a hand posted in the NL cash section got me thinking about this. If you are playing at a table with a friend, what actions can be considered collusion? This has happened to me, tell me what you think:

Me and a friend of mine were at the same $1/$2 NL table. We had a deal going in that if one of us lost money and the other one won money, the winnder would give money to the loser. I had position on him and I knew that because of our deal, he wouldn't play back at me without a very strong hand, so I knew that if he re-raised me, he had the goods and I would fold unless I had the nuts. Same with him, I knew he would simply call a lot of my preflop raises with hands he would normally fold or re-raise if it was anyone else doing the raising. This was to try to get a few more people in the pot so if either of us hit something we would win more. Also, with two of us in the hand, it would let either one of us take control of the hand after the flop if we picked up on something the other one missed. We didn't really discuss any of this until after the session and it turned out we were both doing the same thing. Is that cheating?

yes
yes it is

col·lu·sion /kəˈluʒən/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[kuh-loo-zhuhn] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. a secret agreement, esp. for fraudulent or treacherous purposes; conspiracy: Some of his employees were acting in collusion to rob him.
2. Law. a secret understanding between two or more persons to gain something illegally, to defraud another of his or her rights, or to appear as adversaries though in agreement: collusion of husband and wife to obtain a divorce.

just because people do it all the time doesn't make it right

fact is they cheated

people get tossed in casino's for such actions, cheating more than once doesn't mean that your first actions were ok but the second ones made you slimy.

Going into a casino with a deal to split winnings is collusion and cheating

it's not like they were friends who got involved in a hand and checked it down to the river without discussing it. That happens, I am ok with it. this is a pre-arranged deal.

in fact this is why the collusion rules are in place. The idea is one person dumps chips to the table and his partner escalating pots to enormous sizes when the "winner" has monster hands and trapping other people in the pot. While I realize the original poster may not have had that intention exactly it is still a form of cheating.

I fail to see why a person gets a free pass for doing this, regardless of how many times they do it.

also this is why I say this is slimy

"This was to try to get a few more people in the pot so if either of us hit something we would win more. Also, with two of us in the hand, it would let either one of us take control of the hand after the flop if we picked up on something the other one missed."

That is ABSOLUTELY collusion: not reraising or calling instead of folding "in order to get more people into the pot so that if either of you hit, you'd make more" is collusion. It's one thing to not play against the other person, but it's entirely another to play 'team' poker like this.

It's okay to, for example, share the combined wins/losses...but that's different.

I think the reality is the whole "splitting the wins/losses" thing is something that probably nobody would ever know about if it was done. I mean if it was blatantly obvious at the table that's one thing and people would have to be pretty stupid to do that anyway. I don't think it's really right, but again if 2 people take the same car to a casino and split their winnings when they get home....whatever. Probably happens fairly often, is it right? No I don't think so, but again it's probably not uncommon. Probably falls into the "checking a hand down" thing.

The whole playing different when other players/player are in a pot it what I find as being the problem. It becomes a lot easier to build pots and steal them, because you basically have 2 people playing against someone. The reality is even if neither person has a hand, as long as the rest of the field gets driven out that pot is getting won and split and it becomes easier to make other hands fold. As long as both players are in the pot it's basically the same as one of them playing 4 hole cards against someone else's 2.