Soft Play
 

Need some advise in how to deal with couple’s soft play.

I host a fun monthly tournament with 30ish players with a $40 but in. We usually have some BBQ, drinks and poker. I get a good mix of players including many couples.

The other night during a hand at the final table two of my friends (husband and wife) got heads up before the flop. The flop was Q85 (check-check) the turn K (min bet-call) the river 2 (check-check) wife shows 55 for trip 5s on the flop and hubby shows 88 for trip 8s on the flop. When the hands were exposed many players at the table made some comments, mostly in good humor but with a bit of sting to them. The game continued but the hand/play kept being brought up by the more experienced players. As luck would have it and to make matters worse the wife won the tournament resulting in more comments and calls to me the next day.

So I realize that one solution might be to un-invite the couple or one of them but is there another way?

As I said it is a friendly game with a bunch of friends and there is really no way of knowing if the other couples aren’t doing something similar without such an obvious hand coming up between them. Actually when I talked to the husband the next day about their play he said that he has seen couples over bet pots, make big lay downs or slow play against there significant others and didn’t understand what the big deal was.

There is a little truth to his statement because it has happened that the husband will make a bet into his wife and she will fold saying something like “I hope you enjoy the couch tonight” or someone will say “you know it is a long walk home” before folding. The table usually laughs and play goes on.

The biggest problem here was that it was the final table and they both had monster hands.

Has this happened in any of your games? How did you deal with it? Any suggestions on what I should do?

My next tourney is in a couple of weeks so any suggestions are welcomed.

Thanks in advance

Re: Soft Play
 

If it's just a fun game amongst friends then I would recommend to tell the more experienced players to chill out and enjoy the party.

Anyone who has invited "couples" to a poker tournament has probably experienced the same thing, it's going to happen just don't worry about it.

You either have to accept it or be an ass and kick them out for collusion. I think the decision is pretty easy (assuming you don't hate your friends).

Re: Soft Play
 

The real question is whether you're primarily playing for money (serious money game) or playing for fun?

If it's meant to be a serious money game, then you have a real problem. This kind of soft play is borderline cheating, and I'm not really sure about the borderline.

In the normal course with trips against trips, one of the two players' stacks will take a major hit. That player may even be gone. The player who would have busted out (or taken a major hit) may place higher than s/he otherwise would costing some other player or players money.

Of course, the player who would have won with trips would have had a bigger stack, and a bigger chance of winning the whole thing, so that player is 'giving up something'.

In any event, in a serious game, having two players work in tandem wouldn't be permitted. I can't see any casino running a tourney allowing this.

If you're playing for fun -- who cares if they're soft playing each other.

Given the fact that people are complaining, at least some are treating this as a serious game, and you as the host, therefore have a problem. I think you have to say something to the couple -- you may lose one or both of them as players, but the alternative is that you'll probably lose the other players in the game who are upset with what they're doing.

Re: Soft Play
 

My wife and I play in a couples game once a month. It started out primarily for fun, the cash was just to make it interesting.

The first two games were fine, but the third time it was obvious that one couple was in cahoots. Aside from the blatent laydowns and soft play, both husband and wife had very itchy noses and at one point the guy developed a dry cough. Since it's just for fun nobody said anything but I found out afterwards that everybody was appalled that they would try to cheat in twenty dollar fun game.

The next game the other couples decided to scratch their noses and cough very obviously at the first sign of the crap. It was incredibly funny.

Oddly, that game has turned into a bloody battle with lots of competition.

Re: Soft Play
 

I host a game and my wife plays. This never really comes up in our games by anyone else, but I am always thinking about what other people think about my plays when I am up against my wife.

However....

Does it really matter? If I bust my wife or my wife busts me, I could be accused of chip dumping. If I check a pot down with her, I would be accused of soft-play. Really, if they are married, they are likely sharing their BR and it would have been more advantageous for them to dump their chip to the other. This way they have a better chance at 1st place.

My suggestion would be to mention to them (light-heartedly) to be careful about how they play against each other because some people may fear collusion.

The other solution would be to tell the complainers to lighten up. Its a fun game, remember? And does it really matter if each of them has 500 chips or one of them has 1000. I think it does, and their choice to soft play in that situation was a bad play. They would have been better off dumping to the other.

Re: Soft Play
 

maybe i'm a total tightwad, but with $1200+ in prize money, while it can be fun and more light-hearted than other games, i'm going to be thinking about the money and i'm sure most other folks will too. not addressing this issue at all is probably going to cause a bigger problem later when someone really gets, or thinks they get, burned by this practice.

edit: rather than singling out anyone, since it's so many people a simple announcement and explanation should be sufficient.

Re: Soft Play
 

Soft play in a social game doesn't bother me too horribly. Yeah, it would be nice if couples jammed pots against each other when appropriate -- but in most social games there are all sorts of people who dial it up and down depending on who they're playing. (College roommates; neighbors, etc.) Sometimes they're extra eager to bust out an old rival; sometimes they wanna let a pal live a little longer. Heck, in the WSOP main event this year, hardened pros softplayed against some 91-year-old geezer with a hearing aid, letting him last a couple hours longer because no one had the heart to bust him out.

For a $40 buy in at a home game, I'd rather play against nice people and accept this as the price. If I want cut-throat action against people I don't care for, then it's time to go to a casino.

Signaling, however, strikes me as intolerable, even in a home game. The way you policed it FAST strikes me as totally right. I realize it's just one step further into the gray zone of collusion. But there's a key difference. Now people aren't just adjusting their internal win/loss stakes with a buddy. They're actively combining forces to try to hurt everyone else's performance.

