Do you like making deals?

[HPG ADMIN]

Do you like making deals in tournaments?

For me, I love the pressure of heads up play as well as the good feeling you get when you get when you know you beat everyone. In some situations, you make them out of convenience (like in home games when the busted out players are waiting for a new tournament to start), but if you were in a big tournament and the difference between first and second was $1,000,000, would you do it? What factors come into play?

When I made my first Final Table over 2 years ago, I was stunned, shocked and felt like a minnow in a shark pool. I fell in line with the rest of them when they convinced me that a deal was a good thing for me to do. 9 players left I was 6th in chips. Sure I made more than if I was knocked out 6th or lower, but I could have been 6th or better?

I felt horrible that we made a 9 player deal, I just did what I was told. Since then I vowed to follow Dabiel N's lead.. No Deals.

Since that day I have made 11 more final tables, I have refused deals on everyone of them, I have 4 wins and 2 seconds since. The worst part of not making a deal I have found is the rail birds that are friends with the other guys, they get mean, calling you a Donkey, practically demanding you make a deal. When you win, it's great, you showed them. But when you refuse and go out 8th and take less than half of what you could have... and they let you know it, it makes you think.

I am going to stick with my No Deals attitude, If nothing else it has for the most part been profitable, educational and made my game better for it. Call me names if you want, I can live with that.

Collusion, am I wrong?

The answer is no. Making deals is not considered collusion. Collusion is when players act together against one or more opponents. There is no victim in deal making.

[Locohombre]

I posted as Chad, by the way. It sounded like collusion, or maybe I just don't understand what he was saying.

[HPG ADMIN]

Chad, it is only collussion when SOME players at a final table make deals but others don't. Then the 2 players who have made a deal could collude (explicitely or implicitely) to get the non-deal makers out first.

[HPG ADMIN]

For me it is all about the competitive aspect. The most exciting thing is getting down to the final 3 and seeing who can walk away from the table feeling good about being a winner. I just don't get people who play for 3 hours then want to quit right before a winner is declared.