Soft-playing your friends...

Regardless of previous associations, every player my table is my opponent. I've been asked by friends on occasion to "check it down if it's only us" or "we'll split any pots that we take off each other later". I never agree to it, but they seem to play lighter against me anyway. I doubt they realize how much they're giving away. I especially don't want other players at the table to suspect collusion.

[jmgurgeh]

Talk to your friends if you think they should leave the table, or about how they play, or about what you had or they had in a hand after you're away from the table. All that and more is stuff you do for your friends. When you all make the choice to sit at a table though, poker is poker. If you read hands well and can wait until the turn to checkraise someone you know you're ahead of, your opponent is your opponent, and you should do it.

I guess my general idea is this: Softplaying is totally inappropriate for poker games. If your friends have so little confidence in their abilities, you can help them play better or keep them from sitting down, but checking when you should bet and calling when you should raise make no sense to me.

[FatalError]

my friends and i all play professionally and we play each other harder than anyone else at the table... we get better than way. Softplaying is never good for the game

Yea, soft playing isn't a good idea. I play tournaments and my friend wanted to make like a cooperitive were we pool all the prize, but they never win, and i consistantly crush the table. But dont do what i did and tell your friends they suck. they didn't like that very much.

[RydenStoompala]

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Soft-playing your friends...

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Never, ever, ever, ever. One more thing: never.

[rchandra]

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my friends and i all play professionally and we play each other harder than anyone else at the table... we get better than way. Softplaying is never good for the game

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I've seen replies like this to the same question before. But doesn't this just mean that you are then softplaying against everybody else? Somewhere you have to be misplaying ..

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my friends and i all play professionally and we play each other harder than anyone else at the table... we get better than way. Softplaying is never good for the game

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I've seen replies like this to the same question before. But doesn't this just mean that you are then softplaying against everybody else? Somewhere you have to be misplaying ..

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I think that there is a great challenge involved in disassociating friendship from poker. It extremely difficult, if not impossible, to completely forget all the comaraderie there has been between you. The fact that you know a particular player so well on and off the table requires a special sort of adjustment to your play. I think that we all have the capability to play better against our friends than we really want to. I know some of my friends so well that they might as well tell me what they have. You can experience the same effect when playing in the same cardroom for an extended period of time.

I've played with the idea of trying as hard as possible to not sit with my friends at the local cardrooms. On one hand, it's one less seat for me to worry about. On the other, it's one less seat for a goldfish.