I thought this would be collusion

[Toro]

Played in a $30 S&G last night on PS. We are down to 4 players and the 2nd chip leader has been sitting out for a long time. He was actually the chip leader by a lot but got blinded down to 2nd position.

Me and another guy are virtually the same with 3rd/4th chips when the guy proposes that we all don't play against each other until this guy is chipped out of the tourney.

I ignored him at first but he was quite persistent so I finally told him that I thought that was collusion and I wouldn't do it. He argued back that this guy was being unfair by sitting out so therefore it was OK for us to do this.

I countered that he built his stack fair and square and if he chose to sit out, that was his perogative. The guy backed off after this and of course, the guy with ethics, me, busted out 4th.

Pretty confident the majority of you will agree with me but am still interested in hearing opinions.

[crockpot]

it's really sad that the sites will let people intentionally disconnect all-in while real victims, like those who have an internet attack with a big stack during a tournament, are forced to endure this treatment. how often have you seen someone legitimately disconnect in a pot big enough that they would care about it? i've seen plenty of big stacks lose their internet during a tournament, and there's no reason to do this on purpose.

the ethical thing to do is to just keep playing normally like you did, and that's exactly what i would do, unless the disconnected player was someone who had pulled some all-in protect on me in a big pot in the past, or something like that. then i say screw 'im.

[Toro]

No, this guy wasn't pulling any of that all-in disconnect BS. You can't do it on Pokerstars anyway. When you time out, your hand is folded. The guy either got disconnected or he simply chose to sit on his lead for a while. To me, it didn't matter. If he wanted to sit on his lead and go do some errands or sit on his lead and fold every hand that was his perogative.

[rhinoceros]

It is rational to avoid nearly any confrontation while waiting for the guy to blind off. You all know it, and you all know the others know it. You can do it, but you can't agree to it.

It's too bad the guy is a loudmouth. But you shouldn't let that goad you into playing more aggressively than you would otherwise

[jwvdcw]

I think it would be collusion to formally discuss a plan to not play any hands and let the guy be blinded out.

However, and I don't mean to be offensive here, you have to be pretty thick-headed to get 4th when another guy isn't at the table...You might as well just take advantage of the situation. They do it to you when you're disconnected so it evens out over time.

I consider myself a pretty moral person, but you have to be ruthless when it comes to poker, as long as its within the rules of course.

So, basically what I'm saying is that I'd never discuss any plan with the other players, but I would never risk going all in unless I had a monster hand when I could just sit there and wait for 4th place.

[Tachyon]

The rules on this are quite clear.

[ QUOTE ]
Players are obligated to protect the other players in the tournament at all times

[/ QUOTE ]

This is Rule 16 of the tournament rules if anyone is interested...

Basically implicit collusion is fine - you can all blind him away everyhand and there is nothing that you can do about it if you are the affected player since nothing was spoken in chat... as soon as the first comments are made about this then it becomes collusion plain and simple.

My 2 penneth

John

[Rushmore]

Of course it's collusion.

P.S. Someone said something about being a monkey for coming in fourth when he was sitting out.

This would, of course, be true if third meant anything at all to you. I assume it does not.