Collusion in a 4th STEP?

[Chief911]

I'd like your opinion on this. Maybe I'm still steaming because I lost AA to ATs that crippled me mid/late of a 4th step. But I felt this was obvious collusion. Here's a copy of my email to Party Support, which I'm sure will do nothing with this information.

Collusion on 4th Step 2 Table #160814

I just wanted to report collusion between two players on the 2 table Step 4 game mentioned in the subject. When down to the bubble with 11 players left, the short stack (tuck64) was in the blind with barely over the blind amount. The Button player, redhotballz, said “here I’ll double you tuck” went all in, and then said “got to dodge my live cards though” tuck64 replied “with a 63” telling the whole table his hand while he was still waiting to act. Redhotballz replied “they are alos (spelling, meant also) live” telling tuck that his two cards were live based on redhot’s hand.

If this is not active collusion, I do not know what is. Regardless of the outcome, and what they each had, the fact that one player told another to call, the other player announced his hand, and was told by the other player still in the hand that his two cards were LIVE, is collusion.

I do not pay $535 to play in one of these, to have things like this happen. This is unacceptable. There are plenty of sites out there who would gladly take my money instead of Party. I would like a refund of my entry, or have my 11th place prize bumped up to a 10th place prize. I would also like to know what discipline action is taken against these two players.

Thank you.

Nick
Party Poker User: Chief_911

---------------------------------

Am I overreacting? No one at their table seemed to mind.

Nick

[Daliman]

Easy call. Definitely collusion,(IF they were telling the truth). Although likely only can be pinned on the first pusher.

[rjb03]

Obvious collusion. Curious to see the reply. Keep us posted. Was he so short stacked he had to call? And what about the other blind? Just curious, not that these questions should alter their policy.

Edit: reread to answer my first question.

[Chief911]

The thing is, I agree that it can be pinned on the initial pusher, who had about 6k. But the BB short stack who had 95 left, and would have been allin in the SB afterwards because blinds were 100/200, announced his hand, and sounded like he was not intending on calling.

I'm curious as to what Party Support (I use the term support lightly) will say.

Nick

[Sidekick]

I don't think you are over reacting. It's an obvious case of collusion. The player stated that he would willingly double up the BB.

I admit he didn't go about it well if he wanted to guarantee doubling up the BB, but they are communicating cards, talking about whether their cards are live, etc.

How Party could not find this to be a clear case of collusion would be beyond me. It will be interesting to see what Party does (if anything) about it. But, given other posts by folks who have spotted collusion and reported it, I wouldn't expect much from Party.

I wish you luck in having this resolved in your favor.

[Irieguy]

Party's response will look something like this:

Dear Chief_911,

Thank you for contacting PartyPoker support, we appreciate your input. If you could send us the tournament number you have a concern about, we will gladly look into it.

Michelle Gupta
PartyPoker Support Representative


PartyPoker Support,

I already told you the tournment number, it was the subject of my first email. Here it is again _________.

Nick
Chief_911



Dear Chief_911

Thank you for contacting PartyPoker support, I apologize for the misunderstanding about your concern regarding 4th step tournament number 160814. If you could please tell me the screen names of the players involved in the incident, I will be happy to look into it.

Karen Gupta
PartyPoker Support Manager


PPS,

I already told you the names, but here they are again....
Why does it seem like you don't even read the emails I send?

Nick



Dear Nick,

Thank you for contacting PartyPoker support, and again, I apologize for the misunderstanding. If you could please tell me your account name, I will look into the matter as quickly as possible.

Roger Gupta
PartyPoker Support Leader



Roger,

You guys suck. I already gave you all of the information necessary to look into this and there is clear colusion going on... don't you care?

Nick
Chief_911



Dear Nick,

Thank you for contacting us again, and I apologize for the misunderstanding. I have investigated the tournament number in question and spoke with the technical support manager. It appears that there were no problems with the server during the tournament. We will therefore not be able to refund your entry fee.

Thank you for your continued patronage.

John Williams
PartyPoker Support Supervisor

[eastbay]

Just a warm-up for what you are about to experience...

http://www.funnypart.com/funny_flash/tech_support.shtml

eastbay

[Chief911]

Yah, those are awesome. I've seen em. I'm actually very interested to see what they say.

[pokerraja]

Redhotballz is a frequent poster in the MTT section. I cant remember his 2 plus 2 moniker for the life of me. based on my image of him, i dont put this past him. very ugly incident.

[ethan]

redhotballz posts here as boedeker (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showprofile.php?Cat=&User=8716&Number=1108851&Boar d=tourn&what=showflat&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&fpart=1& vc=1).

And yea, that sucks.

[AlwaysWrong]

"here I’ll double you tuck" is vague enough that I think it would be acceptable. It's something that I hear people say in live tournaments all the time and it says nothing about their hand.

