Showing winners

Somewhere below, Bobby posed a dandy question.


"So why do people show winning hands when they don't have to?"


Here's a swack.


1) The courtesy show. Sometimes it really is meant as a friendly gesture.


2) The "I didn't suck out on you" show. That's when, say, player A bets after a scare card hits the river, and player B acts (feigned or otherwise) as if the river card beat him, and folds, suggesting that player A had sucked out. Player A shows his hand, as if to say, "See? You were beat all along. So don't give me that whiney look."


3) The "Look how good my starting hand was" show. Some players, if they have AA or KK, will ALWAYS show their hand to someone at some point, winner or not, called or not.


4) The "good laydown" show. This is a specific type of courtesy show, like when player A has represented an overpair or better all the way, and an overcard flush card hits the river, and player B bets, and player A makes a totally good legit laydown, and player B knows what player A did. Player B will sometimes show that his hand, revealing that he did indeed suckout, in order to pay a legit compliment on A's fine river play.


5) The "I'm a bad ass" show. This is usually done by players whose reasons for playing have profit low on the list, even though they would agrue otherwise if pressed. A spinoff of this type of free show is the "you were drawing dead" show, or more to the point, "here, let me rub some salt in your wound" show. Typically done by insecure players who overrate their own prowess.


Tommy

let me add one more to the list Tommy.


6) How often does that happen? couple days ago at AJ's 15-30 game. I get AdAh twice in a row. win both hands w/o a showdown. I showed the second time just cuz "how often does that happen?".


I know this is against TA's rules of good poker but I figured if I only do it when I get red aces twice in a row I won't be giving away too much. lol

It happened arly Monday morning after playing for maybe 12 hours, really solid poker for a recent change, down a rack in $20-40. Two limpers, I raise with QQ fourth to act, button and both blinds call, off to the races. Flop AQ9 twotone spades. SB (loose/wild) and I cap between us, six players, one all in. Turn 7 off. SB bets, I raise, SB thinks a LOT, then puts her raising chips away and calls. All call, second guy now all-in. I'm mentally chanting "no spade no spade" when the ace of clubs hits. SB bets; I had to call 'cause she's wild enough. She wins 2.5 racks with A9. All others show, no spade draw was out, table had two outs on me.


I felt more frustrated than I have in months, but I just nodded and said nice hand as I reached over and slid my cards firmly into the muck, just beating the second all-in player's "I want to see that hand." A discussion ensued, in which the table decided I had two pair or maybe a spade draw, neither of which was possibile given my betting and the hand outcome.


Tommy's Rules of Engagement: Show no pain. Show no cards. And when they ask to see 'em, bury 'em in the muck.


Matt


P.S> Tommy, I want a graduation tassle.

Very amusing and probably true. Because my motivation, unlike yours, is not to maximimize current earnings from poker, but to enjoy the competition and get better fast(I'm shooting to go from non-player to being competitive in the WSOP within a year), I have been somewhat loose in showing down hands both won and lost. Ironically, however, I believe that this attitude may have had the unintended effect of enhancing my win rate, not diminishing it.


First, it forces me to think more deeply about the hands in question(i.e. what the others at the table will think, how they react, etc.) Second, I show hands that are interesting to me or that I think may be of unusual interest to others -- miracle flops, etc. (Unbelievably, in my several months of playing I have yet to get four of a kind or a straight flush, but I undoubtedly would show them down if I did get them.) And I am perversely adament about not disclosing holdings when requested -- this is my competitive side thrashing my collegial/empathetic side I guess! The net effect is the hands I show down are not representative at all of my play (how many players are going to discern my betting patterns when I flop the stone cold nuts when even I don't know how I'll react next time that happens?). If anything, I believe my "erratic" approach to hand-showing may be optimal to my win rate, however unintended that consequence may be.

6) Because the cardroom you're playing in offers bonuses for hands ranking above 10-full and you can't get the floor people to believe you just because you say, "Yeah, I had quads, no really..."


While I won't enter a hand specifically for the jackpot or a bonus, if I'm legitimately in it at the end and I've got a hand that gives me a 1:3 chance of $1000, it's worth it to let the other players see it. It doesn't hurt a lot that the only hands they see me turn over are bonus hands. At the low levels I play, it's won a number of hands because of the other player's assumption that I, "just couldn't have hit a full-house again." What they don't seem to remember is that 2s full of 7s still beats their straight, even if it's not a bonus hand.


Jeff

Don't leave this one off of your list....


As you muck your red pocket Aces to a board of 4 spades on the turn, your favorite player who called two bets cold, rolls over his Js 8h and gives you the...


"The let me show you this piece of cheese I called your raise with and then busted your chops" look.

Tommy,


Under the "I'm a bad ass" show...I submit the "I bluffed the S@#$ out of you" show. Example: you flop top pair/fair kicker and bet out. Someone calls. An overcard comes on the turn. You bet again, and he suddenly raises. You look at your cards, look at him, and you decide that it's a little too dangerous. So you fold. As the dealer pushes him the pot, he turns over the 3-2 for bottom pair and either A) gives you a dirty smirk and/or B) starts laughing with his buddies at the end of the table, talking about how the cards don't even matter. It could be its own category, but I think it fits here.


Thanks to your posts as well as others, I hereby pledge that I will never, EVER again show down a hand that I don't have to. This is an urge that I have to fight; a leak I have to plug. Even if I flop quads and get no action, I will not show. In our casino, we have a "show one, show all" rule...so I won't even share with my buddies (but I can tell them, if they believe me or not.) Thank you, TA, for showing me the light.

i often play in a game with a friend that everyone knows of our connections. when we first came to the room, people accused us of collusion/cheating. the management went to the videotape and looked at our hands and concluded we weren't. but we are both aggressive and usually raise and reraise if we are involved in a pot. sometimes, if we are involved in a hand that "looks fishy", one of us will feel an obligation to show a hand. what do people think of that? unnecessary? good/bad?


-CW

"As the dealer pushes him the pot, he turns over the 3-2 for bottom pair ..."


This is one of many cases where I feel that the "indicate nothing" comportment (thanks to Matt Flynn for using that word) can work against the hotdogger.


When the bluffer shows the bluff, a seperate kind of battle unfolds. He's trying to rattle me. But I can rattle him right back, very effectively, since the hotdoggers are generally weak-minded, by giving absolutely no indication whatsoever that I even saw his cards, let alone care. After a while, turns out, I really did stop caring. Next hand.


Tommy

"if we are involved in a hand that "looks fishy", one of us will feel an obligation to show a hand. what do people think of that? unnecessary? good/bad?"


I think this is good ethics, and smart, because it maintains a squeaky clean reputation. I do the same thing, though it comes up very very rarely because there are only two people I check-down with, and we hardly ever play in the same game, and we all play so tight that it rarely comes up anyway.


But when and if it does happen that, say, two of us are in a pot and it looks like the third player got middled out of the pot, I will always show my hand, required or not.


Tommy