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SNG Possible Collusion


SickOldIMLOF

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Hello Community,

Although this is my first post, I have been reading this forum for a while and I know how "cheating report" threads usually look like. I also understand that collusion in poker may be difficult, if not impossible, to prove. For these reasons I hesitated before posting, but in the end I decided that this case is unusual enough. Even if nothing comes out of this report, Im looking forward to your opinions on these hands.

For the record, I mostly play tournaments and sometimes add some SNGs. In 2020 I played a bit over 1000 of them, mostly 4€ ones. This month I finally decided to try 10€ ones and this situation happened in 6th one I played. I probably wouldnt notice it all otherwise.

Hand #1

Game #1426795284: Table €10 SNG 5 Seat - 40.00/80.00 - No Limit Hold'Em - Total prize €47.50 - 01:27:59 2021/02/12
*** Seated players ***
Seat 1: TimonPumba (1408 )
Seat 4: Psychedelico (3226)
Seat 5: ffrreezzee (5366)
*** Blinds and button ***
ffrreezzee has the button
TimonPumba posts small blind 40
Psychedelico posts big blind 80
*** Hole cards ***
Dealt to TimonPumba [4s 7h]
Dealt to Psychedelico [Jc 6h]
Dealt to ffrreezzee [Js 6c]
*** Preflop ***
ffrreezzee calls 80
TimonPumba folds
Psychedelico checks
*** Flop *** [8h 2d Kc]
Psychedelico bets 200
ffrreezzee calls 200
*** Turn *** [8h 2d Kc] [7s]
Psychedelico bets 600
ffrreezzee calls 600
*** River *** [8h 2d Kc] [7s] [Jd]
Psychedelico bets 1800
ffrreezzee calls 1800
*** Showdown ***
Psychedelico shows [Jc 6h], A Pair of Jacks, tied
ffrreezzee shows [Js 6c], A Pair of Jacks, tied
Psychedelico wins 2700 from main pot
ffrreezzee wins 2700 from main pot

This hand alone wouldnt mean much perhaps, but I was very surprised by the way they played it while I was short on bubble. Especially bet and call on turn. Because of this hand and couple others in which they played weirdly (like minraising back and forth), I assumed that they both might be a bit on "maniacal" side and so I decided to tighten up a bit, giving them chance to battle it out.

Hand #2

Game #1426796749: Table €10 SNG 5 Seat - 60.00/120.00 - No Limit Hold'Em - Total prize €47.50 - 01:32:56 2021/02/12
*** Seated players ***
Seat 1: TimonPumba (1756)
Seat 4: Psychedelico (4536)
Seat 5: ffrreezzee (3708 )
*** Blinds and button ***
TimonPumba has the button
Psychedelico posts small blind 60
ffrreezzee posts big blind 120
*** Hole cards ***
Dealt to Psychedelico [7h Js]
Dealt to ffrreezzee [Jc 7s]
Dealt to TimonPumba [Qh 6h]
*** Preflop ***
TimonPumba folds
Psychedelico raises 180 to 240
ffrreezzee raises 240 to 360
Psychedelico raises 240 to 480
ffrreezzee calls 120
*** Flop *** [Kd As Th]
Psychedelico bets 960
ffrreezzee calls 960
*** Turn *** [Kd As Th] [Ks]
Psychedelico bets 2880
ffrreezzee calls 2268, and is all-in
Uncalled bet returned to Psychedelico: 612
*** Showdown ***
*** River *** [Kd As Th] [Ks] [Td]
Psychedelico shows [7h Js], Two pairs, Kings up, tied
ffrreezzee shows [Jc 7s], Two pairs, Kings up, tied
ffrreezzee wins 3708 from main pot
Psychedelico wins 3708 from main pot

This is the hand that made me doubt it all the most. Pretty much all of it. Remember that its on the bubble and I had only 15bb.

After seeing these 2 hands and reading my description, you may think that these guys were just crazy, decided to go against each other and by chance went hard twice while holding same hand. That wasnt really the case. We played 3handed for 57 hands and, despite them battling a lot preflop, there were only 3 hands between them that ended in showdown (2 of them you can see above, I will also post 3rd one below, just for the record).

