Soft-playing is cheating

I once again feel compelled to write a post in response to something Very Josie has written. In describing a recent trip with Waffles to Foxwoods, she mentioned that she and Waffles had an agreement that if either of them had a big hand, they would bet big so that the other would know to get out. She was upset that Waffles violated this agreement by, among other things, bluffing her. She also said that having some sort of agreement like this was routine for her when she played in cash games with friends. It might take different forms (like agreeing not to get into big pots with each other), but there is usually something put in place in advance.

I wish I could quote directly from the post so that you don't have to take my word for it, but unfortunately Josie has redacted the post to remove that section. (I read it several hours ago, and assumed it would still be there intact when I got around to writing this response.) I'm guessing that this was in response to the criticism she received in the comments.

At the risk of piling on, I think it cannot be repeated too often or too emphatically that such conduct is, to be blunt, cheating. We have an obligation to the long-term good and integrity of the game to denounce it as such whenever we are made aware that it is going on.

Mike Caro writes about this frequently. Here are just two of the columns he has published specifically addressing the problem of friends soft-playing each other:

http://www.poker1.com/archives/7928/why-its-wrong-to-soft-play-friends-at-poker/

http://www.bluffmagazine.com/magazine/My-Personal-Poker-Code-of-Ethics-Mike-Caro-2058.htm

Here's an extended excerpt from the latter piece:

When someone robs a convenience store, you know who the bad person is. He’s the guy with the gun. As wrong as that is, in my mind it’s not as sinister as a poker partnership. The robber and the convenience store haven’t exchanged solemn promises. With poker partnerships, the thieves usually go unnoticed and nobody knows anything was stolen. Lives can be ruined when unethical players break their promises and directly target the honesty of others who are being fair to them. What’s worse than that? That’s why I have long-ago stated that poker cheaters should be boiled and eaten. If you think I’m not serious, you boil; I’ll eat.

Soft-play friends.

Strangely, many players think they should give friends a break. But when you soft play friends at the table others get hurt in the crossfire.Aggressive opponents, who are playing honestly, especially suffer. That’s because they mistake what’s happening through secret alliances as tactical traits exhibited by the group of friends.This causes those honest players to make poor decisions for the wrong reasons on future hands.Much worse, soft playing often means that honest players get less value when they hold strong hands because some opponents have decided not to participate in order to make it easy on their buddies. Also, honest players may call trying to catch a bluff, not realizing that the opponent would never have bet a weak hand due to a secret understanding with a participating friend.Soft playing friends is cheating. If you want to be generous, win the money through honest play first.Then you can give it away to your friends later.

Best hand.

Some players consider that playing best-hand poker (where partners signal each other and only the strongest hand is played) is a gray area of ethics that isn’t quite cheating. They’re wrong. Playing best hands is a simple and serious form of cheating and the method will usually destroy ethical players. You should never consider joining such partnerships and if asked to participate I believe you should report the players immediately. Tattling may seem uncool, but you have an obligation to other players to keep the game honest. As uncomfortable as it may seem to do this, poker can’t be protected without your help.

Obligation of pros and other players.

Look, we’ve made great advances. Poker has crawled out of the dank corners of taverns and dimly lit two-table card rooms. We’ve survived the era when scammers roamed and ruled. Now poker is in the spotlight, but it won’t stay there unless professionals and other honest players protect our game. It’s no longer enough to look the other way and just refuse to participate.We need to let unethical players know, in blunt terms, that we don’t tolerate any form of cheating, including partnerships big or small. It’s our game and we will defend it. The consequences of tolerating unethical poker are too great; the stakes are too high. Tell them that exactly. If that doesn’t work, it’s time to start boiling the water.

I've written about this, too, though less eloquently. When I saw a published interview in which Chad Brown and Vanessa Rousso admitted to soft-playing each other, and apparently thought there was nothing wrong with it, I wrote a long post explaining exactly why it was a form of cheating and how it hurt the other players:

http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2009/07/more-professional-poker-cheaters.html

I stand by that.

