The Evolution Of Collusion

[TR1N1TY 0]

Lets face it my friends,The game of poker has changed dramatically over the last couple of years...and will continue to change...and evolve. I think its safe to say that most of you picked up the game like everyone else did during the rush. Ya saw ol' Chris on ESPN one day a few years ago, and thought to yourself..."Holy shizznit, if that hillbilly can win the WSOP and get rich overnight...so can I !!"So one day you decide to log out of Yahoo Pool for a couple of nights....found a spare $50 after rent and cable tv was paid up, and threw down your stake on the road to riches brimming with confidence.It didn't go so well out of the gate did it ? Yea.. those pesky flush chasers and river 2 outters kinda took the wind out of your sails. But you kept on plugging. Bought a few books, started learning your odds, and then you started to realize you had it all figured out. Saw Phil Helmuth’s DVD pimping the 'top 10 starting hands', and boy oh boy you were locked and loaded and ready to start kicking a$$. Got the the tools, got the the talent and nobody was going to stop you on the road to fame and fortune, strippers and blow.Won a couple of $5.00 dollar sit and go's and then 'made it deep' in the Hubble Freeroll, and then before you knew it you were dreaming of nut flush draws for the WSOP main event bracelet in your sleep waking up with a chubby. It was your 'destiny' to be a pro, and it was pretty damn obvious that you were a better player than anyone playing poker alive. OBVThis is about the point where the sh*t hits the proverbial fan...You grind out a semi-sizable bankroll after countless hours of making all the 'correct' plays, and maybe winning a few SnG's with the occasional cash in a few MTT's along the way. After so much hard work and intense study, you managed to jack your roll up a few bucks after a nice heater in the micro ghetto when that little voice whispers….It's time to 'take a shot' Coming home from the 9 to 5 grind one rainy Friday afternoon, all you can do is daydream about poker, staring at brakelights in traffic. You finally park and rush in just in the nick of time to open Stars and register for a big buy in tourney a way over your roll seating in 2 minutes. Man-oh -man your competitive juices are flowing like Niagra Falls. Your adrenaline is surging early and you come out firing with confidence building an early stack. Playing for prize money that would definitely launch you to another stratosphere has got you fired up and focused. You know you've got the game and before you know it you are ITM with a huge stack and can just taste that big payoff. You’ve put so much time and energy into your game and this is your time....you can feel it deep in your testicular region.It’s crunch time....deep in the tourney, and the suddenly the blinds catch up with you and wham, its push or fold short handed. Your heart is thumping and your palms are sweating. You have a medium stack and not really sure whether you want to play tight and climb up the pay ladder or go for the win...When out of the blue when you were starting to thinking you wouldn't catch a hand when it mattered most....you catch red Aces on the big blind. All you can think about is how you are going to get that crunch time double up, praying somebody jams into you….everyone quickly folds around to the small blind who pauses for a few seconds before...he pushes his entire stack...you quickly click 'call' and he turns up 7/2 offsuit....a blatant steal....and your heart skips a beat The flop comes A/x/x with a couple of spades, and you privately pump your fist on the flop thinking you are golden...and then in all the excitement notice that you don't have a spade and he has the The turn delivers another spade and all of the sudden your nuts shrivel up to the size of a cranberry. As the river sends you to the rail, you violently pound your keyboard and scream a multitude of obscenities cursing the poker Gods with everything you've got left. ______This is obviously a fictional story..(although I'm certain a familiar scenario to many of you) and I realize it was a little over dramatic, but I wanted to illustrate a very important point. Poker is a game with almost infinite possibilities when it comes to combining all the various elements that it takes to succeed and be profitable.* ego* instinct* bankroll* experience* variance* judgement the list here is literally endless in terms of what being a successful player means. The problem with online poker is that none of that really matters.Let me cut to the chase....My theory is that online poker is 'top weighted'...so to speak. Meaning that there are literally 'platoons' (for lack of a better word) of well bankrolled groups of players at the 'high stakes' level...playing $100.00 rebuys, the 150K nightly on Stars and the Sunday Million every week and dropping $5000 or more on buy ins every night on every major tourney on all the major sites. Even the inviting $10.00 r/a 55K on Stars is chock full of 'ranked' players on a regular basis. Simply put...the solo recreational player (regardless of his/her skill level) is fighting an uphill battle before he/she ever clicks that 'deposit' button on the cashier page.By no means am I suggesting 'collusion' as we as players, or Stars/UB/FT admins presently define it. But yes, I am suggesting that there are scores of veteran players out there in poker cyberspace with some pretty deep pockets...who are ready, willing and able to invest in promising (or not-so promising) players who aren't rolled to play at the higher limits...not to mention buying pieces of each other in every event they play regardless of buy in.I mean if you think about it...the vast majority of the collective online poker community are mid to low limit recreational players/grinders who make the occasional deposit...win the occasional SnG, and maybe pop a nice score now and then…and that’s a best case scenario.Then there is the clique' of 'elite' name players who you read about constantly...making literally 10's of thousands of dollars a month (if not more) on a regular basis who seem to have the ability to defy all odds and seem to have some kind of mysterious skill that 99% of everybody else is trying to figure out.Point being that many of us curse these 'donks' who chase gut shot draws and suck out on these ridiculous 2 outters and every other bad beat under the sun when it matters most....and all too often we start to question our own ability to compete or whether we truly understand the game. But this is not the problem. The problem is that when you have a surplus of well bankrolled players competing at levels with little or no impact on their roll, they make seemingly -EV plays that all too often rip your heart out and make you question and second-guess everything you ever absorbed about tourney strat and game theory.'Collusion' and/or 'multi accounting' is rampant in online poker, this is a fact whether you want to admit it or not. Not in the sense that ZeeJustin made so (in)famous, but in the sense that bankroll sharing and deep pockets have given a collection of saavy insiders the means to exploit recreational players and alter the thinking behind what is the right way to approach tourney strategy. As long as you are aware of what you are up against in terms of your competition, you'll enjoy the game a lot more and not get so pissed off when you get 2 outted or runner/runnered when you flopped a set and got all your money in. The online poker scene is not that much different than American society when you think about it.....the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting screwed. It's really got nothing to do with ability, intelligence or your understanding for the game of poker as a whole, it’s just about your overall comfort level within the limits your playing, and accepting the fact that so called ‘correct’ play is not always going to get you to the final table. There is a good reason why the same players are succeeding online and cashing huge week after week. It’s all about the fact that they are abusing scared dead money who value their buy ins more than they do. These guys are car-pooling with who knows how many other top players who give them the thumbs up to make 40/60 plays with infinite reserves.Personally I believe that the ‘skill level’ of poker has been exposed and essentially devalued via hole cards on TV combined with sites like cardrunners/pokerxfactor, various forums 2+2, P5’s etc. IMO the definition of the word ‘collusion’ needs to be redefined within our community of poker purists.

