This is a multi-day competition. Players may coordinate in each round, but I mean to coordinate in each day. If you only coordinate over a short horizon then the complexity of your deception is lower. So for example, all players adopt a common feigned weakness on a given day, and let the computer believe those behaviors is part of a pattern to exploit. Then on the second day, up the bets and stop the feign.

This happens in algorithmic trading, where traders would make a large number of low-valued, bad bets to mislead the algo. Then bet big and go the other direction.

I just looked it up and collusion is illegal in poker, though players could do it.