As long as poker has existed, there have been players trying to cheat the game. And in today's age of internet poker, players have more opportunity to attempt different methods of cheating, especially collusion. With the ability to communicate on the phone, via instant message, or Skype, players can easily communicate their hole cards to one another and discuss cheating strategies. While it is easier to collude online than it is to do it live, most cheaters are not skilled enough to get away with it. Plus, the poker rooms have all the hand histories with which to track the colluders down, and the increasingly sophisticated hand analysis software makes shady play easily evident. You should still always be on the lookout for the bad guys, though, and to detect them, you need to know what they are doing. So, here are the three most common ways players collude. Softplaying In cash games, softplaying could arguably considered the least problematic form of collusion, but it is still cheating and still hurts the game. Softplaying is just what it sounds like – two (or more, but usually two) players do not play aggressively against each other, for whatever reason. ...