Hello guys, I have been playing HU hypers turbos for a while
I've seen some players shoving their hands specially when they
are bluffing. What is the logic behind doing that?

To get you to call later. Or to brag. Depends on the player's sophistication.

If you bluff you strongly want to deny against made hands. So you need to bet big.
If you valuebet you don't want to deny as strong, so oftentimes you are allowed to bet smaller.

Thats also the reason why you want to depend your betsizing on texture. If its wet, you bet big, because you need to deny against many made hands. If it's dry you don't need to bet as big, because your opponent only very rarely has a made hand.

Yeah, and as leavesofliberty said, it has also the nice side effect that you might setup your opponent to call you later on, when you actually have a value hand. But that's not the main point imo.

edit: LOL, did not really read the thread title, so i thought you just meant "shoving" and not "showing". If people "show" hands after bluffing, they're most likely just bad, because there are literally thousand arguments against it.

I never show, well hardly ever. If I have bet big 6 of the last 10 hands, that is taunting my opponent better than showing a bluff, and leads even more to them making a stand with tptk.


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Never showing is perhaps optimal. I show to be social sometimes. U son't play a lot od NL. Would consider never showing in NL.

Never showing is not going to be GTO, some kind of mixed strategy would be...

When they show you there cards they might just be a fool showing off, but they might actually be very good too.

The reason a good player will show there hand is to control there perceived range. The opponent makes his plays due to his perception of our range. And so if we are able to control our perceived range we are able to control the opponents actions. This is very easy to do, but many people struggle with it massively. All you really have to do is follow your perceived range as the hand progresses. Then, before making a play, you consider how your perceived range will change.

It's easy to follow the opponents perception of our range because we all have empathy built in. And funnily enough, that is the exact reason why some people struggle to follow it - All players have this strategic capability built into their minds and they all use it all day, then, when they learn a different strategic technique, like GTO, the player suddenly has two strategic methods in their mind which makes there mind reject any information related to their own image which they are not already consciously aware of... At the Poker tables we rinse these guys for ever. Off the Poker tables they go completely mental anytime they hear anything about their perceived range. You will probably see a hail of abuse for me as these guys read this thread and desperately try to discredit what I say. You may experience this adverse effect yourself, in some way you are almost certain too. The mind can be very tricky, if it doesn't want the person to know a thing it becomes very difficult for them to learn it. All these guys would have to do is consider their perceived range in the way I describe it and almost instantly they will realise how important it is. But they cant do that! Whenever they even hear the words, perceived range, they go mad. To read a post like this will drive them completely insane.

Cards cost extra. You want to see them, then call. Otherwise, I always have the top of my range, since cards were never invoked and the dealer did not have to announce the winner. I nominated myself the winner and you seconded the motion.


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Imo when we play a session of SnGs we just dont have time to watch showdowns and the less to watch folded hands. V can show or not, no dif cos we are already at another table.
The same for us. Just set to "never show" and save time needed for decision whether to show. There is another table waiting for more important action.

Lol, I used to go to the casino with a coach of mine and he would actually pay people to show him their cards!... The price was pretty low to be fair, wasn't a bad idea, he rinsed those guys.

On a serious note though, if your never showing your cards then you are missing a trick. It helps you control your perceived range.

I can see that. Also the levels involved with giving away free valuable information. So I would have to decide...

Value of cards info < Value I get from exploiting this info

The value of the information is real, and the value of the exploitation is only a possibility yet unrealized.

Honestly, how often did that coach show a single card the dealer did not require?


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I just wonna say, I love chatting to you Rob, it brings a tear to my eye to see such a reasonable reply! For years I have been writing about this stuff on these threads and your the first regular poster who doesn't go skits. Nuf respect.

I don't remember him ever showing his cards but he probably did when it served. He was quite a good exploitative player and he used his perceived range well. He was the only guy I ever saw who made a killing from his redline whilst his blueline plummeted.

When you say value of cards, I don't really get what you mean. If the opponent see's my cards, but I know he see's my cards, I'm able to understand how he will adjust and so this will only strengthen me provided I am a better player than him. This would bring our encounters closer to GTO, which is bad, and is why we don't show them every hand, but I don't think that's what you meant. This would also help teach the opponent in general, but I don't think that's what you meant either??

