-playing because he's playing differently due to the all-in player?

Just some thoughts I have had re: certain tourney situations maybe not being so black and white.

[ohkanada]

Ha, I knew Greg had posted something like this.

The interesting thing is if Joe nobody would have posted this I am sure even more people would have claimed cheating.

Ken

[fnurt]

I think there are very few check/fold/raise decisions that would qualify as cheating without taking any other evidence into consideration. Almost any move is capable of being replicated by a totally clueless player. Try inventing a hypothetical situation where you would tell the clueless player, "if you make the wrong move here you'll be thrown out for cheating." I don't think you can do it.

You can't get away from the presence of subjectivity because you will always have to look at the surrounding evidence. Nor can you get away from the fact that there will be some grey areas that are tough to call. All I can say is, as I expressed above, we shouldn't let the grey areas prevent us from making decisions in the absolutely cut-and-dried cases.

For example, let's take Felicia's recent article which many of us have read. In her story, two friends are heads-up after the flop and they do a lightning fast check-check-check all the way to the river without even looking at the board cards. Now in this case, the soft-playing is obvious and should be punished.

Let's assume that instead, the players had made a big show out of it. Maybe one of them studies the board, looks back at his hole cards, stares down the opponent, then reluctantly checks. If they had played it this way then it is unlikely anything would have come of it.

To some people this is deeply troubling, to see only the dumb cheaters get punished. But there is no way around it, and you still have to punish the ones you can catch. We don't let a murderer go free because a "smart" murderer wouldn't have left those incriminating fingerprints at the crime scene.

Now let's assume they play it the smart way, but after a while someone notices, hey, these two never play a hand against each other. They go to the TD, who probably doesn't have enough evidence to go on. But the next time it happens, the TD can ask to see the cards they checked with, can ask them why they didn't bet and observe their reaction, can give them a warning about softplaying and see if it affects their actions. In other words, he can gather more evidence and hopefully make the right decision.

I think insisting that every case of cheating be objectively verifiable in a way that would satisfy every single observer just isn't realistic. It works this way in the real world too; mental intent is an element of most crimes, and we can't really know what goes on in someone's head, we just gather the evidence and make our best guess. Not everyone will always agree, but we do the best we can. Heck, they even found 12 people who thought that OJ didn't do it.

[FeliciaLee]

[ QUOTE ]
When I posted this message, I had just read Felicia's post about cheating in a tournament and Greg's post came to mind. I started thinking, are there situations where people would not give a second thought if the players were strangers, but would really question the act if the players were friends?

[/ QUOTE ]
This is a very delicate subject, and extremely subjective. If a poker player has any awareness whatsoever, he is going to know the difference.

[ QUOTE ]
Given the number of "this is cheating or not depending on your intentions" responses, this seems to be such a situation. Does this mean these types of infractions should not be against the rules? I sure hate the idea of such subjectivity coming into a TD's decision process.

[/ QUOTE ]
This was such a special situation. It is not often that the participants willingly admit they were cheating.

There are things to look for to differentiate "good play" from "cheating." If a party admits to softplaying his friend, you have an easy answer. Not all answers are this easy to come by. What does their body language tell you? Are they checking down monsters, or just marginal hands against an all-in opponent? Are they reluctant to reveal their hands at showdown, hurriedly sliding them into the muck? Do they only check it down when they are in the hand together, or when each of them is involved separately with other opponents? Does one raise, the other reraise in an attempt to get the pot head's up, then check it down through the river? Does one opponent adjust his end play to the extent of raising and reraising his "friend," only to fold the hand for "one more bet" after the river card is dealt?

[ QUOTE ]
Here's another scenario I've noticed in satellites. Let's say there are 18 seats and 20 left. There are two small stacks who will blind out if everyone just folds. The big stack has a huge advantage and there's almost no way he can lose. He just folds every hand. Except for the times when a real loudmouth idiot is in the blinds. Those times, he goes all-in. If the loudmouth loses all his blinds, he could bust out before the short stacks. Is this cheating, playing more aggressively vs. a jerk?

[/ QUOTE ]
Why would this be considered cheating? You are using the information that you know about this opponent to your advantage. You are playing against him in the same fashion you would play against any other opponent of whom you have the same knowledge, of the same caliber.

[ QUOTE ]
Finally, what about the standard calling of a short-stack then checking down. That happens all the time and often one of the players has a hand that he would have bet were it heads-up. Is he soft-playing because he's playing differently due to the all-in player?

[/ QUOTE ]
It depends on the quality of the hand. David outlines this clearly in TPFAP. Checking a monster is clearly not ethical. Checking a mediocre hand which does not have enough of an advantage to bet into a dry side pot is simply good poker.

Great post. You have many good points and concerns. This kind of awareness of cheating going on at the tourney table is something that only comes with experience. During my first 50-100 tournaments, I probably could not have spotted cheating, even in it's most obvious forms. Today I bust players palming chips, shorting pots, colluding, chip dumping and softplaying all of the time. There is a fine line between making a good play, and softplaying, at times, but there is a line, and it can be seen clearly given enough experience and awareness at the table.

