ANTI-POKER: passing chips between players to eliminate only one person.

Lately, I’ve encountered this scenario in several tournaments: at the final table, players call bets but don't really try to take chips from one another; they simply fold or let the hand play out without further betting. Yet, when a player makes a genuine move, everyone tries to jump in at once or collude to eliminate them, even knowing they hold a very strong hand. The point is, a true, ethical poker player—one playing to win—seeks to take the pot and accumulate chips; while this behavior might be technically legal, it strikes me as unethical—it goes against the very spirit of poker, because a truly good player plays to win. And I don't want to hear any excuses; I’ve seen final tables drag on for 20 or 30 minutes without anyone actually trying to win chips from the others. What do you all think about this?

For those who don't understand what I mean: my integrity as a poker player compels me to win without giving or receiving help from anyone. If my grandmother or my mother were sitting at the table with five strangers, I would play to win—without making exceptions—even if it meant playing against them.

Well this begs the question are you seeing the same players do this throughout the tournament?,

meaning are the same players not playing hands together very much but always jump at the chance to play others?

... if that's the case I'd report it to the poker site directly and hope they have enough integrity to investigate,

... if it's random people hoping to ladder up on the ft or near the bubble I'd say it's more a case of people

playing scared or just hoping other players bust before them, ...not against the rules really👍

Poison91 said:

For those who don't understand what I mean: my integrity as a poker player compels me to win without giving or receiving help from anyone. If my grandmother or my mother were sitting at the table with five strangers, I would play to win—without making exceptions—even if it meant playing against them.

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You are a true sportsman. ❤️

Collusion including soft play is against the rules. But that being said its also very easy to imagine, that other players are colluding against us, when in fact they are just being ICM-aware at the final table and perhaps playing poorly sometimes. Like walking the BB in situations, where its profitable for them to jam any two cards to apply pressure, or because BB is ultra short.

Or even just playing good poker. If two players both have some kind of showdown value hand like third or fourth pair, then its totally reasonable to check it down, since its difficult for either of them to get better hands to fold or worse hands to call. The rules of poker do not say, we always need to bet. Neither do they say, we need to only play to win a tournament and not care about payjumps.

I checked your sharkscope profiles, and you are mostly a freeroll player with an average buyin on PokerStars of just $0.08 over 1.188 games. On WPT Global your average buyin is $0.61 over 175 games. For that reason I think, its highly likely, you are just imagining things or observing bad play. So in your situation I would focus on improving my game, so that I could move up and play for an average buyin of at least $2-3.

fundiver199 said:

Collusion including soft play is against the rules. But that being said its also very easy to imagine, that other players are colluding against us, when in fact they are just being ICM-aware at the final table and perhaps playing poorly sometimes. Like walking the BB in situations, where its profitable for them to jam any two cards to apply pressure, or because BB is ultra short.

Or even just playing good poker. If two players both have some kind of showdown value hand like third or fourth pair, then its totally reasonable to check it down, since its difficult for either of them to get better hands to fold or worse hands to call. The rules of poker do not say, we always need to bet. Neither do they say, we need to only play to win a tournament and not care about payjumps.

I checked your Sharkscope profiles, and you are mostly a freeroll player with an average buyin on PokerStars of just $0.08 over 1.188 games. On WPT Global your average buyin is $0.61 over 175 games. For that reason I think, its highly likely, you are just imagining things or observing bad play. So in your situation I would focus on improving my game, so that I could move up and play for an average buyin of at least $2-3.

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You know, sis? You just reminded me of the final detail: I was the only one going all-in—or the only one making big 3-bets—so that gives me even more reason to confirm my suspicion.

Poison91 said:

You know, sis? You just reminded me of the final detail: I was the only one going all-in—or the only one making big 3-bets—so that gives me even more reason to confirm my suspicion.