Josie, when we play at the same table, whether cash game or tournament, I expect you to do everything in your power to take all of my chips, and I will be doing the same. Whatever happens happens, with no hard feelings. However the chips and cards fall, we leave the table just as much friends as when we sat down.

That is the only kind of agreement friends should have with each other before playing poker together.

Envelope Poker

A couple of weeks ago I was playing poker at the Stratosphere on a Friday, early evening, and learned that there was a promotion going on. Hitting a flush or better earned you the right to pick an envelope from a box, in which would be an amount somewhere between $10 and $100. This ran until the envelopes ran out--which, of course, happened right before I hit my first flush.

Last night I was at the Stratosphere again, and heard that the same promotion would be running today, starting at 11:00 a.m.. Apparently they have been doing it every Friday for at least several weeks. I was told that there was $2000 to be distributed, divided among 98 envelopes. I had evening plans, so I decided to put in my poker time in the afternoon. I also had played in the 10:00 p.m. tournament last night (came in second), which got me a coupon for an extra $10 in chips, good for the next 24 hours. So the Stratosphere seemed a logical place to hang out today. Neither the extra $10 nor the promotion really mean much to me, but free money is free money, even if only a little. Since the differences between one poker room and another are pretty small anyway, I thought I might as well take what I could get.

I started off playing my usual $1-2 NLHE game. After about an hour I had just broken even, running in place. I had hit one full house, drawing an envelope with the smallest prize: $10.

I had noticed, however, that the next table over, where they were playing $2-4 limit, was sending players to the desk to pick envelopes at a rather astonishing rate compared to ours. This isn't too surprising; it's much easier and cheaper to stay in a hand to the river in a limit game than in a no-limit game. Any promotion that depends on hitting a certain poker hand (high hand bonuses, bad-beat jackpots, the Palms "diamond flush" game, etc.) will always tend to shift the jackpot-drop money from no-limit games to limit games. It's one of the reasons that I would overall prefer that such promotions didn't exist, because as an exclusively no-limit player I will, on average, not get back from them what I contribute. But it's a small effect, so I don't spend much time worrying about it.

As I said, though, the hit rate at the $2-4 limit table was impossible not to notice. Every few minutes they were sending up one, two, or three players. In order to qualify for an envelope, one's hand need not be the winner, nor did one have to use both hole cards. If, for example, there was a flush on the board, everybody still in the hand at the showdown would win an envelope, as long as the pot had the minimum $10 in it.

A while after I had noticed the frequency with which that table was collecting envelopes, I started noticing snippets of their conversation. I put two and two together, and realized what was going on. They were not playing to win pots; they were playing only to hit envelope-qualifying hands at minimal cost.

I have never, in almost five years here, done the "play to win the bonus money" thing. If there's a bonus to be had, and I hit it, fine, it's a little something extra, but I don't go out of my way to try. In no-limit games, it's surely -EV to alter play so as to try to hit some particular combination of cards, because your opponents will just make it too expensive.

In the lowest-stakes limit games, however, that is not necessarily always going to be true. It was clear that the players at the table next to mine had decided, rightly or wrongly, that it was more profitable to try to play for the envelopes than for the pots. I thought this was kind of an interesting situation, one that I hadn't explored before, so I decided to join them.

(As a side note, I used to routinely play $2-4 limit games if that was the only thing available while waiting for a seat at a no-limit game. I eventually figured out, though, that it was a long-term loser for me. Maybe some people know how to play that game well enough to beat the rake plus tips, but I apparently don't. So instead I now carry a crossword puzzle and work on that if I have to wait for a seat. I am considerably happier that way. Now I sit in $2-4 limit games only on the rare occasion that I'm playing in order to be sociable with a visiting friend who doesn't want to play higher. Today was the first exception I've made in a long time.)

