on

We’ve all seen the old western movies with the high-stakes poker games. They usually take place in an old saloon at a small wooden table with the bar and piano player in the background and one other common factor: someone is always trying to cheat. I literally could not name an old western poker movie, or any poker movie for that matter, that did not have some sort of attempted cheating in it.

Now the matter at hand is the following, obviously all poker tables online have an explicit TOS against collusion, my question is, just how often do they actually catch a colluding player? Doing some basic math, using my playing skills with an initial deposit of $50x2 on both tables, I can profit between $50 - $100 per hour using collusion. Poker Collusion Collusion is where a group of players sitting in the same table is working together to win. Collusion is the hardest form of cheating to detect, and one of easiest to pull off with a group of players.

Thankfully, this is an over exaggeration of the amount of cheating and collusion that actually goes on in the game. That being said, it still does go on and it’s important that you are aware of it, so you know what to look for and how to protect yourself. Poker cheating doesn’t just go on in home games or back rooms of bars; it goes on in casinos, card rooms, and online. Though it’s a gentleman’s game, a lot of people refuse to respect that and allow their greed and scum-factor to take over.

Before I get into what you should be specifically looking out for, I want to go over a few important things to remember when reading this article and when applying what you learn from it in the real world. First of all, always initially give other players the benefit of the doubt. Most things that are going to look like cheating are not going to be cheating at all. It’s easy to see what you want to see when you’re looking for something. It’s called the self-fulfilling prophecy. If you get it in your head that someone is cheating, everything you see will get bent and manipulated in your mind to fit that narrative. Be careful that you don’t let this happen or you’re going to end up in some awkward situations and possibly ruin some friendships or relationships. I can tell you from personal experience that I have played poker for a living for 10+ years and have only caught someone cheating twice. I share that to show you that it’s not as rampant as you might think it is, but it still does exist and can be very costly to you if you don’t catch it.

The second thing I want to mention before getting into the specifics is the importance of you never cheating at the game. Hopefully that thought never crossed your mind, but if it did, you need to get rid of it right away. There is no place for that kind of garbage in the game of poker. Even if you don’t care how it affects other people, it can have a pretty profound effect on you. You can be arrested for it. You can forfeit all of your money for cheating. Are online casino winnings taxable in canada now. You can be beat up and severely hurt if you are caught cheating. No, this doesn’t just happen in the movies. People take their money very seriously and don’t take kindly to people trying unfairly to steal it from them.

Now let’s take a look at the different types of cheating that you may encounter. I left out a lot of the Hollywood types of cheating as they really don’t happen much anymore and are more of a movie set kind of thing. The cheats and forms of collusion that I’ve included are the ones that you may actually run into in your time on the felt. I’ve also included tips on what to do when you see this and then a section on how to react if you think you have caught someone cheating or colluding.

One last thing I want to mention before proceeding is the difference between cheating and colluding. Typically the words are interchangeable, but when talking about poker, the two terms are usually used to mean different things. Cheating is usually used to refer to a player that is gaming the system by themselves. They usually have no accomplices and are a solo act. Collusion, on the other hand, is used in poker to refer to teams of individuals that are trying to game the system. This can be two players or a lot of players. It can also be between the staff, dealers, and players.

Running Teams

This is the most popular form of cheating you’ll probably see and also the one that can be the most detrimental to your bankroll if you become one of their marks (a mark is the target of a scam or collusion/cheating tactic). This happens when multiple players, usually two or three, at the table will work together in secret to try and gain an unfair advantage. The teams will usually try and accomplish one of two things; they will be looking to either squeeze you out of the pot or squeeze you in the pot.

This is all accomplished through the use of signals that the players will secretly send each other during the hand. This may sound Hollywood, but it actually happens. Players will touch certain parts of their face, touch certain chips, put certain chips on their cards, tap the table a certain number of times, or do any number of things to let their teammate know that they want them to do something in particular. The signals may let them know what cards they are holding or how they want them to bet to manipulate the other players in the pot. We’re going to look at some of the different bet manipulations know and how they might be used.

Squeeze You Out

Collusion teams might employ certain tactics to try and push you out of a pot when they don’t have a strong hand. If they can get you and anyone else not in on the scam out of the hand, then it doesn’t matter which one of them wins the pot as they usually split all their money at the end of the game.

The situation might look like this. You and two other players take a flop, and you are second to act. Player 1 bets and you have a pretty good hand, so you decide to call, but maybe it showed that you weren’t completely sold on your hand. The colluding players notice this and player 3 behind you decides to raise. Player 1 then also re-raises and now the action is back to you. You are forced to fold because you’ve seen a raise and a re-raise in front of you and there is no way your hand can be good. You fold, and player 3 behind you also folds.

You never get to see the hands and just chalk it up to running into some bigger hands. What you didn’t know was that both players didn’t have anything and were working together. Because they showed such extreme aggression, you were forced to fold your hand. They effectively worked in collusion to steal the pot from you and profited the money you put in pre-flop as well as your call on the flop. If they waited until the turn to do this, they would have extracted even more money from you as you can really only continue on in the hand facing that much aggression with the absolute nuts (which you rarely have).

Collusion Poker Guide

Squeeze You In

This form of betting manipulation is similar to the above except this time they are trying to keep you in the pot and extract more money from you. This will happen when one of the colluding players has the nuts or a super strong hand. They will use raises from other players to help hide their strength and to extract more money.

The situation might look like this. Same set up as before, three players to the flop and you are second to act. On the flop, player 1 bets and you have a pretty good hand, so you elect to call. Player 3 decides to raise, but only a little bit. Player 1 calls, and since the price is great on the pot you decide to call as well. The same thing happens on the turn, and again you call because it isn’t that much more. On the river, player 1 bets and you call and player 3 also calls. It’s a little strange that player 3 just calls here, but not completely out of the ordinary. Player 1 shows you the nuts and you and player 3 muck your hands. You’re a bit confused because player 3 was the one raising the whole time, but player 1 had the goods.

What you were unaware of was that player 1 signaled to player 3 that they had a monster hand and wanted them to help build the pot up. You were worried about player 3 the entire time while it was player 1 with the goods. You ended up making way more calls than you wanted to and put in a lot more money because the price was so cheap and the raises were so small. Imagini de fundal poker. This is a perfect example of how teams might work together to squeeze you into a pot.

How to Spot This

The reas

Poker Collusion Guide