"got to dodge my live cards though" is bad. This will get him a warning. At the very least it says, "I do not have a pocket pair."

"with a 63" - That is pretty borderline. Since he is the last one with any choices in the hand, the only thing wrong I see is that he is enticing more from the other player. Just from that it seems bad enough to get him warned, but nothing major will come.

"hey are alos (spelling, meant also) live" - That is so way over the line it is stupid.

tuck64 deserves just a warning, and that's what I expect he will get.

Redhotballz should get a significant penalty, though I expect he will just get warned as well.

I have emailed alerts@partypoker.com a couple of times and they have taken action, though not to the extent of giving me any money, or actually DOING anything. They will look at the incident though, and they do take this stuff seriously.

[M.B.E.]

The entire payout structure of the STEPS tournaments (4th level and below) is totally susceptible to collusion. I don't play them for that reason.

[ThorGoT]

How so? Not challenging you, just curious.

[M.B.E.]

Chip dumping is profitable in the STEP structure but not in a 50/30/20 SNG. That's about as much detail as I'm comfortable posting on a public forum.

[boedeker]

give me a mother flopping break, the dude had 95 chips behind at blinds 200/100. he had 200 into the pot in his bb. i move all in before i said anything. the sb folds before i say anything. if a single person on this message board would fold if you were in tucks position i will cut my god damn finger right here. i could have told him the jesus himself told me that i would win the hand and he would have called.

you guys are lame, btw cheif you played that step 4 like [censored].

[KJS]

I only play on Paradise, but there they disable chat as soon as a player goes all-in. Not sure it would have changed anything in your case, but they should institute that precaution at minimum.

KJS

[KJS]

So why did you say something?

KJS

[bads33d]

Cut him a break.

And I guarantee party poker will not give you a refund, you just wasted your precious time to write to them.

On the side note, these things are heavily populated with collusion. Beware.

I played with my friend before, and I can see this as a big problem. Even though I knocked him out, I can see stealing each others blinds and chip dumping at the end to even out each others stacks as a big problem.

[boedeker]

oh yeah and for the record raja, im not an [censored]. i was just having a little fun.

[KJS]

I am withholding judgment; only asked because I was curious.

KJS

[Marcotte]

If the table talk comes after the SB folds I don't have much of a problem with it. It's unlikely that BB actions on this hand (with only 98 chips left) will have an impact on the final finishes, though it is possible if there is another very short stack.

Anytime someone says something at a poker table you have to consider the source. I generally don't believe what my opponents tell me about the stregth or weakness of their hand. (Which is not to say that I believe the opposite.)

I doubt the buttons table talk influenced the play of the hand if BB is any kind of reasonable player. Also, while unintended collusion is bad, if they really wanted to cheat they wouldn't do so in the table-chat.

[ilya]

[ QUOTE ]
Party's response will look something like this:

Dear Chief_911,

Thank you for contacting PartyPoker support, we appreciate your input. If you could send us the tournament number you have a concern about, we will gladly look into it.

Michelle Gupta
PartyPoker Support Representative


PartyPoker Support,

I already told you the tournment number, it was the subject of my first email. Here it is again _________.

Nick
Chief_911



Dear Chief_911

Thank you for contacting PartyPoker support, I apologize for the misunderstanding about your concern regarding 4th step tournament number 160814. If you could please tell me the screen names of the players involved in the incident, I will be happy to look into it.

Karen Gupta
PartyPoker Support Manager


PPS,

I already told you the names, but here they are again....
Why does it seem like you don't even read the emails I send?

Nick



Dear Nick,

Thank you for contacting PartyPoker support, and again, I apologize for the misunderstanding. If you could please tell me your account name, I will look into the matter as quickly as possible.

Roger Gupta
PartyPoker Support Leader



Roger,

You guys suck. I already gave you all of the information necessary to look into this and there is clear colusion going on... don't you care?

Nick
Chief_911



Dear Nick,

Thank you for contacting us again, and I apologize for the misunderstanding. I have investigated the tournament number in question and spoke with the technical support manager. It appears that there were no problems with the server during the tournament. We will therefore not be able to refund your entry fee.

Thank you for your continued patronage.

John Williams
PartyPoker Support Supervisor

[/ QUOTE ]

Classic /images/graemlins/grin.gif /images/graemlins/grin.gif /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[boedeker]

well apparently my chat has been banned for 10 days. hope youre happy.

[Chief911]

You're lucky it wasn't on Stars, where they actually do something about stuff like this. If you are expecting me to feel sorry for you because you had your chat banned, I dont. The kid wasn't going to call with 63o. Obviously that would have been stupid, but he wasn't. Thus his "with 6 3"

Bottom line is, you colluded, and the end result was me bubbling out, costing me $535. I'll trade you 10 days of no chat for $535. Sound fair?