Hand #3

Game #1426797122: Table €10 SNG 5 Seat - 60.00/120.00 - No Limit Hold'Em - Total prize €47.50 - 01:34:14 2021/02/12
*** Seated players ***
Seat 1: TimonPumba (1576)
Seat 4: Psychedelico (4596)
Seat 5: ffrreezzee (3828 )
*** Blinds and button ***
TimonPumba has the button
Psychedelico posts small blind 60
ffrreezzee posts big blind 120
*** Hole cards ***
Dealt to Psychedelico [Ad Kd]
Dealt to ffrreezzee [As Th]
Dealt to TimonPumba [Jc 5s]
*** Preflop ***
TimonPumba folds
Psychedelico raises 180 to 240
ffrreezzee raises 480 to 600
Psychedelico calls 360
*** Flop *** [Qc Ts 4h]
Psychedelico checks
ffrreezzee bets 900
Psychedelico calls 900
*** Turn *** [Qc Ts 4h] [4d]
Psychedelico checks
ffrreezzee checks
*** River *** [Qc Ts 4h] [4d] [2h]
Psychedelico checks
ffrreezzee checks
*** Showdown ***
Psychedelico shows [Ad Kd], A Pair of Fours
ffrreezzee shows [As Th], Two pairs, Tens up
ffrreezzee wins 3000

I initally didnt even plan to add any comment to this hand and post it just so you can see all 3 showdown hands, but its interesting one too. Freeze's AT raise preflop might actually be argument against collusion, because why would he raise if he knew Psycho had AK. My question for this hand would be: why Psycho didnt reraise preflop with AKs if 80 seconds earlier he did with J7o and even got a loose call from another J7o?

Again, 57 hands 3handed and only 3 showdowns. I played enough of poker to know that sometimes variance can be insane and produce unreal stories. Perhaps its just another case of it. I wonder what odds would Unibet put to two random guys deciding to both go for crazy bluffs and hero calls, on the bubble, with exactly same hands, twice, within 5 minutes. All while playing aggressive preflop and conservative postflop in remaining 93% of 3handed hands, keeping decent balance between their stacks at all times.

Either way, looking forward to opinions on hands, especially 2nd. Maybe there is just huge skill gap between 4€ and 10€ and I have to adjust.

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TimonPumba, I remember that alias from a few days ago at the SNG4s.

I don't see any collusion here, just two maniacs, probably drunk, going at it at 1:30 AM. I mean in hand 2, they're both all in on the turn, that's not the smartest way to collude against you. That's exactly what I want as the short-stack in this scenario. They're also raising and 3-betting when you folded already. Maybe you have other suspicious hands, but these three examples don't show that to me.

 

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We're gonna win on so many levels! We're gonna win, win, win. You're gonna get so tired of winning, you're gonna say: "Mr. President please, we don't wanna win anymore, it's too much!" And I'm gonna say: "I'm sorry, we're gonna keep winning because we're gonna make America great again!"
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@SickOldIMLOF I can't say I've seen any collusion really but I have seen many instances of big stacks battling each other when it looks like the wrong thing to do.  As @WuDu points out they may be drunk, they may be €100 players with no games to play so just letting off steam. They may each have decided that knocking out the other big stack is the way to go getting a huge stack advantage HU against you, it's hard sometimes to know what they're thinking, if they're thinking at all, or just messing about, drunk or having fun. It's only if you see it over a period that it becomes more suspicious, and that's not often with all the alias changes. I don't see anything that I haven't seen many times before but it's good to be aware of what can happen.

Good Luck with your step up in stakes. 👍

"It turns out that 75% of all poker players think they play better than the other 75%."     image.png.99a4e82708d54abfc527324e8836768e.png

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I already wrote why argument for these guys being maniacs or drunk doesnt apply here, but in case my post was tldr, I will repeat most important part of it here in shorter form:

We played 57 hands 3handed. There were only 3 showdown hands between them. They went all out against each other only twice, they had exactly same hand in both cases J6vsJ6 and J7vsJ7 (guaranteed split). In the remaining 54 hands they never "battled it out" postflop.

If it would last just 10 hands or if they would go "drunk style" in more than 2 hands, I wouldnt post it of course.


@WuDu wrote:

That's exactly what I want as the short-stack in this scenario.

Oh yea, I loved seeing it too. I tighten up, but sadly they never went after each other like that again, in 50 hands, even with AKs vs ATo bvb. 

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@GR1ZZL3R wrote:

 

Good Luck with your step up in stakes. 👍


Thanks, good luck to you too

@GR1ZZL3R wrote:

I can't say I've seen any collusion really but I have seen many instances of big stacks battling each other when it looks like the wrong thing to do.  


I would probably have to post the remaining 54 hands, so you can see these J6vsJ6 and J7vsJ7 hands in big picture. I imagine that otherwise you will just assume that I picked hands that suits my suspicions and ignore the rest.

