Marcus Bateman / Marcus Bateman / 23 June 2009 / Leave a comment

Spotting collusion and cheating if at a table is one of the key things you should be looking for when playing, be it live or online.

Poker will probably always have some people who attempt to cheat to win at it, and spotting them and reporting them as quickly as possible is extremely important to the overall good and integrity of the game.

Unless you are playing in a self dealt game, the main area of cheating that will present itself is collusion. Collusion usually involves two or more players sharing hole card information in order to make better informed decisions, or to try and manipulate players around them into putting more money in the pot. It is pretty obvious that knowing that another player holds two clubs when you are drawing to a club flush draw changes the strength of your hand, but some collusion is much more subtle and advanced.

A classic piece of collusion can occur in limit games where two colluding players 'sandwich' another player into calling extra bets. Say the first colluding player looks down at aces and raises. An honest player then calls, but by indicating to his partner that he has aces, the colluding player can get his partner to raise any two cards, a bet the first colluding player will just call, leading to the honest player being stuck in the middle and looking at great odds to call an extra bet, even though they are being crushed by the aces. This can continue all the way to the river if need be, and adds up to a huge amount of extra profit for the cheaters.

In self dealt live games you face a myriad of extra possibilities. From players switching to a rigged deck after the cut, all the way to skilled slight of hand from dealers employing mechanic grips when shuffling, it is much easier to be cheated live. The key thing you should look for when playing live is an honest cut. In nearly all self dealt games it is a standard rule that a deck can be cut at any time, by any player, for any reason; and if you suspect anything is amiss in a hand do not hesitate to ask for this.

In any game where you feel something is not right, always remember that you can just leave. Very skilled card cheats can be hard to spot, but they all exhibit the basic patterns of unrealistic win rates, vastly more 'cooler' situations (two monster hands that simply can't fold against each other that they always seem to win), and a general aura of something not being right.

If you suspect anything like this in a game that you are playing in, stand up immediately, and if a house is involved, report it to the relevant security department - it will save you huge sums over the long run.

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