[Dogpatch 2]

That's a really cool story, and I understand what you're saying about the bigger players not being scared to lose a buy-in... ... but what does it matter how many people are teamed up? In your story the small blind made a play, the BB woke up with AA. It's not that the BB did anything special, yes he was a huge favorite going to the flop... but you have to use all 5 cards. The SB got lucky. All the skill in the world can't negate the luck factor. Maybe you're saying our hero, the low-limit, "taking a shot" guy would never make that play from the SB. So you're saying the higher limit players aren't more skillful or ballsier players... they just don't give a shit about the money and have no fear making a play with 72o.

[James D 0]

Well, as long as you're playing within your BR, you won't be scared money... so if any over-rolled players are making -ev plays against you, then you should be able to profit from them.You WANT people to jam into you when you've got AA. It's as simple as that.

[Abbaddabba 0]

Point being that many of us curse these 'donks' who chase gut shot draws and suck out on these ridiculous 2 outters and every other bad beat under the sun when it matters most....and all too often we start to question our own ability to compete or whether we truly understand the game. But this is not the problem. The problem is that when you have a surplus of well bankrolled players competing at levels with little or no impact on their roll, they make seemingly -EV plays that all too often rip your heart out and make you question and second-guess everything you ever absorbed about tourney strat and game theory.

Sure it is.You just arent aware of the errors that you're making.

[iamjustlucky 0]

anyone can build a bankroll.... it is all about discipline. Your story proves a lack of it.

[TR1N1TY 0]

grantedSo lets take this a step further....Johnny Bax, BeL0WAb0Ve, Annette_15, Apestyles, Sheets, NSXT2, TheWacoKidd and gbmantis are all seated in the final 2 tables of your $100.00 freezeout with $8,000 for 1st.So there you are all by your lonesome, waiting on suited jokers and picking off steals when you can.The problem here is that too many of the top finishers in these big events are sharing interests in each other. Don't get me wrong...I am not looking to tarnish the reputations of these successful, established players who have never been accused of any breach of ethics.What I am saying is that there is the issue of 'bankroll sharing' which is for the most part a thinly veiled form of collusion in every sense of the word.These top tier players are not these supreme poker talents we seem to worship without question....its a matter of comfort level within your bankroll.....the issue here is that if you were grinding $4.40's with a 100 dollar bankroll and then out of the blue some well bankrolled player said 'hey I want to stake you for $5000.00...how hard would it be for you to cut loose and push utg with 7/2os in tourneys with buy ins that didn't even amount to 1% of your reserves.Success in online poker these days all comes down to who you know...not how good you are.