Sitting in the game, I quickly confirmed the hunch I had formed from a distance. The play was almost completely passive. People were limping in with what I assume was any two suited cards and any pair, and checking down nearly everything except monster hands. The pot was usually $10 just from the limpers. But when it wasn't, and somebody had a qualifying hand, he would make a little show of counting the pot, make a bet, and somebody would give him a courtesy call to get the pot big enough. Players were obviously willing to do this for each other because they could be confident that the favor would be returned if and when they needed it.

The only time I heard anything explicitly said out loud about what was going on was when one of a cohort of five friends at the table said to a newcomer, "We're not playing to win white chips. We're playing to win envelopes." But it hardly needed to be said. Anybody who knew of the promotion, and who had passing familiarity with how low-limit poker games usually play out, would have immediately noticed how this game was seriously skewed in exactly the direction that that announcement made clear. Players were, e.g., routinely checking flopped sets and two-pair hands, and one can only assume that the reason was to be sure the hand didn't end before getting two shots at turning it into a full house. There was no bluffing, and almost no semi-bluffing with flush draws. Many more pots than usual were checked all around on every street when nobody made a qualifying hand.

It wasn't to be my lucky day. I was at this limit table for about two hours, had a net loss of about $60, and hit only one envelope-qualifying hand. Even that one was bittersweet. I had 8-8, flopped a boat with 8-10-10 and bet it as hard as I could; since I already qualified for an envelope, I figured I might as well also try to win as big a pot as I could. An opponent with K-10 and I got into the only raising war I saw the whole session, which he won when his miracle king came on the river. Grrrrrr. My envelope had $30, which made me about even on the hand.

Others, however, were doing much better. In the photo above, I was in seat 1, so it was kind of hard to take a picture of the guy in seat 10, but you can see much of his stack. He had arrived right at 11:00 and had been playing for envelopes all day. In this picture you can't see that he has two full stacks of red chips. He was sitting behind about $500, an amount almost unheard of in a game of this size. He said, very plausibly, that he had earned $240 in envelopes so far. He was definitely one of the ones I had seen popping up to the desk most often before I joined the table.

I knew only one other player in the game--Cindy (PokerMuffin) from allvegaspoker.com. She, too, was trying Envelope Poker for the first time. Like me, she was failing. She hit only one in the two hours or so we were both there.

Late in my session, there was some sort of kerfuffle. I didn't know what was going on, except that the player sitting next to Cindy, who was one of the group of five friends, accused her of having turned them in to the floor person, who happened to be a friend of Cindy's. She denied it. I had no idea what this was about, but soon thereafter the five friends all racked up and left, saying that they were no longer feeling welcome.

After they had gone, I asked Cindy what that was about. Apparently one of the floor people had said something to one or more of the friends--out of my earshot--about them colluding. It's not clear to me whether they left because of a genuine sense of insult, or because they felt that they weren't going to be allowed to play the same strategy anymore. It didn't matter much, because this was all happening just as it was getting to be time for me to leave for a dinner date.

As I was cashing out, the floor person--who has come to recognize me as at least a semi-regular and somebody who knows the game reasonably well--asked me whether I had noticed "collusion" going on at that table. I said no, at least not in the traditional sense in which that word is used. That is, as far as I could detect, the group of friends was not playing against each other any differently than they were playing against everybody else. They were not building large pots with two of them trapping a stranger's second-best hand in the middle, or signaling each other what they held, or soft-playing each other while playing hard against the rest of the table.

But I told her that it was perfectly clear that they were playing to maximize their chances of earning an envelope, neglecting what would otherwise be optimal strategy to win the pot. I also told her about the one verbally explicit acknowledgement of what was going on that one of them had made. She smiled, thanked me, and said that was helpful information.

This all raises an interesting question: Is such play collusion? More generally, is it cheating of any species?