Quit your bitching and pull your head out of your ass next time.

Nick

[citanul]

I wasn't there until like one minute after this occurred, but something tells me that a) pretty much any time that you have 63, you assume your cards are live and b) he was going to call.

I don't remember how many players were left at this time either, I think it was 11, and there were a few short stacks. I don't think that you can directly blame boedeker's play and or chat for your bubbbling out.

From the time I got there, he went all in EVERY hand on his table, when he had the table covered. Thus, he was trying his best to bust someone. It appeared that you folded every hand until you were all in on the big blind. This may have been reasonable, but probably was not optimal considering other factors.

I'm not sure if chatting about your hand while you are heads up is explicitly against party's rules. It probably is. However, I really can't feel that this is collusion. I am especially concerned by those people who believe that if he had been lieing about his cards, then it would have been ok, but since he told the truth, it was fine. Players CONSTANTLY talk about their hands. The VERY typical move is the re-steal and then announcement of having a pair in your hand while the other person is considering a call. I see this perhaps 10 times a day.

I can't think that you would have a problem here if boedeker had had say, 66, and the guy got the same chat, called, and lost with the destroyed hand. You'd probably have typed something like "lol" in the chat box.

Boedeker/redhotballz can be a bit of a jackass at the tables, as can many players, but I don't think that he was aware of any rule that would prohibit you from talking about your hand while the hand is heads up and you are all in. Is this prohibitted in live play? Are you allowed to talk about your hand while you are last to act and considering calling an all in player, heads up? Live? Is he just not allowed to respond? That seems like, live, a huge freeroll on the part of the person who has the turn to act, since he's allowed to say anything he wants and you aren't allowed to react in any way.

Anyway, I think that the idea that you should be refunded your entrance is pretty ridiculous. I think that redhot got approximately the punishment he deserved, perhaps he should have had a longer chat suspension.

my 2 cents,

citanul

[M.B.E.]

[ QUOTE ]
Is this prohibitted in live play?

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes. Tournament Directors Association (http://pokertda.com/) rules provide:

"34. Players, whether in the hand or not, may not discuss the hands until the action is complete. Players are obligated to protect the other players in the tournament at all times. Discussing cards discarded or hand possibilities is not allowed. A penalty may be given for discussion of hands during the play."

Obviously this rule is for tournaments only, not cash games. Also this rule has been controversial, with some top players speaking out against it. However, the rule was enforced at this year's WSOP and other top tournaments.

[citanul]

What about Greg's infamous "I guess we've got a coinflip then" or whatever it was he said exactly?

citanul

[TacoVendor]

I emailed Party a few months ago about collusion in a $50 STT.

The quick story... 4 of us left and all have stacks that are within 200 of each other. The two colluding were sitting at opposite ends of the table. I had noticed nothing out of the ordinary to that point.

Then in Spanish a chat between them starts: 'call me back so we can put these two out'. The other replies 'my sister is on the phone'. After a few hands and the first has a large stack and the other is well short, in Spanish again 'tell her to get off of the phone and call me'. The reply 'ok she is almost done' and 'slow your play'.

I have never seen anything even near that type of chat before but I guess they figured that it would not be noticed in Spanish. I went out 3rd and looked back through the history - not one hand in the whole game did they go past the flop together, and if one raised at any point (even with multiple callers) the other dropped.

I sent in the history, the specific lines of chat, tournament number, etc. to Party support and called them right away as well. I was told that they would review the game and the players past history.

Of course it all ended with 'it looks suspicious, but there was nothing that could be done'. 'No indication of past collusion', and that there were 'very few' times these players played together. Not enough to be out of the ordinary.

The best I got out of it is that they would note the accounts for those two in case something was brought up in the future.

Good luck with your efforts.

[M.B.E.]

[ QUOTE ]
Then in Spanish a chat between them starts: 'call me back so we can put these two out'. The other replies 'my sister is on the phone'. After a few hands and the first has a large stack and the other is well short, in Spanish again 'tell her to get off of the phone and call me'. The reply 'ok she is almost done' and 'slow your play'.

...

I sent in the history, the specific lines of chat, tournament number, etc. to Party support and called them right away as well. I was told that they would review the game and the players past history.

Of course it all ended with 'it looks suspicious, but there was nothing that could be done'. 'No indication of past collusion', and that there were 'very few' times these players played together. Not enough to be out of the ordinary.

[/ QUOTE ]
There is no conceivable "innocent explanation" for that. It is overt, demonstrable collusion. The players should have had their accounts closed, and any funds won in tournaments they played together confiscated and given to the players who were cheated.

I would love to see a response in this thread from PartyPoker security people. How are we supposed to trust the site when they don't take action when given clear proof of collusion?