Online Beginners Question

[Khartoum]

Used to play a little poker at school years ago, but never played online. Now I've been told that someone I know plays 3 computers at a time & doing quite well out of it, no reason to believe that this is bullshit. Surely he's playing at an advantage & I take it there's nothing to stop people doing this. Sure it wouldn't affect me as I'll only be playing for pennies. But wonder if any people have come across this. All the best, Khartoum.

[Jezza]

Re: Online Beginners Question Hi Khartoum and welcome to the forum :drums Collusion in poker is (quite rightly) a worry for a lot of people. Basically, there are two forms of it. The first is passive collusion. This is what most people think of when they are talking about it. Passive collusion would be two mates sitting at the same poker table online MSN'ing each other their hole cards. This is pretty weak stuff and to be honest doesnt do much. By knowing each others cards they will never get cold decked against each other obv (one could fold KK preflop knowing the other had AA for example) and they might know when they are both drawing for the flush etc etc. This does not have that big a negative impact on other players at the table although obviously it does help them a little. Indeed a pair doing this who DONT know how to use the information accurately may infact be costing themselves money! This is a very easy type of collusion to spot and many poker sites these days have programs which do it automatically. Two people sitting together at the same table all the time every day would be a big warning as would two people who never ever ever fight over a pot. To give you an example of how some sites crack down on this would me me and my flatmate - we have NEVER colluded on any site, although we both play online poker. However the ladbrokes servers wont let us sit down at the same table together! (I know of plenty of other innocent people who this has happened to as well so its not a one-off). It was a bit frustrating when I wanted to play my mate heads up for 5 dollars for a laugh but at least it shows they take good steps to wipe it out. The other, far more serious, type of collusion would be aggressive or active collusion. This is where two players sit at opposite ends of a table and clear it up. They do this by one of them putting in a small raise at one end of the table and having all the middle men call it - then the other player puts in a beefcake reraise forcing the limpers to fold and thus aggressively taking down nice preflop pots time and time again. This is almost downright robbery but is quite rare to see. Online sites tend to come down very hard on those they find guilty of this. Basically I would say with todays technology it is easier to start colluding online than it is in real life poker but it is far easier for the sites to catch you than it is to be caught in real life. Jez