I don't think so. Suppose the casino put $1000 in every envelope, or $1,000,000 in, say, each of 10 out of the 100 envelopes. It would be positively insane to play in any manner other than what I saw--the players tacitly cooperating to maximize everybody's chance of picking up an envelope. I think that mathematically there is a serious question whether the amounts available in this particular promotion were high enough to justify abandoning most efforts to win pots in favor of earning envelopes, but the ethics are the same if we change the amounts so that it is crystal clear that winning envelopes is far more valuable than winning pots.

The players are simply adjusting their strategies to maximize their earnings in rational response to the rather perverse incentives that the casino has offered them. As far as I could tell, they were not breaking any rules. They were just adapting their poker strategy as the situation warranted (or at least arguably warranted). It is no more cheating than when players slow-play aces during an aces-cracked promotion, preferring to win the bonus over maximizing the pot. It is no more cheating than when players drop down to the cheapest limit games and broaden their starting-hand range to include any two cards that can make quads or a straight flush when a bad-beat jackpot is bulging.

When casinos set up incentives that change what poker strategy will make a player the most money, they shouldn't be surprised that players do exactly that. If the room managers are too dense to anticipate how players will adjust their play to take advantage of the promotions offered, the problem lies with them, not with the players. If the room managers don't want the play of the game distorted, then they should not offer incentives that will predictably result in distortions. It is, in my opinion, misguided for the casino to blame players for responding to game-distorting incentives that the casino has put in place. Accusing them of cheating under such circumstances is muddled thinking, if you ask me.

Poker room managers should also be capable of anticipating that a promotion like this will result in many, many pots that just barely make the minimum size requirement, and that this, in turn, will result in lower-than-normal rake for the poker room while the promotion is running. This seems pretty dumb and self-defeating to me--but then again, nobody ever promoted me to be a poker room manager, so what do I know?

(Caveat: What I heard about the accusation and the players' reactions was almost all second-hand. I could have easily misunderstood something, or drawn an incorrect inference from the partial information available to me. Furthermore, it's possible that there was some sort of collusion going on that I didn't notice or know about. I don't believe that there was, but I hold open that possibility. But if the casino geniunely had evidence that there was, then I think their response should have been far more vigorous and definitive than an accusation or warning.)

What if these five friends had explicitly agreed in advance--in an arrangement that they did not disclose to the other players--that they would play this way and after the game make an even split of the profits? Would that be cheating? (I have no knowledge that this happened; I'm just constructing a hypothetical to further probe into the ethics of the situation.) I'm less confident about this opinion and more subject to being convinced otherwise, but my inclination is to say no, because the resulting play does not disadvantage anybody outside their group any more than if ten strangers sat down, each independently arriving at the realization of how silent cooperation would optimize chances for winning envelopes, and played accordingly. Just as when players silently cooperate to "gang up" on a short-stacked, all-in player late in a tournament, it is not cheating because each is still making decisions in his own best interest.

My understanding is that today was the last day of this particular promotion. Sometime next week, the Stratosphere is shifting to some version of the more common progressive high-hand bonus structure. I do not know whether the envelope promotion is ending because the room managers felt that it was being abused, or just that they change things once in a while to keep it interesting, and this one had run its natural course. Either way, I won't be sorry to see it go. It was mildly fun and interesting to experiment with a radically altered playing strategy for a couple of hours, but I don't think it's the best use of my playing time, and I'd rather not have my contributions to the jackpot pool so distortedly be given away in games I'm not going to be playing. A single two-hour trial of Envelope Poker was enough for me.

Poker gems, #383

Mike Caro, in Bluff magazine column, August, 2010, p. 39.


