ethics of playing with friends online

iluzion · #1 04-22-2005, 07:36 PM

How many of you play with friends who are less strong poker players online? Do you take it easy on them or if you don't, what happens when you take money from them? I play 1/2 and am starting to make the move to 2/4 but a buddy wanted me to play a few sessions of .5/1 with him. He is one of those "deposit $50 and hope to go big on party" kinda guys, and was down to $15ish by the time I played a game with him. Assuming its wrong to play light on him, I played my normal aggressive game, but loosened it up alot. On one hand with ATs I called his raise from the blinds, flop came with and ace and two of my suite, he had AK, there was lots of action, river brought my flush and his leading bet put him all-in. When I showed he got really pissed at me, and now, a few days later, I run into him and all I get is "you owe me money" and he wont talk to me. Is this stupid or should i have been easy on a friend like this?

BeantownCaller · #2 04-22-2005, 07:46 PM

When I play with one friend and a bunch of strangers in real life, or online, I try not to get involved in pots with my friend. Call it what you want, but it's not collusion, I'd rather just play against the other 8 people at the table. I guess limit is different, but if I was playing with someone who could not afford to lose $15 I wouldn't play with them at all, it's just too small an amount of money to make an issue out of.

brazilio · #3 04-22-2005, 07:56 PM

I play with a friend of mine. He's possibly a bit better than I am, but it'd be pretty goddamned disappointing if he or I took it easy on the other. If you aren't playing poker to make money, you shouldn't be playing. Unless you're at a 2+2 table to relax or someth. Your friend's an idiot though, if you value friendship I'd try to avoid ganking his money. Personally, $15 is worth more than a tool like that.

ugh, nevermind.

Reef · #4 04-22-2005, 07:58 PM

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When I showed he got really pissed at me, and now, a few days later, I run into him and all I get is "you owe me money" and he wont talk to me. Is this stupid or should i have been easy on a friend like this?

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he's ignorant. Get a new friend.

grimel · #5 04-22-2005, 08:02 PM

He's a moron. I play w/ 1 person I used to work with occasionally. I play w/ 1 cousin and several of his/my friends at SNG, MTT, and the odd cash game. The real your friend is a moron kicker is we (cousin and friends) pay $20 once a week for an online tourny (we live 1-4hrs from each other) winners (top 5) take all.

IggyWH · #6 04-22-2005, 08:14 PM

Recently, I ran into this dude on the tables that I went to high school with. We were what I liked to call "school friends". We were friends in school, but never hung out outside of school. We had almost all the same classes together so it was more of a convenience for us to be friends in school.

We'll play 3-4 tables at a time together and our goal is to see who can win the most money off of each other. There's no taking it easy. It's a little hard now though since we have pretty much perfect reads on each other (playing 2000+ hands together will do that with anyone) but it's still balls to the walls. None of this pussy crap, taking it easy on each other.

I think if you go easy on someone purposely because they are a friend, you are colluding and are no better than the people who share hole cards. It turns into a 8 vs 2 game when you go easy on each other and that simply isn't fair to everyone else at the table.

A-Baum · #7 04-22-2005, 08:36 PM

Little bit of a hijack, but a question toward the guy who 4 tables and has played 2000+ hands with the same guy.

Doesn't the poker site notice that? I mean, what would keep me and my buddy from doing that and chatting over AIM about our cards and isolating players? I'm obviously not accusing you, you're just having fun with your friend, but I'm sure people do exactly what you described but are doing it to cheat. Have you ever gotten an email about you playing with the same person all the time?

brazilio · #8 04-22-2005, 09:40 PM

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Little bit of a hijack, but a question toward the guy who 4 tables and has played 2000+ hands with the same guy.

Doesn't the poker site notice that? I mean, what would keep me and my buddy from doing that and chatting over AIM about our cards and isolating players? I'm obviously not accusing you, you're just having fun with your friend, but I'm sure people do exactly what you described but are doing it to cheat. Have you ever gotten an email about you playing with the same person all the time?

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I've probably played almost 3k hands or so with my friend, and I've never had a problem. We're not colluding, and we're generally in hands together very infrequently. He'll tell me his hole cards when I'm not playing vs him and vice versa (but one of us is in the hand). The thing is that I've played almost 2k hands with a LOT of TAGs, so he's not particularly different. I chat with him on AIM at the time, but in general our gameplay doesn't change significantly other than comments about each other's play.

IggyWH · #9 04-23-2005, 01:27 PM

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I chat with him on AIM at the time, but in general our gameplay doesn't change significantly other than comments about each other's play.

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That's one thing that worries me... as we talk crap to each other over AIM to keep it out of the chat. His AIM name is nothing at all like his poker handle, but I'm always worried Party will see a screenshot and put 2-and-2 together.

We never cheat, never talk about other players, never tell hole cards (even when one is out of the hand already) so we're never doing anything wrong. That doesn't mean Party won't think otherwise though.

Richter · #10 04-22-2005, 08:38 PM

I go after my buddies more than others at the table for some reason. Guess it's a competition thing.

The few times we ended up at the same table in NL tourny's I guess I tried to stay out of pots with him when it was convenient to do it... I get a good hand though and I don't care if it's my mom across from me.