 

From my point of view though, people who are capable of playing this way:

 

*** Hole cards ***

Dealt to Psychedelico [7h Js]

Dealt to ffrreezzee [Jc 7s]

Dealt to TimonPumba [Qh 6h]

*** Preflop ***

TimonPumba folds

Psychedelico raises 180 to 240

ffrreezzee raises 240 to 360

Psychedelico raises 240 to 480

ffrreezzee calls 120

*** Flop *** [Kd As Th]

Psychedelico bets 960

ffrreezzee calls 960

*** Turn *** [Kd As Th] [Ks]

Psychedelico bets 2880

ffrreezzee calls 2268, and is all-in

Uncalled bet returned to Psychedelico: 612

Wouldnt only go to showdown 3 times in 57 hands 3handed. I also doubt they would suddenly, 80 seconds later, find enough discipline to play this way:

*** Hole cards ***

Dealt to Psychedelico [Ad Kd]

Dealt to ffrreezzee [As Th]

Dealt to TimonPumba [Jc 5s]

*** Preflop ***

TimonPumba folds

Psychedelico raises 180 to 240

ffrreezzee raises 480 to 600

Psychedelico calls 360

 

If you still dont see anything unusual about it, then its case closed really. I guess I will just have to adapt to this 10€ SNG magic.

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@SickOldIMLOF One game may look suspicious and a case be made from their play that something "funny" was going on, it may be here, but 1 sng is simply not enough to make a decision. When I say I haven't seen any collusion I mean that, but I have certainly seen many cases of weird play that looked a bit "off." Then the game finishes and it's move on to the next one, different players, different circumstances. I don't think you're deliberately picking certain hands but over a very short time frames, one or two games, you'll have seen many strange things each in their own bubble, but maybe not enough with the same players in the same games to draw any definite conclusions. It's not for me to say but always worth noting though and maybe one of the mods may care to take a further look. :wonder:

 

 

"It turns out that 75% of all poker players think they play better than the other 75%."     image.png.99a4e82708d54abfc527324e8836768e.png

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@SickOldIMLOF wrote:

I already wrote why argument for these guys being maniacs or drunk doesnt apply here, but in case my post was tldr, I will repeat most important part of it here in shorter form:

We played 57 hands 3handed. There were only 3 showdown hands between them. They went all out against each other only twice, they had exactly same hand in both cases J6vsJ6 and J7vsJ7 (guaranteed split). In the remaining 54 hands they never "battled it out" postflop.

If it would last just 10 hands or if they would go "drunk style" in more than 2 hands, I wouldnt post it of course.


@WuDu wrote:

That's exactly what I want as the short-stack in this scenario.

Oh yea, I loved seeing it too. I tighten up, but sadly they never went after each other like that again, in 50 hands, even with AKs vs ATo bvb. 


 

@SickOldIMLOF 

You obviously took some time preparing your posts and put some honest thoughts into them, so I believe that you believe that something suspicious could be going on. So if I conclude correctly, your theory is that the other two players are communicating with each other outside of Unibet, realized they have the same hand and went in for the LOLsss. Correct?

Maybe you should present some of the other 54 hands here. So far it's just two hands where you really weren't at a disadvantage. Possible signs for collusion could be all hands where the chipleader is "gifting" chips to the middle stack, for instance.

We're gonna win on so many levels! We're gonna win, win, win. You're gonna get so tired of winning, you're gonna say: "Mr. President please, we don't wanna win anymore, it's too much!" And I'm gonna say: "I'm sorry, we're gonna keep winning because we're gonna make America great again!"
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@WuDu wrote:


So if I conclude correctly, your theory is that the other two players are communicating with each other outside of Unibet, realized they have the same hand and went in for the LOLsss. Correct?



Correct. After hand #1 J6vsJ6, I simply assumed they are both maniacs and correct play for me will be to tighten up, I gave 0 thought to them having same hand there. After #2 J7vsJ7 5 minutes later, which made even less sense, I actually felt like they are doing it "for the LOLsss". It will be relevant to add here that I play online poker for over 10 years, I played millions of hands on over 20 pokerrooms. I was in countless bubble spots that screamed "softplay", but I never bothered to report any of it before. This case is different than anything else I encountered before.


@WuDu wrote:



So far it's just two hands where you really weren't at a disadvantage.