Strangely, many [poker] players think they should give friends a break. But when you soft play friends at the table others get hurt in the crossfire. Aggressive opponents, who are playing honestly, especially suffer. That's because they mistake what's happening through secret alliances as tactical traits exhibited by the group of friends. This causes those honest players to make poor decisions for the wrong reasons on future hands. Much worse, soft playing often means that honest players get less value when they hold strong hands because some opponents have decided not to participate in order to make it easy on their buddies. Also, honest players may call trying to catch a bluff, not realizing that the opponent would never have bet a weak hand due to a secret understanding with a participating friend. Soft playing friends is cheating. If you want to be generous, win the money through honest play first. Then you can give it away to your friends later.

Collusion

Playing this afternoon at the Luxor I witnessed the most flagrant instance of collusion I've ever seen.

A boyfriend/girlfriend couple were occupying Seats 9 and 10, respectively. He was obviously a lot more experienced than she was. He was also the table big stack, with $600 or so.

In the hand in question, she was under the gun, and moved all in for her last $26. I was in Seat 1 and folded. The guy in Seat 2 called. He had a stack of $200 or so. Action then folded around to boyfriend in Seat 9. He announced, "All in," as he tossed out the $26 for the call. This prompted Seat 2 to fold.

OK, so maybe he has a hand like pocket jacks and wants to isolate and not have to play after the flop. Kind of an extreme way of accomplishing it, but within the realm of reason.

What followed, though, was not. As soon as Seat 2 had folded, Seat 9 threw his cards face down into the muck, without even waiting to see what his girlfriend had. She passed her cards back to the dealer face down as he pushed her the pot.

In effect, the boyfriend had given his girlfriend his own $26, plus Seat 2's $26. Of course, he ran the small risk that Seat 2 was slow-playing aces or kings and it would cost him, but he apparently decided that an easy triple-up for his woman was worth taking that chance.

I was not terribly surprised that the dealer--Frank, whose incompetence and unprofessional demeanor I've talked about before--said and did nothing. I was surprised, though, that Seat 2 didn't protest. He did, however, pick up his chips and leave in a pretty obviously disgusted mood.

What should have happened? The dealer should have alerted the floor. In my opinion, the floor should have given Seat 2 his $26 back from the pot, then booted the couple out of the room--or at least the boyfriend. I have no way of knowing if they have done this before, or if she knew what he was planning. But for the sake of the integrity of the game, they obviously can't be allowed to play together, and he clearly cheated. Her guilt is not as obvious, but I can tell you that she didn't look one bit surprised when her man mucked his cards, surrendering the pot without a showdown. If a friend of mine did that, I would be so aghast that I can't imagine I'd be able to avoid it showing.

This continues to be one of the worst-managed poker rooms in town.

More professional poker cheaters

The newest issue of All In magazine (vol. VI, issue 6; no date given) has a feature about Chad Brown and Vanessa Rousso (pp. 56-61). I was very surprised to find this confession in it:

That's not to say that poker romance is without its own unique pitfalls.
For one thing, there's the potential of having to compete against your partner
in an activity so rooted in individual success. "Early on in our relationship,"
recalled Rousso, "we had to acknowledge the possibility that we'd end up at the
same table." Both considered the idea of soft-playing one another to be
unethical--not to mention antithetical to their competitive instincts. "We
basically have an agreement that in the rare occasions we're at the same table,"
said Brown, "the one thing that we don't do to each other is to trap ... That
can, uh, ruin the romance."

[Ellipsis in original.]

This is an obvious internal contradiction. If you rule out trapping, then you're soft-playing. I don't see how it can be thought of otherwise. If trapping would be the highest EV way of playing a particular hand, and you exclude it a priori as a possibility because of your relationship, that is soft-playing.

And it is cheating.

Of course, there's cheating and then there's cheating. This obviously ranks well below, say, owning an online poker site and using insider access to look at opponents' cards while you play against them. But it is clearly a violation of the rules.

I used to play frequently at the Hilton with a married couple, and they made it clear to all that if it was just the two of them left in a hand, they would check it down every time. They weren't trying to be sneaky or underhanded about it; everybody understood it, and if they became aware that somebody wasn't familiar with their practice, they made it explicit. I got to know them well enough to be completely convinced that they saw nothing unethical or improper about this.

