When to Show Your Hand

[Still the Spank E]

I almost never show the hand I've been playing when not obligated to, but was wondering what reasons other people have for occassionally showing their hands (when not called, obviously). I occassionally will show people the nuts just to let them believe I ONLY play the nuts and that they're better off respecting my raises, but I occassionally see people showing lesser hands--for reasons I don't always follow. Thoughts?

[CrazyEyez]

[ QUOTE ]
just to let them believe I ONLY play the nuts

[/ QUOTE ]

Why would you want people to think that? How would you ever make any money?

[LetsRock]

By reinforcing a tight image, you can steal a few extra pots now and then.

Once you get busted stealing, you can revert back to tight and make a killing when you land a strong hand because people will tend to remeber the last thing they saw. It's really effective in the right cricumstances.

[LetsRock]

I prefer to just keep 'em guessing.

For anyone who is thinking enough for this to matter, they'll see enough of your cards to determine if you're loose or tight and flashing garbage will just look like a ploy anyway.

[Still the Spank E]

LetsRock has got it (my reasoning) right: I prefer to let them see me as a tight, aggressive for as long as I can get away with ONLY showing them top hands--it doesn't appear to matter to a lot of players, who, oddly, will give you action, anyway. The other, lesser reason I occassionally will show a hand I've bet very strongly from beginning to end is that I sometimes wish to show a specific player (one I think is better than me) respect, thereby keeping them from deciding to "get even" with me. Even though it (his wanting to get even) would be a form of tilt on his part, I've never been comfortable with getting people to want to devote their chip stack to my demise. Anyway, I do this one VERY rarely.

[CrazyEyez]

I get what you are saying. I just think that the few small pots it may enable you to steal will not be worth the action you'd lose on your big hands due to your ultra-tight image. You want to win few large pots, not several small pots.
As you said though, you'll often get action from fish anyway, so it's not likely to have a huge effect either way. But I'd still rather have a couple extra callers when I flop a set as opposed to the ability to occasionally steal the blinds.

[Still the Spank E]

I hear 'ya. Though, I see more blinds than I do sets. How the two compare--dollar for dollar--I couldn't say.

[LetsRock]

Well this isn't really about stealing blinds. It's about stealing pots. If you've shown nothing but solid hands, you can get away with a lot more "AK, AQ that miss the board" steals, then you can if you are known to buy pots. These may not be huge, but they can easily be 6-7BB (or bigger) if you get them fishermen that chase all the way to the river with a top pair of 9s and then give up because "he must have an over pair - he only shows winners".

You can usually slowplay your big hands into monster pots and then you really have the thinkers shaking their heads.

I guess it depends on your style, but having a pretty tight image works best for me.

[ArchAngel71857]

I only show my cards when i get a monster in the BB and it is folded to me.

-AA

[Mike Gallo]

Do a search for this topic.

Tommy Angelo posted about never showing down unless he has to.

I tend to agree with this.