Potowatomi collusion

[yoadrians]

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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.

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This doesn't surprise me at all. I live in the Madison area and used to play at Potowatomi every month or two. However, the last few times I've been there, I've had VERY bad experiences with floor and dealers. Frankly, the floor (middle-aged guy with blonde mustache) has been very rude both times I've called him over for questions. And the dealers are just not very-well trained.

I suggest taking your game to Oneida (dealers and floor are much better) in Green Bay, or making a trip every now and again to Canterbury in the Twin Cities (fantastic room).

Potowatomi just isn't very well-run at all, and it's not worth your time to go there again.

[henrikrh]

That the floor person knew the player you were accusing and then blew off your complaint is worrying. But now that you mention it, this is a bit much at 2/4, collusion is always wrong, but theses gus clearly weren't very good at it, tehy basically told you thta thtye would both be raising with almost any 2 cards in the kill pot, giving you plenty of info to beat them with. I'd say if the stakes were 4/8, maybe 5/10, this would be very veyr serious, 2/4 maaaaybe i let it slide.

[PokerBob]

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[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

This doesn't surprise me at all. I live in the Madison area and used to play at Potowatomi every month or two. However, the last few times I've been there, I've had VERY bad experiences with floor and dealers. Frankly, the floor (middle-aged guy with blonde mustache) has been very rude both times I've called him over for questions. And the dealers are just not very-well trained.

I suggest taking your game to Oneida (dealers and floor are much better) in Green Bay, or making a trip every now and again to Canterbury in the Twin Cities (fantastic room).

Potowatomi just isn't very well-run at all, and it's not worth your time to go there again.

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one of the floor guys at Potowatomi travels to Canterbury to play quite often. you'd think he'd have picked up a few things on how to run a room.