[Dratj 0]

granted'hey I want to stake you for $5000.00...how hard would it be for you to cut loose and push utg with 7/2os in tourneys with buy ins that didn't even amount to 1% of your reserves.Success in online poker these days all comes down to who you know...not how good you are.

Even if I was staked I wouldn't shove with 7 2 o utg. You make -ev plays enough times and those 1% pieces of your bankroll will soon add up. Before you know it, bye bye stake. I see the point to your story but maybe your examples are just poor.

[TR1N1TY 0]

Even if I was staked I wouldn't shove with 7 2 o utg. You make -ev plays enough times and those 1% pieces of your bankroll will soon add up. Before you know it, bye bye stake. I see the point to your story but maybe your examples are just poor.

Dratj, agreed my examples are somewhat extreme, but I was trying to illustrate a point that deep pockets have a certain +EV vs short bankrolls if they are playing from a collective pool of resources. 6/8s vs AK is a 2 to 1 dog and I think a lot of the deeper rolled 'phenoms' are multi tabling big buy in tourneys across the web and exploiting that element of 'tight' style poker and pushing edges as underdogs for the sake of mid-level equity in tourneys. In other words....push like a special olympian and take 40/60's looking to suck out to build a stack and then exploit the weak tight mindset of the recreational player who regards his buy in with more value . Most people playing $100.00 plus buy in tourneys aren't splitting/sharing profits with 5, 10 or more players who have a vested interest in each others end result.

[iowahawk09 0]

Interesting theory, but completely untrue.

[jethrodull 0]

Not that I don't believe that there are "sharing" arrangements or anything, but you speak with a bit of certainty and I'm wondering where you get your info? I'd like to read up on it.J

[Dogpatch 2]

Even if I was staked I wouldn't shove with 7 2 o utg. You make -ev plays enough times and those 1% pieces of your bankroll will soon add up. Before you know it, bye bye stake. I see the point to your story but maybe your examples are just poor.

Also... we went from shoving 72o in the SB to open the betting to shoving 72o UTG. There is just a slight difference.Either way, if it was the last $10 I had in the world and some millionaire offered to run it as many times as I liked... I'd take it.

[holdemdreamer 0]

i liked the article a lot. although i didnt completely agree with everything along with some other people... i def see what ur saying and it makes sence to me. keep up the interesting posts

[qyayqi 11]

Won a couple of $5.00 dollar sit and go's and then 'made it deep' in the Hubble Freeroll

congratulations, and best of luck in sunday's round 2!

[Byan_Railey 0]

If I follow your logic, you are saying that if 50 bad poker players pooled their funds and played in a bunch of MTT's and made big -EV plays that they would somehow become profitable?I don’t buy into the fact that profitable poker players with large rolls are intentionally making -EV plays early because they think there is value in having a big stack early. They might buy equity in each other to lower variance but in order for that to work they all must be profitable players in the long run (individually). They know that over the year they will make enough big cashes to be profitable but would enjoy a more monthly income. So they buy into other players who they know are in the same position. This is in NO way collusion. They are still playing ever tourney to win, because it’s in their best interest. There are plenty of fish with huge bankrolls to make the 27 UTG push.

[Pivvy2001 0]

so the theory in this thread is that the best internet players only have their positions at the top because of the fact that they have a big bankroll now and can afford to play confidently knowing that they can fade variance; if that was the case (and it is clearly not), how did these players get the big bankrolls to begin withunder your theory, anyone who had lots of money could be a dominant online poker player without any discernable poker skills, simply by utilizing that huge bankroll to their advantage; having a big bankroll helps, but there is still a substantial amount of skill required to become a great player; when bkice and chucksty started winning big and consistently, it wasn't that their rolls were magically huge, it was that they took the time to read up on the game, play within their limits and move up;by your logic it is also notable that anyone who is playing within their bankroll would be able to win consistently and dominate their games because they would have the confidence to make these huge moves that you speak of and to do so with confidencetr1n1ty, you talked about having a 90% ROI and playing big tournaments and I called bs in your bitter, vindictive tirade against Davin Anderson, and once again I will say that your ROI is nowhere near 90% or you would not be writing posts like this; focus more on your game and on getting better rather than on ranting against top players and perhaps you might join them as a strong winning player;

