As soon as the action closes, whether I called or was called, I instantly table my hand. It avoids any stress or confusion or douchbaggery on either side. It is probably a very small leak, for the reasons mentioned, but honestly it matters so little, it is easily made up for in peace of mind. It is rarely in your best interest to humiliate a bluffer into tightening up. I am immune to being slowrolled, so I dont give a **** about that. I try not to ever play poker with people who could actually make profitable the knowledge that I called with second pair and lost instead of "called with something, probably second pair" and lost.

Amusingly, some guy at Harrahs in STL a couple weekends ago thought I was trying to angle because I bluffed a river with like 4 high and then instantly tabled it, "confidently" I guess (although just routinely, imo), and the dealer thought I must have had a straight or something. The guy who called me almost mucked his hand because I tabled it so quickly, lol.

In other words, thanks to you i play less hands an hour and showdown takes forever.

just table your damned hand. Insisting on the order of showdown when you have a decent hand is slowrolling and there isn't a single player i consider to be good who does this.

The rule is that you are to table any hand immediately that is a probable winner.

That's written in the same rule that sets out the order of showdown. Disobeying rules you don't want to follow is not following the rules.

As I posted in the other thread, read the rules as if you're reading the narration of a nature documentary. They're not the instructions to set up nature, they're an observation and record of it.

"...here we have... the... poker game... reaching its showdown ritual... basic agreement is that hands are shown in a clockwise manner, however it is customary for a winner to show immediately, regardless of his place in this order. Failure to abide by these customs risks severely aggravating the herd, and can lead to social exile."

Or whatever. Give it a breathy British dude voice.

This depends a lot on who the villain is, but if I want the information on what my opponent is betting and I'm the caller, I'm waiting for him/her to either show or muck, and quite frankly I don't give a rats ass if anyone doesn't like it or not.

Putting people on hands/ranges is difficult (for me), so in a situation where I've paid for the privilege of getting some information on a specific opponent, the only reason I'm not getting it is if they muck.

To be clear, I never do this when I have the nuts, nor do I ever hesitate to show when I'm the better, even if I've just been called on a bluff - I usually say "you're good" WHILE SHOWING MY UNSUCCESSFUL BLUFF. But vs. specific villains where I feel the information would be helpful in future hands, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect them to follow the rules (the same rules I follow by showing immediately after I'm called, EVERY SINGLE TIME).

Last time I was playing in AC I called an all-in OTR vs. another female player with bottom two pair and refused to show until she did, and she made some comments after the fact (I busted her and she did not rebuy), but nobody else seemed particularly bothered. While I strongly suspected I had the best hand, I wanted to see what she was playing that she would raise pre, bet/call a raise OTF, then lead strong for the next two streets. Had she rebought (and I had every reason to suspect she might, as she had already bought in a couple of other times for $100 a pop and stayed in after busting), that knowledge would have been useful in future hands, and I wasn't giving up that information (that I paid to have) willingly.

If you're calling for information, you're calling too much. I hear every day a variation of, "Well, you probably got me, but I just want to see." These players lose.

I don't play tourneys too much any more, but when I did, I more than once heard, "Well, I'm short, but you're such a nice guy, if I'm going to lose, might as well be to you." People get tired in tournaments, and they want to leave feeling good. They're more likely to make a loose call against the nice guy, than against the person who makes people angry.

This doesn't only affect casual gamblers. In one tourney, another savvy player with a huge chip advantage re-raised to isolate my shove, after someone else called my bet. He knew he'd probably get better hands to fold and that I had a wide range. He had garbage, my hand held up. Based on our interactions through the evening, I have a feeling he was also trying to help me out.

There's a lot of value in being the nice person at the table. Remember, you're not only getting reads off of the players you beat: everybody at the table is making a decision about you.

I've been through the "information" carousel a million times, but I will try once more:

1. You are actually getting very little "information" when you require that they show their hand. You are finding out the exact hand they had. If you are a good handreader, most of the time it will be what you thought they had. (Indeed, that's why you called the guy-- because you thought they had a weak hand!)

2. At any rate, the "information" that is really useful at a poker table is a person's range, not their hand. And you don't get that information by asking to see a specific hand. You get it by carefully watching every hand.

3. Maybe you are an exception, but in my experience 99 percent of live poker players don't pay enough attention to hands they are not playing in. If you are part of this 99 percent, if you zone out after you fold, you are missing far more "information" than you get by asking to see a losing hand.

4. If you are one of the few players with a positive winrate, you need to cost out the delays associated with slowing down showdowns, which, over time, will reduce your hourly rate, against the value of the "information" you are allegedly getting.

5. Slowrolling may drive away some fish. Again, you need to cost out the negative, rules-nitty atmosphere you create against the value of the "information" you are allegedly getting.

6. If you really thought "information" was so valuable, you would also invoke IWTSTH when someone at the table tried to muck a hand at showdown, or whenever another player who called just fastrolled and prevented the other player from showing. Yet I doubt anyone does this. This suggests that players actually know the information is not so valuable and are just slowrolling because they like to slowroll.

