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.

I never slow roll, nor would I ever invoke IWTSTH except in extraordinary circumstances - I think I've seen it only done twice, and only one of those times did I agree with it.

I wasn't slow rolling the woman in question, and if the people who were called would just flip over their damn hands instead of trying to angle or save face when their bluff is called we wouldn't be having this discussion.

I'll use "I called, you show" if I think it's plus EV to do so. This may be relatively rare, but to suggest that it's never valid is bull****, IMO.

You seem to agree that the vast majority of the time, you should table immediately. So I'm not sure why you're calling that "bull****".

Why are you angry at people for trying to save face? At the higher limits, this is fairly standard. It's only the lower limits where I see this argument take place, where people take it so personally. At least, that's what I've observed in my limited experience.

From RRoP: I would have thought that a "law dude" would know the difference between "encouraged" and "required". RRoP do not say you are supposed to show your hand if you have reason to believe it is good. They say you are encouraged to show it. That clearly means they want you to do something you are not requred to do. If you are not required to go first, then the other guy is (or nobody is, but we know from other parts of the rule that this isn't the case).

If you called, you are entitled to wait until the other guy shows or mucks. If you were dealt in to the hand, you are entitled to see any hand that went to showdown. In both cases, you are discouraged from acting on the entitlement. In the case of showing first when you think you're good, the discouragement is universal. In the case of IWTSTH, the discouragement in the rules is less universal but carries a more onerous penalty - abusing (which is not the same as using) IWTSTH may result in losing the opportunity to see hands.

The rules are not a book of law. They are an anthropology report.

If you read them with that in mind, it all seems a lot simpler.

When they push you the pot, you can feel confident that you were good.
At the time you did, but in retrospect, do you still feel that it was in your financial best interest? If you made the fish leave?
When he mucks, you know he was bluffing. If he is bluffing, how valuable is it REALLY to know that he was bluffing with T high instead of J high? Yes, I can imagine there is some value in knowing he bluffed with A high, or barrelled his gutshot, but things like that usually are obvious from the way the hand played out. And again, its probably an extremely small value, even in these cases.

And the cost is routinely delaying the game, even if its just a little, and shaming players into playing better or rarely even into leaving altogether. I am very skeptical that it is +EV.

I think you fundamentally are looking for the rule book to grant you permission to do something it doesn't want you to do.

If you are encouraged to do X, it means you are DISCOURAGED to do not X. In this case, you are discouraged from insisting on the order of showdown.

Now, of course, if you want to be a douche and do it anyway, the rules don't prohibit that....

Further, though, go back and look at the contention I was responding to. SGT claimed that by calling, he PAID for the information and could insist on seeing it. But the fact that the rule ENCOURAGES him to show first shows that he did not, in fact, pay for the information; rather, the position of the rulebook is that he paid to have a claim at the pot.

In the short term? Maybe not. You could argue that if it makes her less likely to be someone who likes to be annoying/stall at future tables that this is +EV for others, but obviously we'll never know that, now will we?

I doubt she was all that ashamed, FWIW. She didn't seem ashamed. Maybe she hit her stop/loss for the night. But even if my decision to ask she show her hand "chased" away this one fish for this one night, it seems extreme to state that it had any longer lasting impact. I somehow got the impression her ego would handle the crushing blow of being asked to show her hand and losing her stack when she had already done so a couple of times already.

And, again, if the player mucks that's fine. I don't ask them to show if they muck. In certain circumstances, however, if I'm the caller, I will wait for them to show first. And the rules clearly state that the better shows first. I'm not the one delaying the game (when this comes up, which as I've said repeatedly, is not often). They are. Am I delaying the game when I wait for the person to my right to fold when it's his turn to act? No. And in this case, it's the betters turn to act, and I think the vast majority of blame for delaying in this case falls on the better, not the caller who requests the other person to show or fold first.

Interesting how so many people are flipping this around to make the caller the bad guy on the rare instances this comes up. Especially since so many of those same people generally use stuff like Robert's Rules to settle discussions of this sort.

There's a fine line between always bending over to accommodate people who don't know the rules so that you don't "scare/embarrass the fish" and giving up information/edge in certain spots. What might be neutral or -EV to someone in one spot may be significantly +EV to another player.