I would show them if it went with my game plan. So, for instance, if I'm really short in a tourney and I need to steal loads of blinds, I might show my opponents when I'm strong. If instead I'm against a crazy bluffing dude, I might show my hand when I'm weak to make him think I bluff more than I would against him. So yeah, we would only show them our cards if it will make us more money, but I don't think there is a standard value assigned to the showing of cards???

You are correct that showing is a possible part of a clever exploitative strategy.

I choose to selectively exploit with a more mixed approach that predicts humans to project motivations onto me that are incorrect, and simple variance has caused them to call when I have good cards and fold when I am bluffing.

So, to show cards that are not required would throw all this out, and cause them to reset their level, or at least be reassured that they were right or wrong.

Either way, i want to use them against themselves, and variance, to time the stackoff, without showing a free card.

As for what I mean by real information, you are correct I did not specify.

For me, real information is what is known to all observers in the present time. And information not yet realized is only possibly known in the subset of futures that contain a showdown. To show the cards brings extra info into the present that belonged in the alternate version of time when they called the bet.

But, I tend to go on with what is called jibberish, lol.



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Yeah yeah that makes sense, I do something similar, I use standardised bet sizes in specific situations so as to keep them guessing. There is definitely some value in keeping the opponent confused. However, against the right player, I most certainly would not be standardising my bet sizing.

I think we can both agree that there is a time for almost anything in Poker. To actually find those times is the tough part.

And why poker will always be interesting. Bots or no bots.

Cheers,
Rob


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Showing or not showing your cards depends more on your opponent's skills, current ability condition, and and relevant history either this session or the last.

For example, say you are starting a session with Maverick and he is a solid winner in your game and solid player all around.

You raise the button with 6s7s and Maverick calls out of the BB.

Flop comes:
5c8sKs

You cbet, get called. Turn:

5c8sKs-2d

You bet again Maverick folds 99. You show 6s7s.

Maverick doesn't care. He already factored that in your range. It's neither new information to him or particularly surprising someone would hammer an open ended straight flush draw.

2 hours later Maverick is down 1.5 buyins from bad beats and has had 5 Irish car bombs. Getting pretty steamed talking about his luck.

You bluff him out of another pot and show.

At that point Maverick certainly MIGHT care and stack off super light vs your next value line, but none of that was necessarily due to 1 hand you showed.

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It wouldn't happen too often in HU hyper but this a good example in general

I used to go to the casino with a coach of mine and he would actually pay people to show him their cards!... The price was pretty low to be fair, wasn't a bad idea, he rinsed those guys.

I've heard a really good player that he will pay to never show his cards

Yeah sorry I was just trying to make it easy to understand my point.

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Yeah you can show to make the opponent tilt too. As in your example, this can aid in manipulating the opponents understanding of our range.

Wow, for this to make sense that dude must be sick hot at Poker!

Technically speaking always showing, never showing and any mixed strategy of showing and not showing are all equilibrium strategies.

You might be right, but if you are it's just a semantics issue.

Level Infinity would be a mixed strategy. The unbeatable strategy. That would be mixed.

This is actually really interesting, I cant work out if my last post is right!

Whether we show or not we're able to play at equilibrium, but if we show at the opportune time we are making more than we could by using equilibrium. If we show we are clearly exploiting, but I didn't realise you could exploit at the same time as using GTO!?? Exploitation usually leads to GTO, it makes no sense Maybe its something simple and I'm just twisting myself in circles, I'm not great when it comes to GTO

I think you could play perfect GTO and choose to randomly show cards. You could also tell your opponent during the hand, your entire range of cards that you might hold. Either of these could serve to tilt your opponent, and in either case, you would change nothing. It would be up to your opponent to ignore your added information, which is hard to do.

Now that you mention it, I don't see how showing cards could be anything but +EV when playing straight up balanced GTO.

However, I remain in the "never show" camp


EDIT: but to show and put that into exploit levels would serve to undermine your GTO strategy. Showing would just be to possibly push your opponent away from equilibrium...

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If you are playing GTO you could show your opponent your entire strategy and it shouldn't make a difference. The best the other player could do is play the other half of the strategy set.

So as long as you are playing GTO and you wait until all betting has ended you can show your hand and nothing will change.

Now since humans can't play gto and are prone to all sorts of psychological manipulation showing could cause something to happen but what that will be will depend on factors outside of just showing or not showinf.

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