Potowatomi collusion
 

I'm used to playing mainly SNGs onlin and am relatively inexperienced in B&M cardrooms. Anyway, this happened to me the other day at Potowatomi in Milwaukee. I'd like to know what the proper way to handle this would have been:

I'm playing 2/4 and 3 of the other players were college students who obviously knew each other. Over the course of a few hours at the table, the following took place:

1) The 'leader' of the college group "jokingly" said to the other two guys to 'give him a signal' if they have a good hand. Dealer says nothing.

2) I'm in a hand with 2 of the guys. I bet the river. The first to act after me looks at the other guy and says, "Are you going to call?" I object, they both fold. I call the floor over, nothing is done other than the floor reminding these guys that there is only one player per hand allowed.

3) It's a kill pot. Before the cards are dealt, the leader of their group whispers to the guy on his right (one of his friends) to 'bump it up'. Leader, who is UTG, raises, his friend to his right re-raises.

At this point, I had had enough and had the floor called over again. They did not seem to think that this was a big deal. Instead of throwing these guys out, the floor told me that I was making a 'very serious accusation' (collusion) and that I should watch what I accuse people of. This is even though the dealer and another player both heard this guy tell his friend to raise pre-flop before the cards were dealt.

At this point, I got up and left the casino. Would this type of thing ever fly in Vegas or was it too much for me to expect the floor to at the very least break this group of guys up?

BTW, I also noticed that any time one of them would bet post flop, the guy to his left would always raise. Once a person who was not in their group would drop out of the hand, the action would slow, there would be a bet and a fold w/o a hand being shown down the vast majority of the time. This was all pointed out to the staff of the poker room, in addition to the comments that they were making to each other, but fell on deaf ears.

Re: Potowatomi collusion
 

I've seen people banned for much, much less.

Re: Potowatomi collusion
 

I'm actually shocked. I would have protested much, much more vigorously, and would have done so the first time they colluded to push someone out. That's probably the most blatant collusion post I've read in this forum, and that's saying something.

Re: Potowatomi collusion
 

I was extremely angry, just as much with the staff as I was with the guilty parties. I had wintnesses (including the dealer) but the guy was a semi-regular and they said that it was 'just his personality' and that I needed to be careful before making 'such a serious accusation'.

What really got me mad was that one of the guys got away with calling me a '[censored] narc' and that the guy who said to raise it up used as an excuse the fact that he did it before the cards were dealt. He didn't even deny telling his friend to raise pre-flop! The idiots running the poker room thought that this was actually an excuse!

Needless to say, I am not planning on ever returning to Potowatomi.

Re: Potowatomi collusion
 

The 'bump it up' comment in teh kill pot would have made me get up and force the play to stop until they were booted from teh table, absolutely 100% collusion and should not be allowed.

Re: Potowatomi collusion
 

I was actually completely stunned like I was in a dream after I called the floor over after the 'bump it up' comment only to have the floor reprimand me for making serious accusations.

Nobody seemed to understand that these guys were colluding and they actually bought his excuse that it was okay to say this because he did it before the cards were dealt.

I left wishing that I could write a letter to somebody or something, but what are you going to do when the floor doesn't see a problem with this kind of behavior?

Re: Potowatomi collusion
 

That's amazingly blatant.

The floor decision is atrocious...enough to where I would never return to that casino, AND...a letter to the casino manager would not be a bad idea, even if it was ultimately fruitless.

And...I would hate to think how I would have reacted to the "narc" remark from the colluder.

Re: Potowatomi collusion
 

I don't know how the 'floor' works (never been inside a rela casino) but if there are multiple floormen can't you call for another person for a second opinion. Also I would have said "Well, I AM making that serious accusation, I've thought about and yes, these assholes are colluding, 100%, no grey area, I'm accusing them."

Re: Potowatomi collusion
 

Im completely on your side on this whole subject...but...how could telling the guy to raise before anyone sees his cards be colluding?

Sounds like chip spewing to me. Im sure they were tryng to intimidate everyone and definately were out of line, but I just dont see how they get any advantage from raising blind.

Re: Potowatomi collusion
 

I am not sure how bad the Bump it up comment is. I have been at tables where people get crazy and just cap PF blind. Its not like there is an advantage there for them. The advantage in that scenario is actually yours, since you dont have any money in the pot yet, and can only enter is with premiums. The always raising people out, and then signal comments are collustion. But the blind raising is usually just for fun.

C-Dog