But it is unethical. It puts other players at a significant disadvantage. My guess is that this couple never thought through how this could be so.

One of the major considerations in deciding whether to call a bet on the flop in hold'em--especially in no-limit games--is the implicit threat the bettor is making that you may have to call even larger bets on the turn and river in order to get to a showdown.

Now imagine a situation where Wife is first to act after the flop, to be followed by an unrelated player and then Husband on the button. Wife has an advantage now that she would not have if it were two unrelated players in the hand; if her husband happens to have a monster hand, and the in-between player folds, he will just call and she won't have to make a difficult decision about whether to call a raise. That effectively increases the range of hands with which she can make this early-position bet. She can also use that knowledge to her advantage in bet sizing. She can afford to make a larger bet than she otherwise might--hoping to drive out the player in the middle--because she knows that if it works, it's the end of the money she has to put into the pot. That ability puts the middle player at a direct disadvantage.

Husband also has an advantage. If the in-between player drops out, Husband can then safely call without having to worry about facing additional bets on the turn and river. If he is on a draw, say, he knows that he gets both turn and river cards for the price of the call, whereas any other player in his spot would have to figure his pot odds based on getting only the turn card for the price of the current bet. His decision is made easier all around.

Of course, what Brown and Rousso claim as their only limited version of soft-playing isn't this explicit. It would be extremely difficult ever to prove, for any given hand, that one of them played the hand in a straightforward manner, rather than slow-playing and trapping, out of consideration for the relationship. But in a sense, that makes the practice all the more insidious. At least with the couple from the Hilton, what they were doing was out in the open.

Anytime you soft-play an opponent--especially in a tournament situation, which seems to be the bulk of both Brown's and Rousso's play--you are hurting everybody else. If Brown does not maximize his chance of crippling or knocking out Rousso, he keeps a skilled player in the game longer and/or with more chips than would otherwise be the case. If he doesn't go for the kill when he could, it negatively affects every other player in the tournament, and especially the others at that table.

Of course, it is true that one tends to play more cautiously against opponents that one knows to be skillful and dangerous. Brown and Rousso obviously know that about each other, and will naturally tend to be more leery of building a big pot without the nuts than they likely would be when contesting a pot against a random donk. Taking a conservative line against an opponent known to be a thoughtful and skilled player is not soft-playing, not cheating, not against the rules. It's common sense.

But what Brown is saying goes well beyond that. If "no trapping" really is agreed upon in advance, then they each bring to the table a big advantage that nobody else has. If one of them makes a substantial bet and is called by the other, the bettor can be assured that the caller is not slow-playing a monster hand, with the intention of dropping the hammer on a later street. The call pretty much must therefore represent either a draw or a medium-strength hand. A position call is often enough to shut down the bettor on the next round, for fear that the caller is trapping. Remove that from the equation, and you greatly narrow the range of hands that you might be facing. That knowledge would be an enormous advantage, and it is one that is being granted to nobody else at the table.

That is soft-playing. It is against the rules. It is cheating.

Is it really possible that Brown and Rousso are incapable of seeing that?

Should one speak up when not involved?

Reading through my old emails today reminded me of one I wrote a year ago about a quandary I faced when, on two consecutive days, I witnessed with a situation in which a rule violation by one player put another at a disadvantage. The dilemma for me was whether to speak up about it or not, when the dealers didn't correct the situations. There is something of a tradition in poker that players not involved in a hand should keep their noses out of it. That's certainly correct insofar as giving advice to those involved, but I don't believe it should also extend to sitting by silently when a rule violation hurts a player.

I'll describe the situations, briefly explain my rationale for non-involved players taking the initiative to speak up, then open the question to readers for comments.

Story #1.