I'm a very friendly person at the table, and I invoke the "I called, you show" rule pretty infrequently compared to total hands played - like once every few live sessions. That said, I'm going to invoke it if I think it's to my advantage to do so, and if that one hand makes someone get irritated when I'm otherwise pleasant/paying attention and keeping the flow going, then they are probably huge tilt monkeys who get irritated by little things anyway, so **** 'em.

What about that time you cause the fishy tilty player to leave the table? That time you're the straw that broke the camel's back?

In your original example... do you think her feeling shamed and called out in front of anybody had any bearing on her decision not to rebuy? You said she had rebought often, yet this time she didn't. Why do you think that is? Do you know for 100% certain that your calling her out wasn't a factor? How about 85%? 50%?

Even if it's 1 time in 10 that your forcing her to show has an effect... is it worth it?

What about the other people at the table, who now might not bet light into you as much if they know you're going to slowroll like that?

In your example, you cannot use that information you received to your advantage even one little bit, because she got fed up enough to leave the table. But everybody else gained information about how you conduct yourself at showdown. It doesn't matter if this was the 1 in 100 times you do it. To them, this is the 1 in 1 time you did it.

Calling with bottom two pair on a three flush board and not immediately flipping my hand over is not slow rolling.

Interesting you would use that clearly negative label to describe my actions, though.

I generally like you as a poster but your refusal to consider that there are times when enforcing the "I called, you show" rule, and suggesting I was slow rolling, suggests you don't have any open mind on this and anything I say will be essentially discounted.

As I already stated, I rarely do so, but there's a time and place where I think it's absolutely +EV and I'm not going to let some other players annoyance stop me from doing so, any more than I would allow someone who wanted to check down a marginal hand prevent me from properly betting for value.

I'm sorry, I mean OTHERS might think you're slow rolling. And you're right it's loaded. That's why you shouldn't give them reason to think it.

There had to be some point before she showed where you knew your hand was good?

Of course there are always exceptions. But I think we do have to consider that this woman's perception of a slow roll, regardless of the intent, MAY have been a factor in her decision to leave? Can you say it wasn't?

There are times you can wait. But in general, as soon as you're pretty sure you're good, show. The one reason you gave for waiting didn't even end up applying in the example you gave. These times to wait are very few and far between, I feel.

If its vs regs, I always wait for them to show if they were the last agressor. I wouldn't care if it stops them from bluffing me because it just means they would be playing more honest. The last thing you want is to give people the license to bluff you willy nilly.
Most of your winnings should come from value bet value bet value bet, not bluff catching.

It's annoying but I really only make a big deal with someone I think is competent and I want to know exactly what cards they had for info from previous streets (like in 3bet pots, etc) if I think it will help me in future hands against him. If its a tourist fish I just wait a few seconds looking at him and if no action I'll just play along and felt my cards. No real need to see a fish bluff usually...besides, do u really want a fish leaving the table because you're a stickler for that rule. It's a good rule and should be respectedbut it can be counter productive to get upset about it sometime

I thought there was a decent chance I was good (which is why I called), but I'd be lying if I said I was sure - I make calls where I think I'm good and turn out to be wrong a few times a session. TBH, my original fear when she hesitated is that SHE was slow rolling and trying to induce me to show first so she could triumphantly slam down a set of queens or the nut flush or something.

I can't say for sure what she thought, so yes, it might have factored into her decision to quit (she didn't leave - her b/f was also playing at our table, so she stayed and watched and muttered. Both of them were unpleasant people, TBH, and everyone seemed relieved when they both left about a half hour later).

However, given everything that had transpired to that point, I felt that getting the information THAT I PAID TO GET, AND THAT THE RULES SAY I'M ENTITLED TO GET was important in that hand at that time.

But I don't do this often, this is just the most recent example I can recall where the person was obviously stalling and became irritated at my (polite, low key) insistence that she show first. For the record, I said something very close to "I called, please show", so it's not like I was being a dick. Just because I said "I don't give a rats ass" about someone not liking the situation while typing on here doesn't mean I wasn't extremely polite at the time.

You should take into consideration that maybe the rules don't say that you are entitled to that information (unless you want to invoke IWTSTH, which is douchy and is subject to limitation if it is abused).

The way I read the rules is that if I think my hand is likely to be good, I'm supposed to show it. That's what the rules actually say. Which suggests that if I think my hand is likely to be good, I am actually not "entitled" to find out what the other guy had. Nor did I pay for that information-- I paid for a chance to showdown my hand and win the pot.

As I said above, people slowroll because they LIKE to slowroll. The rules actually do not say that you have a right to slowroll-- they discourage it. So don't hide behind the rules. If you do this, it's because you want to do this, not because of something you read in a rulebook.

Was this "Our Fearless Leader's" first thread?

As for the thread itself, I turn over pretty quickly if I think I might have the best of it as I'm pretty impatient. Recently I looked like an idiot by doing this on a checked flop, turn, river in a 5-way pot when I paired the 9 on a AKxx9 board. After I flipped, I was then shown in order TT, JJ, and QQ; lol nits.