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Its a very common tendency among bad poker player to be passive like limping or calling, when the better play would be to raise or jam. And if you were the only one going all-in or making big 3-bets, then you likely created a bit of a table image as a "bully". Which will make other players take on a role as "table sheriff" and call you down lightly. So if they were trying to bust you, its not because, its something, they agreed on between them. Its because, you were ruining the kind of game, they wanted to play, which is to see flops, turns and rivers, even when they start with a short stack.

As I said already, you are very new to poker having wagered just $200 or so on regular poker tournaments (not freerolls) across two sites. For comparison many regulars like myself wager than amount (or more) in a single session. And as a new played its really important, that you learn to focus on the parts of the game, you control, which are your own decisions. Focusing on, how others play, is mostly a distraction, except if its with the purpose of finding ways to exploit them. And in extension of this you obviously should also not focus on things like board runouts or the distribution of hold cards. Best of luck

fundiver199 said:

Its a very common tendency among bad poker player to be passive like limping or calling, when the better play would be to raise or jam. And if you were the only one going all-in or making big 3-bets, then you likely created a bit of a table image as a "bully". Which will make other players take on a role as "table sheriff" and call you down lightly. So if they were trying to bust you, its not because, its something, they agreed on between them. Its because, you were ruining the kind of game, they wanted to play, which is to see flops, turns and rivers, even when they start with a short stack.

As I said already, you are very new to poker having wagered just $200 or so on regular poker tournaments (not freerolls) across two sites. For comparison many regulars like myself wager than amount (or more) in a single session. And as a new played its really important, that you learn to focus on the parts of the game, you control, which are your own decisions. Focusing on, how others play, is mostly a distraction, except if its with the purpose of finding ways to exploit them. And in extension of this you obviously should also not focus on things like board runouts or the distribution of hold cards. Best of luck

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I appreciate the advice.

Its very easy to find ways to believe everyone is against you at the poker table, or the gods are, or whatever.

Poker is a very insular game that we play on or own and all our mistakes or insecuruities can come to the fore.

There are many scenarios that play out which can look a little bit like collusion.
Say the short stack shoves 4bbs, and get 2 callers. Very often these 2 players don't bluff the pot, and just check it down, hoping to bust the short stack and ladder up. Is this collusion, no, as neither player has talked to the other. BUT they both recognise that by both being still in the hand they have a better chance of busting the short stack, and therefore laddering up Also there is much less benefit to big value betting, or especially bluffing an empty side pot!!

SpanRmonka said:

There are many scenarios that play out which can look a little bit like collusion.
Say the short stack shoves 4bbs, and get 2 callers. Very often these 2 players don't bluff the pot, and just check it down, hoping to bust the short stack and ladder up. Is this collusion, no, as neither player has talked to the other. BUT they both recognise that by both being still in the hand they have a better chance of busting the short stack, and therefore laddering up Also there is much less benefit to big value betting, or especially bluffing an empty side pot!!

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Exactly. Or maybe two players in the blinds have around 10BB, and they are both very passive. So instead of one of them moving all-in preflop to put pressure on the other, SB limp, and BB just check their option. And then postflop they check it all the way down, because neither of them is confident enough in their hand to bet for value, and due to their passive nature, they hardly ever bluff.

On a final table or bubble we benefit greatly from other players colliding and busting. Sometimes this happen, and suddenly we have leveled up several places with a short stack without doing anything other than folding. But other times its the opposite. Maybe its a small MTT with 7 places paying, and on the final table the short stacks just keep on folding, or they jam and get no action allowing them to chip up and survive another orbit. And when one of the short stacks are finally all-in against an opponent, they win the hand and dubble up.

Maybe we came into the final table with one of the biggest stacks, but after several orbits of this going on and not a single player busting, we now only have an average stack. Then finally we pick up a decent hand to go all-in with, and someone makes the call and bust us. For me personally this kind of scenario can actually be more tilting than a classic bad beat. But it does not mean, the whole table or the dealer conspired against me. Its just another aspect of variance, that we need to accept and live with.