[pokerfan1080 0]

The real question here, is whether or not having a pool of players making -ev plays can help smooth the losses. And, if it can be done, how many players would you need on your "team" to compensate for the losses?I'm not a math guy, it would be interesting to hear from someone with some math skills gives us some numbers.From the way I see it, in the long run a losing play is a losing play. Just because you have a big bank roll simply means you will not go broke as quick.ETA: BTW OP, not to be a prick, but the tone of your post seems to indicate you are bitter. If you are running bad, analyze your own game. Study the game more, post hands in the strat forums and discuss other hands that are posted. Most people assume they know all there is to know about poker, that's why the number of successful players is lower than the number of unsuccessful players. The successful players know this game is evolving and are constantly doing what they can to improve their game while the others simply complain about bad beats and don't do anything to figure out that they may not be playing well.

[David_Nicoson 1]

Don't play with money you aren't willing to lose. It isn't anybody else's fault.

[mtdesmoines 3]

Dratj, agreed my examples are somewhat extreme, but I was trying to illustrate a point that deep pockets have a certain +EV vs short bankrolls

Here's maybe a better example of what the OP is trying to say. Local big game is a $2/5 pot limit mix, but it has an unlimited buyin. So let's say you have some game and you and some random villain sit down with $1000 each. You put villain all-in bad (say, 70/30) and double up. Villain simply rebuys for $2000 to match your stack. You put him in bad again (70/30) and win again. Villain simply rebuys for $4,000. You put him in bad a third time (70/30) and .. what a suprise, he hits his side of the stat pool and you're broke. It cost him $7,000 to get your $1,000, but get it he did. Bankrolls win. That's why we play within them.

[David_Nicoson 1]

Here's maybe a better example of what the OP is trying to say. Local big game is a $2/5 pot limit mix, but it has an unlimited buyin. So let's say you have some game and you and some random villain sit down with $1000 each. You put villain all-in bad (say, 70/30) and double up. Villain simply rebuys for $2000 to match your stack. You put him in bad again (70/30) and win again. Villain simply rebuys for $4,000. You put him in bad a third time (70/30) and .. what a suprise, he hits his side of the stat pool and you're broke. It cost him $7,000 to get your $1,000, but get it he did. Bankrolls win. That's why we play within them.

I think you're spot on, but to the OP:It's not like the well-funded villains have a master plan to take the wrong end of bunch of 70/30 situations and break all the recreational players. It doesn't work that way. They can't make money taking -EV positions. They're going to lose much more money when they do lose.

[zimmer4141 0]

Success in online poker these days all comes down to who you know...not how good you are.

Nope.

[No_Neck 0]

also when you get an amount of money you are not comfortable losing, get up and leave... problem solved.

[Byan_Railey 0]

Here's maybe a better example of what the OP is trying to say. Local big game is a $2/5 pot limit mix, but it has an unlimited buyin. So let's say you have some game and you and some random villain sit down with $1000 each. You put villain all-in bad (say, 70/30) and double up. Villain simply rebuys for $2000 to match your stack. You put him in bad again (70/30) and win again. Villain simply rebuys for $4,000. You put him in bad a third time (70/30) and .. what a suprise, he hits his side of the stat pool and you're broke. It cost him $7,000 to get your $1,000, but get it he did. Bankrolls win. That's why we play within them.

This sounds a lot like the Martingale system, which if you are a well educated gambler you know doesn’t work. In the short term it might make you feel like a genius but when you get capped out by a betting or buy-in limit you lose big. There is a great article on the subject on the greatest website of all time. Link below:http://wizardofodds.com/askthewizard/betti...martingale.html

[Royal_Tour 0]

In Rounders, the successful player isnt Mike McDermottits Joey Knishlearn that ya heard

[rgold79 0]

Yawn. It's a long disguised bad beat post, and it uses lame analogies and cliches. Did the people who are winning at online poker simply materialize out of the ether? Although I'll give you credit for writing a long rant and managing to do so with what looked like correct spelling, syntax and grammar.

[Webslinger516 0]

Here's maybe a better example of what the OP is trying to say. Local big game is a $2/5 pot limit mix, but it has an unlimited buyin. So let's say you have some game and you and some random villain sit down with $1000 each. You put villain all-in bad (say, 70/30) and double up. Villain simply rebuys for $2000 to match your stack. You put him in bad again (70/30) and win again. Villain simply rebuys for $4,000. You put him in bad a third time (70/30) and ..

NONONO! FOLD! Cash out!! Go south with the chips!