Accidental Collusion detection?

Me and my 3 buddies like to play poker online, we like to play at the same table. We don't collude, we're just doing it to have some fun. We even play SNG's some times together. Does this alone count as collusion? We're not telling each other our hands or dumping chips. I read on some of these sites there is a collusion detection system, which automaticly scans your hand histories when you try to cash out. For example Full Tilt says it looks for patterns of where you play with the same people. I am just concerned that this might get us in trouble. Should we avoid playing together?

FTP's collusion policy

[StellarWind]

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Me and my 3 buddies like to play poker online, we like to play at the same table. We don't collude, we're just doing it to have some fun. We even play SNG's some times together. Does this alone count as collusion? We're not telling each other our hands or dumping chips. I read on some of these sites there is a collusion detection system, which automaticly scans your hand histories when you try to cash out. For example Full Tilt says it looks for patterns of where you play with the same people. I am just concerned that this might get us in trouble. Should we avoid playing together?

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People have played poker with buddies since the game was invented. There is nothing wrong or immoral about that. Many times I see two or more players at an online table who are obviously friends. It doesn't bother me in the least. I want people to have fun.

You seem to already know the rules: no working as a team, no chip dumping, no softplaying, no sharing hole cards or other information during a hand, and no asking or giving advice while a hand is being played.

I can't promise you that FTP or anyone else won't make a mistake and accuse the innocent. But it doesn't seem to be a problem in my experience.

[Tk79]

I dont think just sitting at the same table with someone on a regular basis would get you in any kind of trouble. It may make the site look into your play with that person a bit, but if you're doing nothing wrong I dont think you have anything to worry about. If this did get you in trouble I think a lot of us would get in plenty of trouble for chasing around the ppl on our buddy lists.

[GrannyMae]

We're not telling each other our hands ..

why not?


are any of them on your IM list?

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We're not telling each other our hands ..
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why not?

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You crack me up, Granny.

Devil's advocate here:

You are playing 1/2 n/l, your buddy and a stranger both have a big stack, say $500. A heart flush comes on the river, your buddy bets out $80 into a $60 pot and gets raised all-in for the rest of his $500 stack. He types in "xxxx, I have the king high flush" You had folded the ace of hearts preflop.

Do you:

A) Send him an IM
B) call him on the phone
C) type into the FT chat log
D) let him decide whether or not to call

I like seeing my friends lose money. i'll just watch what happens, then tell him afterwards. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Doc]

Back when I played with my cousin a lot in the manner you describe, I had a few withdrawals held up for a bit while the site runs a review of the hands (Seemed to happen a lot more on crypto), but otherwise, I had no problem.

Doc