Is this cheating?

[EastEndBoy]

Hi everybody,

being a frequent visitor of this forum, I try to make my first post now, asking for your opinion about this:

Party 20/2 tournament, 5 players still in, I raise all-in (preflop), both blinds call. 1500 in the pot. Chat window, BB says something like: "We shouldn't bet, so we improve our chances to get him out." That's the way the do it, both check it down, I lose the pot and finish fifth.

As I've been playing tournaments for no more than one month, I'm not that familiar with what is common. So I'd really wish to know: Do you think proposing/making such an agreement during a hand is

- okay
- a borderline case
- cheating

If the latter, what should I do?

Thanks for your replies, sorry about my errors in English.

[parappa]

It's definitely unethical. Checking in this situation in the hope that your opponent will also check it down is okay, but verbally encouraging your opponent to do so is not . Whether it goes all the way to being bannable collusion, I'm not sure.

[Phill S]

if in doubt tell party. they will decide for themselves.

checking down an all-in player is fairly common practice in tourneys, most have heard of the practice and therfor most do it. whether or not its ethical to encourage someone im not too sure.

this has been discussed before, try a search of the forum, as i believe it was covered in some detail.

Phill

[Lori]

You should mail support and make it clear that although the players concerned probably don't know it's cheating, you would like them to be warned.

Support (at a decent site) will email the players concerned and inform them of their errors without banning them, or even removing chat, and everyone is 'happy'

Edit: Throw the word 'collusion' into the email, that usually gets support a little more motivated.


Lori

[rookieplus]

If you have to ask, that's usually all the indication you need.

[reecelights]

If you have a hand history, be sure to include it cpoied into the text with the hand number clearly visible so they can verify it. All chat is included in the HH. THe more documentation you can provide, the more likely it is you'll get some action on this. Don't forget, most of the Party support staff are in India, and not very well paid for their job.

[VarlosZ]

It is cheating but, as another poster said, it's likely one or both of the other players doesn't know it's cheating; a lot of people who only play online simply don't know you're not supposed to talk about the hand while it's in progress (let alone suggest a course of action to an opponent).

Ususally when I see benign table talk, I try as politely as I can to point out that that should not be done. Almost without exception, the player in question tells me to go f--- myself. *shrug*


Question for those who have reported cheating to Party support: When and if they do something about it, do they send you an email with an update? I ask because I reported a player for blatant, repeated disconnect abuse (who eventually told the table not to raise too much or else he'd disconnect), and I never heard back from them (yes, I gave them the hand #, etc.).

Thanks.

[3rdEye]

By definition, that is collusion. I suppose this is one of the reasons why PokerStars automatically disables chat whenever a player is all-in.

I would log the chat and send it to support. Even though this isn't a particularly egregious violation (at least in my opinion), the players involved should at least be warned by the administrators that what they did was technically collusion. Hopefully this will keep them from doing something similar in the future.

[schlach]

I have emailed Party support about collusion in the same circumstance as the original poster. I was all-in, one of the players had bet into a tiny sidepot, and the third player wanted to know whether he "****ing had this thing covered" before he folded.

I mailed the hand history, tournament number, etc, and was informed in a surprisingly prompt manner that nothing unethical had taken place and that the players would not even be warned. Mixed results.