A $1-$2 no-limit hold'em game at the Las Vegas Hilton. After the turn card is dealt, Player A bets $15. Player B moves all-in for $25. Player C calls. The dealer turns back to A, who immediately pushes all-in for around $90. As the dealer turns to C for his action, I speak up and point out that A does not have the option to re-raise there. Before anybody can react to my comment, though, C calls (for a little less than what A had put in). It turns out that C--a fairly weak and inexperienced player--was on a flush draw and missed. He then left the table.

After the hand, Player A acknowledged that he was wrong. He had had a very strong hand, and was eager to get all his chips in. I believe that his mistake was inadvertent. The dealer also acknowledged that he missed the fact that B's all-in was not a full raise, and therefore A could only fold or call. OK--everybody makes mistakes, and the actions happened so quickly that it would be easy to miss.

But what bothered me most was that Player A and two others at the table chastised me for attempting to intervene when I wasn't involved in the hand.

Story #2.

The next day I'm in the same type of game at Bally's. Player A raises. Player B pushes all-in for a substantial re-raise. Player C reluctantly calls. Player A appears equally unhappy about the re-raise, but eventually calls, and as he does so asks C, "You want to just check it down?" C agrees. The dealer does nothing. This time I didn't speak up, largely because the damage was already done: clearly, even if the dealer tells them that such an agreement is in violation of the rules, they'll both officially rescind the deal, but check anyway.

But I think that part of why I didn't protest was having just been criticized the previous day for intervening when I wasn't in the hand, and I didn't feel like being the bad guy twice in a row. I did get up and talk to the floorperson privately about the situation. He came to the table and asked the dealer about it. The dealer said he heard the collusion, but it had happened so fast that he couldn't stop it.

My general thoughts.

To my way of thinking, no player can help another make a decision, but every player has a duty to the integrity of the game, and the integrity of the game includes giving every player the full protection of the rules.

In my first scenario, if the illegal re-raise had been halted in time, I suspect that Player C would have been happy to be able to see the last card for the cheaper price, and save his last money if his draw didn't hit. In the second scenario, Player B would presumably not be pleased with the agreement between A and C, since he would prefer to have one of them push the other out of the pot, and thus only have to beat one other hand at the showdown, rather than two.

I don't know whether the disadvantaged players in these games didn't know the rules, weren't paying enough attention, or were too shy or intimidated to speak up. But even players who don't know all of the intricacies of the rules are entitled to their protection--and if the dealer doesn't act to enforce the rules protecting one player from the illegal action of another, it seems to me that other players should do so. It's just the old golden rule: I would want somebody else to speak up if I were being disadvantaged by an action I didn't know was illegal (because of being inexperienced, distracted, or whatever), so I should do the same in return.

I would also argue that it's better for the game in the long run if weaker players are protected by the more knowledgeable ones; if they know that their inexperience isn't going to be taken unfair advantage of, they'll be more likely to keep coming back.

These two stories occurred shortly after I had bought and read Cooke's Rules of Real Poker. One of the points that had caught my attention in that new book was rule 16.17: "A player should speak up immediately when he sees an error such as an incorrect amount going into the pot; a pot that is about to be awarded to the wrong person; a card going to the wrong person; or a flashed or marred card."

Comments?

If you are so inclined, dear readers, I would appreciate any comment you might have on whether I was right to speak up in the first situation (although I wasn't quite quick enough to prevent the damage from being done), whether I should have said something immediately at the table in the second situation (versus just keeping quiet, or going to the floor person after the hand was over, which is what I settled on). Also, if you like, comment on how there developed in some circles an unwritten rule that players not involved in the hand should keep quiet about any perceived irregularities, and how we can change that part of poker culture (assuming that you agree it should be changed), or why we should keep such a practice (if you think that players not in the hand should keep mum).

"Let's just check it down"

One of the most egregious--but common--violations of the general rule about not discussing the hand while it's in progress is two players agreeing to "check it down" (i.e., not bet against each other) once they have both called the all-in bet of a third player. I've witnessed it once before in a casino game (at Bally's--and the dealer heard it and did nothing about it), and often in online games, but I had never been the object of it until today.