Once you become a parent of teenagers. you won't find this concept so unusual. In fact the rule book does precisely what you say I want it to do.

What I actually want is for the rules about showdown to go back to what they were about 70 years ago: everybody still in the hand has to show - no mucking allowed. However, that's never going to happen.

Thank-you for making my point for me.

I wasn't disagreeing with your whole post, just the contention that the rules say you must show first when you have a good hand.

The notion that calling is paying for the right to see the other's hand goes back to the original showdown rules for poker, under which if you called somebody on the river, they had to show their hand (so did you). While even then there may have been an argument that strictly speaking you were paying to have a chance to win the pot, it was an avoidable fact that if you called, you got to see the other hand. (It would be equally correct to say that calling bought you the chance to show your own hand.) If that was an inevitable outcome, who's to say that some people didn't call for the purpose of seeing the other hand? Now that the rule has changed, one pays for the right to see only if the other player doesn't muck.

I'm not sure the rulebook makes a claim one way or another as to the purpose of calling. The rule book describes the multiple effects of calling.

Now I'll disagree with your implication that failing to show first with a good hand always make you a douche. As SGT RJ said herself, sometimes it can be +ev. Against an opponent who is playing information games, waiting your turn to show is not neccessarily being a douche.

Why do you keep pretending the rules don't tell people to show probable winners first, when in fact they do?

You are knocking down a strawman. I never said that the rulebook prohibited douchebags from holding up the game by insisting on the order of showdown when they have a probable winner. The right to be a jerk in that situation is absolutely protected.

What I said is that the rulebook also says that what you SHOULD do is not be a suppository and instead show your hand. You aren't required to. You can be a doofus if you wish and not do it. That's always your choice. But the RIGHT choice is to show.

While you are correct that originally all hands were tabled at showdown, you are incorrect that any set of rules ever said that players who call bets at showdown are paying for information. They are paying for the right to a share of the pot. Players who do not call bets at showdown have no such right.

The second clause of that sentence is true. But it wasn't true because you "paid" for it.

A simple example will show this. Everyone else at the table ALSO gets to see all hands at showdown under that rule. (Indeed, under current rules, anyone at the table can STILL request to see all hands, although the right can be taken away if abused.) In other words, people who under your theory DID NOT "pay" for the information still get it. That makes no sense.

Whereas under my theory these people get the information simply because there is a rule that says everyone has to show their hands at showdown.

I think I demonstrated above that the rulebook is inconsistent with the claim that people who are calling are paying for the information. If that were actually correct, there would be no IWTSTH rule and no encouragement to show a probable winner first.

As for douchebaggery, it is always possible that being a douche is +EV. For instance, refusing to chop with the guy on your right while chopping with the guy on your left is probably +EV. Nonetheless, you shouldn't do it, because the customs of live poker are not about wringing every cent of EV out of every situation in this game; it is also a collaborative social activity and consistently chopping or not chopping is an unwritten rule of that activity.

In this case, however, I am actually quite convinced that if you are actually a winning player (most players are not, bear in mind), it is NOT +EV to do this. I am not sure that it necessarily drives off fish, but I know it slows down the game and more hands / hour = +EV for a winning player. Meanwhile, winning players do not need to see losing hands, because they are excellent handreaders who can put players on ranges without seeing them.

This whole "Making a losing player turn over his cards is bad etiquette"-bs has to go, it just doesn't make any sense.
I paid to see his cards so I have the right to see them, conversation over.
It's not my problem villain is embarrassed to show his pathetic attempt of a bluff to the table, everybody knows hes full of it anyway when that happens.

May I ask what stakes you play and how long you've been playing?

No.

Okay.

Well, I never see your attitude at the higher stakes, so either you're an anomaly who has figured out the secret that's eluded everybody else, or people who move up stakes learn that your attitude isn't compatible with the games they play.

I don't play anywhere near high stakes that much I can tell you
But honestly, I don't get that "unwritten rule" and it doesn't make much sense to me. If he doesn't want to show he can just muck his hand.
He will show it when he has the best hand, so what's the difference?
I think this "I don't want people to get an idea of how I play certain hands"-attitude is just annoying and serves little purpose, especially at the lower stakes. High stakes may be different.