it depends on the situation too and how many people left in the pot. Sometimes its stupid but if there are many people left in the pot on the river, it can be advantageous to trap people in with just the bare nut low thinking you are getting half the pot and everyone else is calling with lesser hands.

For example, a lot of times if 4 people are on the river and one has the nut low and one has the nut high, if they can trap people in the hand who are calling with two pair/2nd nut low and such, it can get you a few more bucks. however, some people just bet and raise with the nut anything. Also, its more useful if you have the nut flush on a non paired board rather than the nut straight as you could be getting quartered and such.

I would have to know all the details of the hand to have a better idea if its collusion but there are a bunch of idiots out there and they only know they have the nuts for half the pot. they don't think about being quartered and such.

if it was a loose game and people would call all these bets with a bare non-nut low (maybe iwth a weak high), then i think your safe. in plo8 i'll often push with a nut low and a high as weak as one pr (depends on texture of table and hand) -- i'm not really worried about getting quartered, esp. in a 3-way pot.

as for the game, i'd be suspicious of any game with a group of old guys who know each other. this is especially true if they are from a community of which i am not a part.

anyway, bri said most of what i want to say. i'd still be cautious, but you may want to give it another shot.

Yeah in the two pots I was referring to it was three way, so jamming the low is pretty questionable. I am all for jamming when there are four or more people in the pot, figuring that some of the money will be dead, with someone in with second nut. There was some pretty loose and bad play, but not really aggressive until the river, which I guess is normal. I was pretty card dead too. The second hand I didn't even quarter. One guy was jamming the nut low, the other guy had nut nut. Those two were sitting next to each other and seemed to be pretty chummy. That is when I left.

I had not noticed them jamming pots against each other. I have pretty good language skills but I have no Farsi, so I couldn't understand any of the coffeehousing that was going on between hands. They were not speaking it during play, but the whole scene made me pretty uncomfortable so I left. I might pick up some basic Farsi if I decide to go back. At least if I can insult someone in their language, it makes the game a lot more interesting.

not sure where ur playing, but at the taj in AC u cannot speak any language other than english during play. just for such collusion-avoidance-suspicion reasons. consult the official poker room rules where u play. but obviously if u invoke it; you are not going to be making friends...

i can give u some basic arabic phrases like...stop talking and

YOU CALLED WITH THAT!

btw, this doesn't even count the times that you can put the squeeze on a weak high on a scare card, make him lay down, and your TP takes the top half while you quarter the other low. this probably won't happen in loose games, but it does happen.