Can deal-making be collusion?

February 3, 2008 by Jodly.

Final 4 of a tourney.  I’m basically tied for 3rd/4th with 3 Big Blinds.  1st and 2nd have us way out chipped.  The other short stack asked me between hands if i want to make a deal (deal-making in the money is legal here).  He suggests that assuming we both finish in 3rd and 4th that we chop the 3rd/4th money considering it was going to be a toss up as to who went out 1st.  Seemed reasonable to me, so I agreed.  The other 2 players objected that this was collusion because we were know essentially freerolling for a chance at 2nd, we had nothing to lose.  They argued that our deal changed the way we would play the game and we were in a sense teaming up against them.  I argued that we could cut whatever deal we wanted and we were not colluding in any way during the action of a hand.  Was this kind of deal unethical?  Could it be called collusion?  The spirit of the deal was to chop the money that both of us were most likely going to get for 3rd/4th, but i do understand that it did give us the ability to simply push with our short stacks trying to double up move closer the 2nd place.  While this is true I still don’t think it was unethical.  Thoughts?

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