Another interesting collusion case

Another interesting collusion case has received some attention on the 2+2 forums. This case involved two high-volume limit hold'em players, with usernames furbean and fua9999. Apparently these players had been softplaying each other and sharing hole cards for several years. What is interesting is that they claimed they didn't realize what they were doing was wrong. This is the strategy they were using, as described by furbean:

"1. If one of us has entered the pot pre-flop with a raise, the other would raise with AA regardless. The chance for this to happen is less than 20% /221 x 2 = 0.001% , assuming we raise 20% of time pre-flop, which neither of us do.

2. For the situation when one of us has entered the pot pre-flop with a raise, the other holds KK, a phone call will be made to ensure that the other does not have AA; if one does hold AA, the other would fold KK to simplify the game. The chance of this situation to happen is same as with AA, which is less than 0.001%. We admit that what we did here is wrong and this is against the T&C, as we did share the hole card.

3. If one of us has entered the pot pre-flop with a raise, the other would fold all hands except the above mentioned. What this means is, the other would fold hands like QQ, JJ, AK without knowing the raiser's holdings. This happens 99.998% of time at least."

More complete information on this case, including all of the emails exchanged between pokerstars and furbean/fua9999, are available on furbean's blog. Emails #4 and #5 in particular are total gems, and you should all read them.