Soft Play

[Guernica4000]

Need some advise in how to deal with couple’s soft play.

I host a fun monthly tournament with 30ish players with a $40 but in. We usually have some BBQ, drinks and poker. I get a good mix of players including many couples.

The other night during a hand at the final table two of my friends (husband and wife) got heads up before the flop. The flop was Q85 (check-check) the turn K (min bet-call) the river 2 (check-check) wife shows 55 for trip 5s on the flop and hubby shows 88 for trip 8s on the flop. When the hands were exposed many players at the table made some comments, mostly in good humor but with a bit of sting to them. The game continued but the hand/play kept being brought up by the more experienced players. As luck would have it and to make matters worse the wife won the tournament resulting in more comments and calls to me the next day.

So I realize that one solution might be to un-invite the couple or one of them but is there another way?

As I said it is a friendly game with a bunch of friends and there is really no way of knowing if the other couples aren’t doing something similar without such an obvious hand coming up between them. Actually when I talked to the husband the next day about their play he said that he has seen couples over bet pots, make big lay downs or slow play against there significant others and didn’t understand what the big deal was.

There is a little truth to his statement because it has happened that the husband will make a bet into his wife and she will fold saying something like “I hope you enjoy the couch tonight” or someone will say “you know it is a long walk home” before folding. The table usually laughs and play goes on.

The biggest problem here was that it was the final table and they both had monster hands.

Has this happened in any of your games? How did you deal with it? Any suggestions on what I should do?

My next tourney is in a couple of weeks so any suggestions are welcomed.

Thanks in advance

[Khabbi]

If it's just a fun game amongst friends then I would recommend to tell the more experienced players to chill out and enjoy the party.

Anyone who has invited "couples" to a poker tournament has probably experienced the same thing, it's going to happen just don't worry about it.

You either have to accept it or be an ass and kick them out for collusion. I think the decision is pretty easy (assuming you don't hate your friends).

[KenProspero]

The real question is whether you're primarily playing for money (serious money game) or playing for fun?

If it's meant to be a serious money game, then you have a real problem. This kind of soft play is borderline cheating, and I'm not really sure about the borderline.

In the normal course with trips against trips, one of the two players' stacks will take a major hit. That player may even be gone. The player who would have busted out (or taken a major hit) may place higher than s/he otherwise would costing some other player or players money.

Of course, the player who would have won with trips would have had a bigger stack, and a bigger chance of winning the whole thing, so that player is 'giving up something'.

In any event, in a serious game, having two players work in tandem wouldn't be permitted. I can't see any casino running a tourney allowing this.

If you're playing for fun -- who cares if they're soft playing each other.

Given the fact that people are complaining, at least some are treating this as a serious game, and you as the host, therefore have a problem. I think you have to say something to the couple -- you may lose one or both of them as players, but the alternative is that you'll probably lose the other players in the game who are upset with what they're doing.

[Wolf101]

My wife and I play in a couples game once a month. It started out primarily for fun, the cash was just to make it interesting.

The first two games were fine, but the third time it was obvious that one couple was in cahoots. Aside from the blatent laydowns and soft play, both husband and wife had very itchy noses and at one point the guy developed a dry cough. Since it's just for fun nobody said anything but I found out afterwards that everybody was appalled that they would try to cheat in twenty dollar fun game.

The next game the other couples decided to scratch their noses and cough very obviously at the first sign of the crap. It was incredibly funny.

Oddly, that game has turned into a bloody battle with lots of competition.

[kodonnell]

I host a game and my wife plays. This never really comes up in our games by anyone else, but I am always thinking about what other people think about my plays when I am up against my wife.

However....

Does it really matter? If I bust my wife or my wife busts me, I could be accused of chip dumping. If I check a pot down with her, I would be accused of soft-play. Really, if they are married, they are likely sharing their BR and it would have been more advantageous for them to dump their chip to the other. This way they have a better chance at 1st place.

My suggestion would be to mention to them (light-heartedly) to be careful about how they play against each other because some people may fear collusion.

The other solution would be to tell the complainers to lighten up. Its a fun game, remember? And does it really matter if each of them has 500 chips or one of them has 1000. I think it does, and their choice to soft play in that situation was a bad play. They would have been better off dumping to the other.

[mike_scar]

maybe i'm a total tightwad, but with $1200+ in prize money, while it can be fun and more light-hearted than other games, i'm going to be thinking about the money and i'm sure most other folks will too. not addressing this issue at all is probably going to cause a bigger problem later when someone really gets, or thinks they get, burned by this practice.

edit: rather than singling out anyone, since it's so many people a simple announcement and explanation should be sufficient.

[RiverDood]

Soft play in a social game doesn't bother me too horribly. Yeah, it would be nice if couples jammed pots against each other when appropriate -- but in most social games there are all sorts of people who dial it up and down depending on who they're playing. (College roommates; neighbors, etc.) Sometimes they're extra eager to bust out an old rival; sometimes they wanna let a pal live a little longer. Heck, in the WSOP main event this year, hardened pros softplayed against some 91-year-old geezer with a hearing aid, letting him last a couple hours longer because no one had the heart to bust him out.

For a $40 buy in at a home game, I'd rather play against nice people and accept this as the price. If I want cut-throat action against people I don't care for, then it's time to go to a casino.

Signaling, however, strikes me as intolerable, even in a home game. The way you policed it FAST strikes me as totally right. I realize it's just one step further into the gray zone of collusion. But there's a key difference. Now people aren't just adjusting their internal win/loss stakes with a buddy. They're actively combining forces to try to hurt everyone else's performance.

[gmunny]

[ QUOTE ]
I bust my wife or my wife busts me, I could be accused of chip dumping. If I check a pot down with her, I would be accused of soft-play. Really, if they are married, they are likely sharing their BR and it would have been more advantageous for them to dump their chip to the other. This way they have a better chance at 1st place.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is exactly what I was thinking. It would be more benefitial for the couple if one spouse to dump chips to the better player. In fact I saw this in a semi-serious home tourney once. One girl who seemed to play pretty solid before went allin with a weak ace against her husband, who seemed like a very good player and had AA. She actually sucked out and won the hand, though she busted out (prob because of bad karma [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] soon afterwards. Later a few of my friends mentioned it looked like she was definately trying to dump her chips. Since me and my wife often play in the same tourney, I too always try to make sure I don't soft play against her.
G$

[GMan42]

Fortunately my wife and I are way too competitive to let this happen...we get great pleasure out of busting each other when we're in a home tourney, even though it's usually -EV for "our" bankroll.

That being said, you just have to use common sense to determine whether softplay or chip-dumping is going on. In your example, with them checking down with two big hands, they're definitely guilty. Same thing if she had called an all-in of his with 72o. With clear-cut cases like this it presents a great opportunity to give a warning since few people will disagree with you; if it's a more marginal situation, just let it slide.

[MagicMan08]

I am pretty sure my friend who recently got a girlfriend did this to me. The [censored] who has no teeth got heads up against me and it was clear she had no clue what she was doing. He was looking at her cards and such. And when we went out for a smoke break they spent and extra long time out there just the two of em. I noticed after I left he was looking at both of our cards as he dealt and he probably told her to go all in when she had the best of it. (It really pissed me off, but I figure being shes my age (20) and has a kid and she has no teeth, maybe they need the $35 they cheated for instead of the $10 I won) I will never look at those two the same again.

Note: I noticed he was kind of helping her out when it was three way telling her what to do and such, and I made a funny I know what you are doing look, and then one hand she went to him to find out what to do and he was like I donno. Man it pisses me off.