Felicia /images/graemlins/smile.gif
www.felicialee.net (http://www.felicialee.net)

[FeliciaLee]

Very good point. That is what the IWTSTH rule is all about. It should be used whenever cheating is suspected, but never to "find out how he plays."

[ QUOTE ]
Now let's assume they play it the smart way, but after a while someone notices, hey, these two never play a hand against each other. They go to the TD, who probably doesn't have enough evidence to go on. But the next time it happens, the TD can ask to see the cards they checked with, can ask them why they didn't bet and observe their reaction, can give them a warning about softplaying and see if it affects their actions. In other words, he can gather more evidence and hopefully make the right decision.

[/ QUOTE ]

[fnurt]

Nice post, Felicia. I think we said some of the same things.

I think you might have misunderstood the hypothetical about the loudmouth, which I didn't address in my post. The point is that you are not acting the same way towards this guy as you would towards any other player of the same playing ability, stack size, etc; you are deliberately picking on him because he is a jerk.

I don't really know the answer to that situation. Imagine the scenario where the big stack only raises when a black player is in the blind because he doesn't like black people. I don't see how this, or the hypothetical posed, could ever be punished, but on some level, you're supposed to be playing your own stack, not trying to dictate who qualifies and who doesn't. You could be punished for chip dumping to a short stack to try and help him qualify, even if he's not a friend of yours; maybe you're doing it because he seems nice, or because he wears a Dodgers cap and you like the Dodgers. Trying to determine who qualifies by picking on the player you don't like seems just as wrong, on some level, as trying to determine who qualifies by chip dumping to the player you like. So I do think there is arguably some kind of grey area here.

[Philuva]

[ QUOTE ]
The interesting thing is if Joe nobody would have posted this I am sure even more people would have claimed cheating.

[/ QUOTE ]

Or Jose Nobody.

[FeliciaLee]

You are completely correct, and there is no way we can take the bias completely out of our play.

As an illustration, I remember one scenario which happened to me about a year ago.

At our final table, there was a drunk playing. He is a pretty nice guy until those first five beers start taking effect. /images/graemlins/shocked.gif Then he becomes sexist, racist and obnoxious in general.

A senior citizen plays at this cardroom everyday. She has very strong opinions and is never afraid to express them, nor stand up for her rights.

There were three women at the table. The senior lady was one of them.

The drunk was being hugely obnoxious this evening, picking on all of the women left in the tournament. Making extremely sexist remarks at the table.

The TD was new, and a woman, who refused to do anything about it due to her own fear of the drunk. The floorman warned the drunk several times and finally gave him "one last warning." He was still making snide comments and gestures, but a little less volumous, in order to keep from being disqualified.

Finally, the senior lady put him all-in. This is a rare scenario, because she is the tightest player I have ever seen, and will fold her way into 4th or 5th place, every tourney, by simply refusing to play. She has shown me pocket kings before, as she folded them pre-flop.

Anyway, she eliminated him, and her hand wasn't even very good, but it was clear she wanted him out of the poker room. She stood up and said, "There! Now get out of here, we have had enough of you! Get OUT!"

Clearly she was gunning for him, having put up with his abuse for at least two hours and having weak management who were unwilling to do much about his behavior.

Now, was this a case of cheating (playing against a player in a fashion differently than normal in order to try to eliminate him)?

I don't really think so. You know why? Because he is obviously affecting your play. He is causing your play to deteriorate, so you have to counter his blows by attempting one of your own. By his abuse, he has caused you to play in a manner in which you might not play against a player of the exact same caliber, but who is silent.

It is self-preservation. I believe it is good poker. If part of his "game plan" is to abuse you and put you off of your own game plan, then eliminating the threat is not cheating, it is adjusting your play according to the circumstances of the player against you.

This can be closely compared to a celebrity "bounty" tournament. Maybe you would open up your hand selection against an opponent with a $1000 bounty on his head. To you, it is worth risking not getting into the money in order to get that 1k. You wouldn't want to go in against him with a completely dominated hand, but you would perhaps go in, or call all-in with hands that you would not play against a player of the same caliber, but who did not have a bounty on his head.

Felicia /images/graemlins/smile.gif


[ QUOTE ]
I think you might have misunderstood the hypothetical about the loudmouth, which I didn't address in my post. The point is that you are not acting the same way towards this guy as you would towards any other player of the same playing ability, stack size, etc; you are deliberately picking on him because he is a jerk.

[/ QUOTE ]

[eMarkM]

Or one of them (http://archiveserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=tourn&Number=499230&Forum= f9&Words=AA&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Main=497790&Sear ch=true&where=bodysub&Name=332&daterange=1&newerva l=5&newertype=y&olderval=&oldertype=&bodyprev=#Pos t499230) where he addresses this folding-against-tiny-stack-to-steal concept.

[Ulysses]

fnurt,

You are correct in your understanding of the satellite hypothetical. I see this all the time in satellites. Huge stacks at one table will often fold to let a tiny stack at their table have a chance at another round. Or big stacks that are on auto-fold will unclick and raise the blinds of only one specific player they don't like.

In a lot of these satellites, the big stacks can essentially decide which of a handful of players are going to get the last couple of seats. Nothing you can really do about it, I guess.