It happened at the Hilton. I was getting tired and was about ready to go, when I found pocket 9s. The two players to my right were extremely loose, in almost every pot, so when the first of them raised it to $12 and the other called, moving all-in for my last $30 or so seemed the obvious move. The action was folded around back to the original raiser and caller, both of whom called. Then one asked, "You want to just check it down?" The other agreed.

I protested to the dealer. He said, "What's wrong with that?"

He's fairly new, but he's been dealing since July, and he actually went to dealer school, so he should certainly know what's wrong with it. Fortunately, the floor person intervened. But, of course, the damage is already done, because even if the two players are required to officially recant their agreement, there's the wink-wink, nudge-nudge knowledge that they're going to abide by it anyway.

That's why if I had my own casino, the penalty for making and/or accepting such an offer would be that the player's (or players') hand(s) would be declared dead, and they would forfeit any interest in the pot. No exceptions, no explanations, no mercy. I think players would learn pretty quickly not to try it.

In today's case, I won the hand anyway. One player was very apologetic, and clearly didn't understand that it was against the rules, and when I pointed out the reason for it, immediately understood. I'm confident that he gets it now, and won't do it again.

The other guy (the original raiser), however, was annoyed that I was accusing him of collusion. He showed me his 7-2 offsuit, and asked, "If I was trying to collude, why would I do it with the worst hand in poker"? Well, you idiot, maybe because you have the worst hand in poker, and don't want anybody betting into you! If you had a strong hand, you probably wouldn't feel the need to get an opponent to agree not to give you a hard decision to make! What a moron.

In case any reader doesn't understand the problem with this situation, I'll try to explain. One of the fundamental principles of poker is that every player must make all of his own decisions without assistance, and must make them in his own best interest--not in the best interest of any other player. When you enter an agreement not to bet against another player when one is already all-in, you are conspiring. You are reducing you own potential gain (because if you developed a very strong hand, your best interest would be served by making another bet and hoping an opponent called with a worse hand, making a side pot you could win). And you're doing so at the expense of the all-in player.

Look at it this way: if you're all-in against two opponents, wouldn't you love it if one of them made a big bet and drove the other out of the pot, so that you'd only have to beat one other hand at the showdown? Even better, wouldn't it be great if the person betting was really stupid and was bluffing with nothing, and drove the best hand out of the pot?

In tournaments, particularly in the late stages, players will often check down a hand when one is all-in. There's nothing wrong with this, as long as it isn't made an agreement. In a tournament, each player's interest in knocking another one out of contention for the title may well be greater than their interest in winning a particular pot, so in such a situation each player is still acting in his own best interest. But that's not true in a cash game, since a losing all-in player will either just buy more chips or be replaced by a new player bringing new chips into the game; there is no countervailing interest to take into account. If you want to maximize your chance of winning the biggest possible pot, you don't agree to "check it down." The effect of the collusion is that each of the agreeing players shares the risks and rewards--they trade off maximum chance of winning the biggest possible pot for a reduced risk of losing what they've already put into it.

Occasionally when there is a bet and everybody folds except the last player with the option to call, that player will make an agreement with the bettor: I'll call if you agree to check it down after this round of betting. That is, the potential caller says that he's only willing to call if he doesn't have to risk any more of his money. Although I think this isn't good form, it doesn't have the same problem of collusion. The bettor can accept the call on the terms offered, or decline it and take the pot as it is. Either way, he's making a decision based solely on what he thinks is best for him. There's no conspiracy against a third player.

So if any reader didn't know before, now you've been told: agreeing to "check it down" when a player is all-in is collusion. It's against the rules. It's cheating. If you do it, you're a cheater. Dealers who don't know this are incompetent. Casinos that don't enforce this rule are facilitating cheating.

It really is that simple and stark.