Originally Posted by
duped_samaritan
Zero chance? Calling off with AQ is fine. Probably even optimal.
If he folds, the chances of a fourth registering increases.
If a fourth registers the ev of a starting stack goes from $3,333 to $2500 immediately and greatly increases the chances of several more entries since now two players need to bust instead of one.
On top of that, all 3 players are regs and understand this, which makes preflop 3b+ ranges super wide.
Gags has a great reputation also, fwiw. I would be very surprised if he was sharing hole cards, if that's what you're implying by busting on purpose.
It is very likely that, at the very least, they had an agreement to all play recklessly in order to bust one of the three of them.
I doubt it was just a matter of the 3rd guy calling off lighter than normal in order to lock up a nice payment from quickly knocking out one of the other two guys.
There's a huge difference between an agreement beforehand between all 3 players to rapidly try to bust one and all share the profits, than 3 separate guys realizing that it's +EV to play looser than normal in this spot.
Similarly, if I am at a WSOP event, and it's me, a good pro, and 7 fish/semi-fish at the table, it's totally fine for both of us to independently decide to stay out of each other's way. It's not fine for us to agree beforehand that we will be softplaying each other. It would be even worse if we were backed by the same money AND came to this agreement.