Softplaying/collusion at Medium Stakes Poker Tour Running Aces (Minnesota)?

[Dan Druff]

Here is the event page: http://msptpoker.com/pages/EventDetails.aspx?EventID=62

Here is the video (SUPER slow to download -- 1.8GB on a slow server): http://msptpoker.com/videos/media/20...unningAces.mp4

Allegations of the 1-2 finishers softplaying/colluding when it was three handed were posted on 2+2:

It appears after watching the MidStatesPokerTour live stream that took place at Running Aces in Minnesota this past Sunday - that there appeared to be softplaying/collusion going on between two players. One of the players being MSPT Pro Blake Bohn and the other player being Mark Sandness. TONS of live stream viewers voiced their opinions and displeasure as to what was going on. It is known that Blake & Mark had a % of action swapped between each other in this tourney , and the play between them made it very clear. The fact they were softplaying/colluding is both WRONG and ILLEGAL..... Something needs to be done about this by BOTH MidStatesPokerTour & RunningAces. Gotta feel bad for Tyler Caspers(the 3rd place finisher) since it was clearly 2vs1 when they got down to 3 handed. I talked to Tyler after and he also feels as if they cheated. Also , when all the collusion chatter started in the live stream chat box and on Twitter - there was an unplanned break taken. After the break, they moved Mark's seat so him and Blake werent sitting next to eachother anymore?

Just a few hands that caught EVERYONE'S attention were:
1.Blake had Q9 in a HU pot against Mark. Board ran Q high and they checked it down?

2.Blake raised the SB with K10 and Mark folded his BB with KJ suited to the raise?

3.Blake 6,6/Mark 6,2...Board 2,4,6,7 - Blake shoves all in & gives Mark a look , Mark folds?

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...-14-a-1418156/

Guys in question are Mark Sandness and Blake Bohn.


Here is another guy's take on it:

Don't remember the Q9 hand but remember the other two fairly well.

KJs hand:

Blake Bohn (w/ KTo) in SB raises to like 200-220k at 40/80k to Mark Sandness in BB. Sandness has KJs, thinks for a couple seconds, and mucks. Blake had Mark covered with Mark being the effective stack at 2-2.5mm. Blake's SB raising range is very wide here and Mark should know that. Mark was getting good direct odds and good implied odds, in position, with a hand that is way ahead of Blake's range.

66/62 hand:

B v B. I believe Blake limped in at 40/80k in the SB with 66. Mark checks his option with 62o. Flop comes 2 4 6 rainbow. Blake leads for like 80-100k. Mark raises to like 200-240k. Blake snap raises to 500k, Mark calls. Turn comes a 7 (I believe bringing a flush draw). Blake INSTA crams all in (pot had 1.2MM in it and Blake overshoves for basically 1.5-2x pot effective). Mark looks to be in agony. He looks over at Blake and it appears Blake is doing a slight head nod and making strong eye contact with Mark. This goes on for maybe 10-15 seconds (with Mark looking back at the board then to Blake). Mark takes maybe 10-20 seconds more and folds in which Blake snap shows his set.

I respect the games of both players, but what I witnessed Sunday night appears to be a clear-cut case of softplaying. Idk. Though I could be very wrong in my opinion and it may have just been straightforward play with Mark and Blake being extra cautious with Tyler being the short stack.

The payouts:
3rd place: $32.9k
2nd place: $49.7k
1st place: $90.9k

They got it all in on the 2nd hand when heads up. First was 66/44 all in pre (??), second hand was AA versus a straight draw on the flop (AA won, ending tournament).

Two well known Minnesotans, bicyclekick (who watched) and Schneids (who was there and finished 11th), felt that it probably wasn't collusion or softplay.

[Dan Druff]

If you downloaded the video, look at 2:10:10 for the KJ/KT hand, 2:31:30 for 66/62, and 3:04:00 for the Q9/25 hand.

During the Q9 hand, there is commentary about people on Twitter complaining about the collusion, where the MSPT owner talks about "slow playing" (soft playing?)

It should be noted that the third place guy was folding too much, and that was given as the justification for the other two not playing each other hard.

[FNdonkey]

I have a very very good friend and Mentor that works in table games management at Running Aces, I almost went to Minnesota with him to work there before getting out of the Poker business. I will see what his take on it is and see if it's even been mentioned to him.

[Dan Druff]

I watched the video (the relevant parts) and here are my observations:

- It is a borderline case, because it only involves 3 hands, and none were so outrageous to where you can automatically scream collusion and demand an after-the-fact penalty or disqualification. However, I do agree it looks semi-shady.

- It seems from all three hands that these two guys were intentionally avoiding playing big pots with one another, and were waiting for the 3rd dude to bust before throwing chips around. This is clear from several factors, including the KJ-suited BB fold to a moderate SB pre-flop raise, the check-down with top pair Q9, Sandness' quick fold with 2-pair (he barely thought about it) in a SB/BB confrontation, and Bohn frequently open-limp-completing from the SB with hands like Q9 and 66. They were also quite willing to get it in when it was heads up, shoving everything in with 44 and 66, which contradicts their hyper-conservative style 3-handed.

- I don't believe the explanation that they were just both independently taking advantage of the fact that the third player was folding too much 3-handed and was likely to blind himself out. Bohn actually needled the guy at around 3:04:00 in the video for folding too much, pressuring him to play hands. You don't give the fish advice to play differently if he's doing exactly what you want.

- I don't think this was planned collusion. I think it was more likely a matter of two guys who knew each other well from lots of play together, were friendly, and had an unspoken agreement to basically stay out of each other's way. This probably meant no bluffing, avoid big pots, etc. Unfortunately, that definitely is a form of collusion, even if they didn't think of it that way.

- Given their willingness to shove it in heads-up with 44 and 66, I think there's a fair chance they did have a piece of each other, even though they're denying it.