Collusion at its finest what do you think...?

[CardSharpCook]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Ok, I know this looks bad, but it can actually make sense. Homeboy with the chips to throw around saw a weak call by the small blind. He looked down at his 95o and said "screw that" and goes to put the SB AI. He miscalculates his bet or doesn't fully think about his bet because he is sure that any bet gets the SB to fold. After the flop comes out, he has only running outs to make a hand and quite frankly, he doesn't want to expose what a bonehead play he just made. So he makes another bonehead play to save a little face.

Weak/Tighties: 1
Boneheads: 0

CSC

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homeboy with chips didn't raise preflop, he called the other homeboys raise.

The only reason I can see for a laydown here would be that the guy with the large stack didn't want to give away what type of hands he was calling raises with. That could seem like the only logical reason for a fold here.

[/ QUOTE ]

Whoa, I misread that. That is fishy. Strange move. But I still say he is a fishy player, not chip dumper. I also go with LJ, who can undoubtedly see both players' cards.

CSC

[Prime Time]

Wow,
Lee lurking and posting on our boards.
Thanks for your explanation.

[adanthar]

Thanks for the explanation...we all appreciate it.

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Obviously, I can't reveal either player's hole cards. But I am 99.99% sure that the play was on the square.

From Dudley's perspective, it wasn't at all clear that he was getting the right pot odds to call.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm voting 6d 4c. Who's with me?

[Fnord]

You rule. Makes me glad to buisness with PokerStars, at least I can be sure I'm getting value out of my rake payments.

[Indiana]

There was something fishy here....This was not the first occurence of this between these two players...What about the push(he had a big stack) with 82o that eliminated Dudley???

Just didn't seem at all plausible that they were not cheating....You just don't play this way for this kind of money.

Indiana

[Lee Jones]

There was something fishy here....This was not the first occurence of this between these two players...What about the push(he had a big stack) with 82o that eliminated Dudley???

Exonerating evidence, your honor. When people saw Dudley fold for 23K chips in a 480K pot, their initial fear was that Dudley was purposely dumping chips to ramco to keep ramco alive in the tournament. ramco turned around and busted Dudley shortly thereafter. If they were playing partners, that's exactly what he wouldn't do.

Just didn't seem at all plausible that they were not cheating....You just don't play this way for this kind of money.

Au contraire. Consider this: suppose you have a poker tournament and 99% of the entrants are mediocre-to-moderately-good amateur players. When you get down to the final three, you have a really good chance of having three mediocre-to-moderately-good amateur players left. I offer no opinions about the quality of the three players who were left, but simply point out that you don't have to be Howard Lederer to make the final table of our Sunday event. They are going to play their usual game, perhaps a bit better because of the situation, or perhaps somewhat worse because of the situation. Definitely somewhat worse since they've been playing for seven hours when they make the final table.

Believe me, we've seen way worse play at the final table.

Best regards,
Lee Jones

PokerStars Poker Room Manager

[Lurshy]

Hi Lee,

Thank you for taking the time to respond inj this thread. At a minimum, it shows that you are active in policing the situtation and I believe are not just acting to protect the reputation of Poker Stars. I think it is important for many here to note that this type of public interactive response would not be forthcoming from many of your major competitors. At best we would see an impersonal form type letter indirectly responding to the situation. The response would also be private and rarely, on a public forum.

I am curious though without conversational intercepts, what type of evidence would be required to prove to your satisfaction that improper soft play took place? And more importantly, what type of remedy you would impose / have imposed in the past? Did you indeed look to see if there was a pattern in additional hands as others have alluded to?

There certainly is boneheaded play by even the best players at times, whether due to lapse of judgment, missthinking, misreading, and even errant clicking. I would hate to be accused of cheating because of stupid play. Yet chip dumping / soft play / collusion would certainly show up as stupid play. How do you tell the differenc?

Hypothetically, I checked the nuts closing the action on the river. This allows an opponent to move on, and escape. Did I do it to help him, or did I do it because I was multi-tabling, and not paying close attention / mis clicked / mis read my hand. All four reasons are in the resonable realm of possibilities. How do you decide?

Although I haven't been close yet, I look forward to being at that final table soon.

Lurshy

[NanaAnna]

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Exonerating evidence, your honor. When people saw Dudley fold for 23K chips in a 480K pot, their initial fear was that Dudley was purposely dumping chips to ramco to keep ramco alive in the tournament. ramco turned around and busted Dudley shortly thereafter. If they were playing partners, that's exactly what he wouldn't do.


[/ QUOTE ]

Isn't Chip dumping done to give a superior player MORE chips from his inferior partner?

It seems Dudly was clearly the inferior player of the 2, and he "gave" his "partner" nearly 1 million in chips in the 2 hands being talked about.

I don't know if there was chip dumping going on with these 2, but if there was, wouldn't you give the better player the chips? And isn't that what happened....under some very suspicious plays?

[sirio11]

Hi Lee:

Is there any way to improve the 200 NL Sunday tournament? I think is more of a lotto poker from 300 players left up to the final table. Maybe 20 mins rounds or adding some levels. The players really appreciate it if something can be done to improve the quality of the play in the most important weekly tournament in Poker Stars.

P.S. Are you going to publish some day a book with all your quotes from the final tables?

[M.B.E.]

[ QUOTE ]
Is there any way to improve the 200 NL Sunday tournament? I think is more of a lotto poker from 300 players left up to the final table. Maybe 20 mins rounds or adding some levels. The players really appreciate it if something can be done to improve the quality of the play in the most important weekly tournament in Poker Stars.

[/ QUOTE ]
Here's my proposal, based on ideas in this thread:

Starting stack 2500 (same as at present), 20 minute levels (five minutes longer than at present), structure (with changes in boldface):

1. 10/20
2. 15/30
3. 25/50
4. 40/80
5. 75/150
6. 100/200
7. 100/200, ante 25
8. 150/300, ante 25
9. 200/400, ante 25
10. 300/600, ante 50
11. 400/800, ante 50
12. 600/1200, ante 75
13. 800/1600, ante 75
14. 1250/2500, ante 125
15. 1800/3600, ante 175
16. 2750/5500, ante 250
17. 4K/8K, ante 400
18. 6K/12K, ante 600
19. 8K/16K, ante 800
20. 12K/24K, ante 1200
21. 15K/30K, ante 1500
22. 20K/40K, ante 2000
23. 25K/50K, ante 2500
24. 30K/60K, ante 3000
25. 40K/80K, ante 4000
26. 50K/100K, ante 5000

For the $500+30 tournament, structure could be the same except with starting stacks of 4000.