Soft Playing? Chip Dumping?

[donkeyradish]

From the pokerstars tournament rules:

Soft playing or chip dumping is grounds for disqualification from the tournament. Any unethical play may result in the termination of the offender’s account.

Can someone elaborate on what these terms actually mean?
There must be a world of difference between

1) Folding to deliberately let someone else at the table have some chips
2) Folding to preserve your own stack

While 1 is unethical, 2 is surely not.

Yet these actions are exactly the same. You could no more prove someone did 1) than you can prove they intended 2)

I have certainly been accused of 1 when I intended 2. Where do you draw the line?

[SumZero]

One clear such case is if you have an agreement, come to an agreement, or suggest an agreement with another player at the table.

I was in a SNG on UB this weekend where two fo the players started talking about eliminating me next (I was 2nd stack the big stack was huge). And then started folding in hands against each other. This didn't look above board to me.

More often I see it when somebody chats "check it down?" when there are 3 players in a pot, one of whom is all in. IMHO it wouldn't be cheating to not bet a reasonable hand in this situation, but it would be cheating to verbalize this intention and try to get another player in the hand to agree with it.

[mackthefork]

They can prove it because they know what the hole cards where. It's unethical where the odds are not a matter of opinion or dabate. e.i min rasing to 800 then folding for 600 more.

Regards ML

[mackthefork]

[ QUOTE ]
More often I see it when somebody chats "check it down?" when there are 3 players in a pot, one of whom is all in.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would never suggest this though i wish people would, as it seems like the correct action to me. Bluffing a dry side pot should also be considered soft playing unless you were protecting a hand that was vulnerable, personally i would rather lose the chips than let the small stack back into the game.

Regards ML

[fnurt]

IMO this suggestion crosses the line. The idea is to ban cheating, not to ban bad poker.

[pzhon]

I've gotten tired of seeing this type of nonsense on UB, so I've forwarded a stream of complaints to them. You can do this within the UB client by clicking on customer support. I hope you complained about the example you mention.

It's not just a matter of opinion that it is wrong to agree to check it down when someone is all-in. This is explicitly covered in UB's rules. It is clearly worse to agree to attack another player.

At the table, people will argue with all sorts of nonsense, but I think UB does take it seriously. Please post here if a tournament result is changed, or ought to be changed and was not. So far, I haven't seen any direct action, but UB claims that it has done some things.

[mackthefork]

Yeah true enough, I do get wound up about these things though when i see big stack go all in with 73o on a KJA flop when there is no sidepot, everyone is entitled to their opinion though, not all actions have to be justified but some do.

Regards ML

[Meatmaw]

Is it widely considered unethical to strategically try to keep the shortstack in the game in a 4-handed game if you are a large chip leader? I could see how strategically I might assess players 2 and 3 as being much easier candidates to steals while the play is in bubble mode (top 3 paying). That being the case, you could easily see that, without things being "personal", you might want to keep the small stack in, or even explicitly dump chips on him to keep the masses about even and in fear.

Would that be collusion or unfair playing? I don't see how that's any different than Sklansky's suggestion to dump high pocket pairs in a 2 table situation when keeping the tables unjoined will result in your ability to steal much more effectively from everyone.

[oblisk]

At one party tourny a while back, there was one guy who had just been folding all night after winning like 1 moderate hand early. Then just as he's in for just under half his stack, on the bubble, in the SB, he pushes leaving the BB (big stack) with only 5 chips to call, and he folds. After me and the fourth player at the table complain, the 4th player gets busted, then when in the money these the big stack keeps feeding money to the short guy, and i eventually get pushed out. I left a nice little message to party about it, never heard back from them though.

[ethan]

This is neither cheating nor unethical. Unethical comes in to play if, say, you know the person playing the short stack and want to get them into the money.