Collusion

Collusion is an agreement, sometimes illegal and therefore secretive, which occurs between two or more persons to limit open competition by deceiving, misleading, or defrauding others of their legal rights, or to obtain an objective forbidden by law typically by defrauding or gaining an unfair advantage. As long as poker has existed, there have been players trying to cheat the game. And in today’s age of internet poker, players have more opportunity to attempt different methods of cheating, especially collusion. With the ability to communicate on the phone, via instant message, or Skype, players can easily communicate their hole cards to one another and discuss cheating strategies. The poker rooms have all the hand histories with which to track the colluders down, and the increasingly sophisticated hand analysis software makes shady play easily evident. Here are the three most common ways players collude. 

Softplaying

 In cash games, softplaying can arguably consider the least problematic form of collusion, but it is still cheating and still hurts the game. Softplaying is just what it sounds like – two (or more, but usually two) players do not play aggressively against each other, for whatever reason. Chances are, they are friends, but they could also be two strong players familiar with each other, choosing to pick on the weaker players at the table instead of each other. Softplayers will rarely raise each other when in a heads-up pot and will very frequently just check it down through the river, even if they both have premium hands. 

Squeezing 

This one is wrong no matter which way you slice it. Two players (again, it could be more, but two is the most common number) will cheat by teaming up on an innocent player in an effort not to beat him with the best hand at showdown, but by forcing him to fold and surrender his chips.

 Chip Dumping

 In cash games, chip dumping is generally a means for two players to transfer funds to one another, and is relatively harmless to the other players. In tournaments, though, it is a means to give one of the colluders the upper hand on the rest of the table. When chip dumping, one cheater will purposely lose his stack to his partner. While the first cheater is eliminated from the tournament, the other has now doubled-up and has a significant advantage the rest of the way. It’s not as easy to detect chip dumping as it might seem, as it is usually just a one-time thing in any given tournament (the dumping could occur in stages, but that’s less likely). The dumper does it, gets eliminated, and that’s it. Note the players’ screen names and try to track them down in other tournaments. Informing the poker room about such observed cheaters they can find any other instances of those players sitting at the same table and will be able to determine if this was a one-time deal or a pattern of cheating.