grenv: It appears that my prediction about this happening again has come true. As I said then, the game is flawed if you view these types of conspiracies as cheating. There's no way to fix it, so it's either put up with it or quit playing the game.

What ever happened to the Team Pond game a lot of us were posting about? If Ponds can be played as a two team game, this would eliminate this problem and should be a very fun game to play. Your teammates could try to bid low and set up a similiar situation but it wouldn't be viewed as cheating since you're all in it together and it is known from the start. In fact, knowing when to do it or not would determine the winning team in a lot of games.