Etiquette- Flipping Cards

[Jake (The Snake)]

Ok, I saw this at my table tonight a few times... thankfully I was never involved.

2 players in the pot, player 1 is all-in.

Player 2, while thinking, flips his cards over.

Can you do this?

If he doesn't make any motions (to chips for example) can he do it? Does it matter if he is doing it to try to guage a reaction or just doing it to let the other person know what he is thinking?

To me, this can easily be misconstrued as a call (or even a fold). One of the times a guy did construe it as a call and mucked his hand... only of course to be called by the already face-up winning hand.

Also, isn't there some rule about just 'saying' what hand you have during the hand? Surely actually showing your hand is bad too? I'm completely unclear as to the rules of this situation.

[billyjex]

It's not really cool. I don't think most places allow it. Flipping your cards over allows you to get a read on your opponent as to the strength of your hand. It's an extra tell you shouldn't be allowed to have.

[Imp1208]

Got a guy at my regular B&M that does this. He says he started doing this in tournaments. If he is not sure that he has another player beat (this is done only heads up), he flips his cards over. He claims that often the other player will then turn his cards over thinking he's folded. If he has the other player beat, he bets/raises, if not, he folds. The floor here says that the play is legal because exposing your cards to the whole table, not just one or two players, is legal. As long as his cards don't hit the muck, board, pot, etc, it's a live hand.

This is another good reason to be in the habit of never showing your cards when you don't have to.

[mdrudeen]

I was under the impression that this was illegal under the no disscusion of live hands rule. Exposing cards in this manner was a favorite tactic of Phil Helmuth until the TDA banned it.

However when looking for the rule all I could find was:

35. A player who exposes his cards during the play of a hand may incur a penalty, but will not have his hand killed.

So it appears that this practice is at the very least frowned upon

[boedeker]

my experience is that this is generally exceptable in cash games, and never exceptable in a tournament.

[Eldog605]

Thats a good question. I saw it happen at the Taj. I had never seen this tactic before. What was even weirder was the guy's decision. The board was K-3-4-6-2. The guy flipped over a 5-J or something to "get a read" and without any flush possibilities, he folded thinking his opponent had 7-5. This was an NL cash game..

[Scooterdoo]

I thought I would share a total goof I made once that ended up working where I inadvertantly turned my cards over before the hand was over. It was a sattelite to one of the events at the Commerce Legends of Poker early this year. There were three left at a table of 10 and me and the opponent in this hand were about even in chips and the 3rd guy was way behind. The opponent was very aggressive and I had seen him make many large bluff raises both preflop and post flop during the game. He makes a large preflop bet and I spend a lot of time thinking of what to do, I was on the BB (I had 77). I was pretty sure he would make the play with A any x or even a high suited connector. I decide to raise all-in, but for some reason (don't ask me to explain) I turn over my cards and say call -- I must have went brain dead thinking that I just called an all-in bet. He now saw my cards but we each had about half of our stacks remaining. The flop comes 3 low cards, but no seven and I check and he pushes all-in. I decide to call thinking he's bluffing me and he turns over QQ. Of course I hit the 7 on the turn.

Pretty funny and ended up winning the seat.