Collusion in Online Poker
In poker game, players can cheat in a number of ways. One of the easiest methods for cheating at poker is collusion, which means that players work as a team against their opponents.
Poker players that team up can get an edge by sitting at the same table and feeding information back and forth about their hands. Since nobody can see them, they can engage in telephone calls or instant messaging, discussing their cards. Sometimes one player can be using two or more computers playing from different IP addresses.
This type of cheating is rare and does not have any significant effect in your wins or losses when you are playing at a full table. Many players who cheat using this method probably lose more or win less than they would have had they just focused on their own game. More dangerous are players who are cooperating to escalate pots, in which a player with weak hand helps out a strong-handed co-conspirator by staying in the hand and raising to build a bigger pot and force victims to bet more. However, this type of cheating is very easy for the poker room to detect with both automatic and manual reviews.
Players who are cooperating successful collusion against a poker website needs to be highly organized. If the player forgets to take a turn for all players he is representing in a game, a site's collusion detection software will be alerted. Sites also have full visibility of folded hands. If one colluding players finishes with a high flush and his opponent folds with a high hand, the poker site can check the hand to find out why he decided to fold.
Some poker players insist that if you are involved in a game where you detect that your opponents are cheating, but find that they are not very good at the process, instead of calling them on the matter you may instead just use this information to your benefit. In the right circumstances, you certainly could be better off exploiting their cheating than you would be if you chose to leave or to turn them into a manager. But true poker aficionados would insist that this response would be in essence considered another form of cheating.
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