Encouraging your table to stall in a tourney (long....as usual)

[MicroBob]

Think it's cheating?
I certainly do. (referring specifically to encouraging the others at your table to do it).


Perhaps this is a bit petty...but I have reported similar 'violators' to support at stars and party and/or told the offenders that 'encouraging the whole table to stall is not allowed' in previous situations.

It just happened that this situation was particularly egregious...AND I also happened to lose on the bubble.

Would I have made it if there hadn't been the open-discussion/collusion on the other tables? Probably wouldn't have made much difference.
But I still don't think those who actively try to get their whole table to 'team-up' deserve to win either.


=====================


Hello -

I played in the CPC special qualifier ($90/9) on
Friday night and there was some conspiring that took
place on table #2 when it got down to 2 tables
remaining.

It took place with 13 and then with 12 players left.


The top 11 players received seats to the $800+50
Canadian special.

One player named xxxxxxxxx was telling the rest of the
table to stall as long as possible on each hand.

Later, xxxxxxxxx was telling the table not to play any
hands or take any risks because one of the players on
the other table had a short-stack and would be in the
BB in two hands (this player on the other table
happened to be me).


Also, a player named yyyyyyyy made a raise, and then
while the other players were deciding, he announced to
the table that he was holding AA and he didn't want
anyone on his table to get knocked-out.
After everyone folded he indeed showed them AA.



I think it is a serious breach of the rules for a
player to tell the table what he is holding so that
all of his new 'friends' at the table can avoid being
eliminated.

xxxxxxxxx's violations were more egregious though
because he/she was encouraging the whole table to
stall because they had 7 players left on their table
while the other one had only 6. xxxxxxxxx was
specifically telling the table that they had a big
advantage by stalling because they had one more player
than the other table.


Also, please note that for some reason the party
software did not implement hand-for-hand play with 2
tables remaining even though it clearly should have.


Once the players on table 2 figured out that there was
no hand-for-hand play being used and at that point they started talking about stalling and they got really out-of-hand about it.


I think I am deserving of an $800+50 seat to the Canadian
Special (Saturday at 2pm) as I was the victim of an
entire table openly conspiring against me.
It was a wholly unfair situation (and I was unable to
ask them to stop conspiring because observer-chat was
not allowed).

Those who play FAIRLY and WITHIN the rules are clearly
more deserving of the seat than those who openly cheat
and conspire at the tables and in the chat-boxes.

I was trying to play a fair game...but some of the
other players were not.


Please forward this to the appropriate department and
get back to me regarding what you plan to do in this
matter.


Thank you,
Bob xxxxx




===========================



Dear Bob,

Thank you for contacting us with your concern.

We would like to thank you for bringing to our notice the inappropriate
conversation in the game ID *CPC Special Qualifier* .

This is definitely not acceptable, the chat feature is provided for
players as a ýadd oný feature to better experience the action at our
tables, but any misuse of this feature is not permitted.

We discourage such activities on our site and hence have him requested
him an explanation for the same. We have also issued him a warning and
have further put a block on his chat privileges.

However, we have also noticed that players on your table too were
trying to prolong the game. During the hands #zzzzzzzzzz and #zzzzzzzzzzz
players have been trying to gain advantage.

We have flagged the accounts and would be monitoring them on a regular
basis.

Contact us anytime, we are available around the clock to assist you
with your account related questions and suggestions.

Sincerely,

Natalie Thomas
Investigations Team



===========================================



Please more fully consider the situation.


This is far more than just the fact that 'both tables
were engaged in some kinds of stalling'.

If a player on their own does this then that is one
thing.

But if a player is using the chat-feature to encourage
everyone at the table to do this then that is clearly
cheating and collusion.

The problem here is not the actual stalling itself.
The problem is that on the other table there was open
and inappropriate discussion about it.

Then a player told the table what hole-cards he was
holding in efforts to help everyone on his table win
the seat.

Then a different player told the whole table not to
play any hands because there was a short-stack that
would be in the BB soon.

Players are not allowed to discuss such things like
"hey everybody. don't play any hands."
It's entirely possible that someone would have played
a hand of their own volition...but then the idea of
the whole table conspiring to fold around to the
blinds came into play.



The 2nd table had players actively trying to get
everyone to 'team-up' and stall.


Thank you,
Bob xxxxxxx