Re: Soft Play
 

[ QUOTE ]
I bust my wife or my wife busts me, I could be accused of chip dumping. If I check a pot down with her, I would be accused of soft-play. Really, if they are married, they are likely sharing their BR and it would have been more advantageous for them to dump their chip to the other. This way they have a better chance at 1st place.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is exactly what I was thinking. It would be more benefitial for the couple if one spouse to dump chips to the better player. In fact I saw this in a semi-serious home tourney once. One girl who seemed to play pretty solid before went allin with a weak ace against her husband, who seemed like a very good player and had AA. She actually sucked out and won the hand, though she busted out (prob because of bad karma [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] soon afterwards. Later a few of my friends mentioned it looked like she was definately trying to dump her chips. Since me and my wife often play in the same tourney, I too always try to make sure I don't soft play against her.
G$

Re: Soft Play
 

Fortunately my wife and I are way too competitive to let this happen...we get great pleasure out of busting each other when we're in a home tourney, even though it's usually -EV for "our" bankroll.

That being said, you just have to use common sense to determine whether softplay or chip-dumping is going on. In your example, with them checking down with two big hands, they're definitely guilty. Same thing if she had called an all-in of his with 72o. With clear-cut cases like this it presents a great opportunity to give a warning since few people will disagree with you; if it's a more marginal situation, just let it slide.

Re: Soft Play
 

I am pretty sure my friend who recently got a girlfriend did this to me. The [censored] who has no teeth got heads up against me and it was clear she had no clue what she was doing. He was looking at her cards and such. And when we went out for a smoke break they spent and extra long time out there just the two of em. I noticed after I left he was looking at both of our cards as he dealt and he probably told her to go all in when she had the best of it. (It really pissed me off, but I figure being shes my age (20) and has a kid and she has no teeth, maybe they need the $35 they cheated for instead of the $10 I won) I will never look at those two the same again.

Note: I noticed he was kind of helping her out when it was three way telling her what to do and such, and I made a funny I know what you are doing look, and then one hand she went to him to find out what to do and he was like I donno. Man it pisses me off.

Re: Soft Play
 

I hate her with a passion. C.unt

Re: Soft Play
 

It's neat that you posted this just to bump your own rant. Like, you just wanted to say "P.S. I'm really REALLY bitter, not to be confused with 'really bitter'."

Were you drinking the WHOLE time from 9:45-12:30?
-Sam

Re: Soft Play
 

Me no, it just strikes me that my buddy hooked up with this trashy unpersonable chick who has no clue what she is doing got lucky and got heads up with me and he had to cheat so this trashy chick could win money. She said she needed it, if she needed the money why the hell is she gambling. I am gunning for her ass next time.

Re: Soft Play
 

Thanks for all the great suggestions and advice.
Just as a quick update I went for a beer with my buddy and mentioned again about their play.
I think that since time has past he understands now how their actions were wrong.
We also agreed that the fact that they are a couple their play, like that of all other couples at the game, would be scrutinized more than just two random players in the pot and therefore it is important that every hand that is played is played fair regardless of who is in the pot.

I am guessing that the next tourney will be interesting with all couples actually gunning for their significant others to prove that they don’t soft play :-)

Thanks again!

Re: Soft Play
 

This is more of a rant or warning than seeking advice so reader beware :-)

I am continuing this post because it sadly involves the same couple but I should change the name to "Home games and the dangers of losing friends" or "Home Games and cheating"

As you can see from my original and last post I had a problem with a couple soft playing each other when they both hit trips on the flop, but after a discussion I thought the problem was gone.

I was obviously wrong!
We had a game the other night when this hand came up.

Player "A" the wife bet 3xBB PF everyone folded and Player "B" the husband called.

The flop was TcQc2d . Player "A" bets the pot and "B" calls. The turn is 5d. and here is where it gets interesting:
Player "A" bets a little more than 1/2 the pot and stares at her husband. He looks at his cards and folds. At that time a player sitting beside the husband yells: "That is F... Bull..." and reaches into the muck and flips over the husbands cards.
He had Pocket Aces when another player turned over the wife’s cards she had tripped her tens.
Well to say that at age 38 I never thought I would have to break up a fight in my house is an understatement. Needless to say that was the end of that tourney as most people were disgusted by everything that was happening.

I later asked the player that flipped over the Aces how he knew? And he told me that he had noticed the wife signing her husband to lay it down and when the husband picked up his cards he was able to angle shoot enough to see the aces.

What they were doing was using the chips to cap their cards to give the approximated value of there hand. The bigger the cap card the better the hand. My friend noticed that when the flop hit the wife dove into her stake and changed her cap card, and when the stare down she kept going from her husbands eyes to her cap card. As to say “Look at my chip, I have a big hand”
(You have to remember that none of us are pros so her moves weren’t that subtle)

Well that is it.
Thanks for the read and again be careful if you are the host or a regular in these “Fun Couples Tourneys” it seems the fun can transform into stupidity very easily. I play a few regular poker games with many of the same guys and we never had these problems but mix in the couples and all hell breaks lose.

Good Luck all.

Re: Soft Play
 

wow! that is big time. You know, reading stuff like this makes me glad we treat our $20 (sometimes $25), 3 table tourneys saeriously. We have printed rules available. I love how people say "oh, it's not really much money!" It's $1200. I realize I don't live in one of these insanely expensive places to live, but that's two mortgage payments for me. People will be tempted.