In your first post, you wrote yourself that "I mean in hand 2, they're both all in on the turn, that's not the smartest way to collude against you. That's exactly what I want as the short-stack in this scenario.". I assume that you would also start playing tighter, fold some hands you wouldnt usually fold, play some calls instead of all ins and give up a bit more on flop etc. All with the idea of chance that they will fight it out. Correct?

Can you now see how them showing drunk maniac tendencies when they had same hands is beneficial for them and terrible for me? Towards the end of it I understood that I essentially became "dead money" when I adjusted to their fake maniacal images. I dont like this feeling and so I decided to at least post here about it.

If it was all just variance work, so be it. Im aware that variance can be tricky. Like when someone 3bet you 3 times in a row and when you finally 4bet, he shows up with AA. And so you realize that he wasnt a maniac, but rather was lucky enough to get strong hands few times in short time span. I simply feel that the odds of this case here happening randomly are way beyond odds of anything like described above. Could be still variance, sure, anything is possible.


@WuDu wrote:



Maybe you should present some of the other 54 hands here. So far it's just two hands where you really weren't at a disadvantage. Possible signs for collusion could be all hands where the chipleader is "gifting" chips to the middle stack, for instance.


Without access to hole cards I cant prove or disprove any "gifting" of course. I posted all 3 hands where they went to showdown. The fact of there being only 3 showdown hands (considering how these hands looked like) is already pretty damning in my opinion.

Here is Psychodelico stack size progression during 3handed:

#1 1812

#10 2262

#20 2862

#30 3356

#40 4536

#50 3576

#57 4526

This info proves next to nothing compared to showdown hands I posted in my opinion, but Im not sure how else suspected "gifting" can be displayed. There were few hands along the way like this:

Game #1426794475:

Seat 1: TimonPumba (2006)

Seat 4: Psychedelico (2622)

Seat 5: ffrreezzee (5372)

*** Hole cards ***

Dealt in ffrreezzee

Dealt to TimonPumba [5c As]

Dealt in Psychedelico

*** Preflop ***

Psychedelico raises 120 to 120

ffrreezzee raises 150 to 180

TimonPumba folds

Psychedelico calls 60

*** Flop *** [2s 4c Jd]

ffrreezzee checks

Psychedelico bets 420

ffrreezzee folds

 

But I wont bother listing them all. I think that proving "gifting" chips in poker have to be next to impossible, even if someone from security would check hole cards.

Even if Psychodelico was asked why did he 4bet J7o, then bet pot on AKT flop and go all in on K turn, while 80 seconds later, playing against same villain, he didnt 4bet with AKs and played it safe postflop. He could just answer "I felt like it sir, it was just a coincidence" and nothing could be done about it. Reminds me of Lucky Larry.

At this point I would be content if some mod would step in and wrote something like "we checked relation between these two players and found nothing suspicious".

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At this point I would be content if some mod would step in and wrote something like "we checked relation between these two players and found nothing suspicious".


 

Maybe @Stubbe-Unibet can take a look for connections between the other two player to give @SickOldIMLOF some peace of mind. 

I agree with you that the hands you posted seem off a little, sure. But sometimes weird things happen at the SNGs here at Unibet. 

You also wrote: "I assume that you would also start playing tighter, fold some hands you wouldnt usually fold, play some calls instead of all ins and give up a bit more on flop etc. All with the idea of chance that they will fight it out. Correct?"

Your thought process is correct so far, but it depends on the stack sizes, what my charts are telling me and if I get some 1-on-1 chances. That's why I asked for more hands to see whether the two let you see some flops heads-up. 

We're gonna win on so many levels! We're gonna win, win, win. You're gonna get so tired of winning, you're gonna say: "Mr. President please, we don't wanna win anymore, it's too much!" And I'm gonna say: "I'm sorry, we're gonna keep winning because we're gonna make America great again!"
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@Andy-Unibet wrote:

The accounts in the original post have now been suspended after a play review.

Thank you for the report.


 

Wow, nice eye by @SickOldIMLOF aka the Scumbag Slayer to spot this. 👍 

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We're gonna win on so many levels! We're gonna win, win, win. You're gonna get so tired of winning, you're gonna say: "Mr. President please, we don't wanna win anymore, it's too much!" And I'm gonna say: "I'm sorry, we're gonna keep winning because we're gonna make America great again!"
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Thank you for reviewing it, gave me some peace of mind indeed. I was getting worried that not only there will be no response at all, but that my horrible run on weekend was a punishment for reporting it.

On a more serious note, knowing that security team is there to check stuff like this restored a lot of my faith in fair play on tables. I will now definitely try 10€ SNGs again in the future.

 

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