If you muck villain won't gain info on how you played but neither will you. If you show V has to show also.

I usually just say something like "A high" and they will show me the winnin hand. if they won't show before I show then I always show.

Otherwise you could get angled.

I would only consider doing this if and only if:

1) This player is better than me

2) I'm at a table with other multiple smart players

3) The bluff was unusual

4) The bluff was good

5) I'm absolutely, totally 100% sure I can't have the best hand. Probably not mucking even K high.

If one of these conditions isn't met I just don't see the point.

So I haven't ever mucked a bluff. If others have, I'd be interested to hear when/why.

I normally just say "good call" and I muck. If I'm bluffing, I sort of already know what V has.

You can only bluff bluffable opponents. That means I've had run ins with them in prior hands or I've observed their holdings in hands I wasn't involved in. Therefore, i consider them bluff targets. I rarely if ever bluff if I have no info on them. They could be calling stations and in that case bluffing is lost on them and is unprofitable.

So, based on the above, I'm not sure what V showing me, his/her one hand, will add to my knowledge/reads that I don't already know.

When you muck at showdown, they gain the information that your hand is so bad that it is not even worth turning over. So, they know you are bluffing.

Just flip your cards up and say nothing. Who knows, maybe your ace-hi beats his ace-hi. Maybe your opponent misread his hand. Maybe your opponent misreads *your* hand.



The only information you conceal by mucking is the information you give to unobservant players who are not involved in the hand. If you turned up your cards, everyone at the table will see you bluffed. But if you muck face-down, the seven players not in the hand might ignore the hand, and your bluff will just be a special secret between one hero and one villain.

If you aren't going to muck w/o seeing his hand then you have to show first, since they called you.

No reason to pass up on the free info after showdown. Getting caught bluffing can have positive effects on your image as well (think fatter value on later hands).

Here is a hand I witnessed a couple weeks ago at 5/10:

Flop 875 turn Q River 3. Bad Reg bets $300 (over pot) on river. Guy calls him. Bad Reg says good call and mucks 9 high. Guy that calls flips over 62. He thought he hit the straight on the river 3. Bad reg scrambled to get his cards from the muck but floor ruled that he they are dead since they touched the muck pile.

To add insult to injury, the bad reg told me this happened to him TWICE the night before including a $2,500 pot. Apparently some guy announced "straight" and the bad reg mucked his pair and then guy flipped over his hand and didn't actually have a straight.

Anyways, think it's probably just best to get in the habit of flipping your cards over. I try to get them to flip theirs over first but otherwise I'll be flipping mine up.

Badreg is terrible reg. ALWAYS announce "nice call" or something similar and wait for villain to show his hand first. If he doesn't then u show. Also always wait for villain to show their hand when they announce their hand at showdown.

I go with "It's unlikely that I win."

And 95% of the time they show their cards.

When they don't, I just roll it over and show my bluff.
Then take note, and value bet thin against that person for a while.

Why the resustance to showing bluffs, failed or not? Bluffs should be rare at 1/2 so i always figure the rare bluff i make i should show for image reasons.

Yeah, but when someone calls your over pot-sized bet on the river you don't expect that 9 high is good...especially on an 875Q3 board.

I generally show since if I've been caught bluffing, my image will be seen as 'bluffy', regardless of what I've shown down, so I may as well force my opponents to give away their hand as well, since the value of seeing their hand and how they played it is generally far more valuable that hiding your exact holdings.

A more interesting question here, and one which I have wondered myself at times, is:

If we make a thin hero-call on the river and V mucks, should we show?

I personally show thin hero-calls because it makes me much less likely to be played back at in subsequent hands by both V and other players, however obviously it reveals information about your hand which doesn't need to be revealed to collect the pot.

if i get caught following through on a semi bluff i am more likely to try to avoid showing. how you play your draws is information that even bad regs can use. if i get caught making a stone bluff i might not mind showing it as much.

never actually muck without seeing the other hand obv.

Table 'em like I have the nuts.

so you are angling then if you say A high and you dont have A high...

depends on the casino, some casinos have the crappy rule where you have to show to win even if your oppponent mucks. in that case if i bluff river and get called i just muck because my opponent has to show anyway.

if you dont have to show to win then i usually always turn over my hand on the river

As always, it depends on the current manipulation that you want to proceed with after this hand.

Suppose you are one hour out from leaving, $400 ahead in a 2-5 game and figure you will coast til quitting time. (And this is for those players who do this sort of thing----even winning players.) You shouldnt do this, but in case you do then...

Now this hand comes up. You may want to table the hand and say "Can you beat THIS?" (If you will simply nit it up til you leave) This will enhance calls if in fact you do hold any nice value hands before you leave.

And it doesnt have to be a negative for you to show. There can be other reasons as long as you have a valid reason to do so. Normally on average it would be best not to show, saying "its yours" and many times they are just happy to take the pot and show.

So there is no across the board YES or NO to your question IMO, however the standard default would be try not to show unless you have some reason for showing.

always show. i cant count the number of times i have had villains fold a winner.

for example, i say "full house" and show 53 on K535x and they muck KK angrily and learn afterwards they had a higher full house not just a set

on board like AJ727 i say "two pair" and they turbo muck their A3 while i show 88 and win

sometimes they will bluffcatch with A high as well, your bottom pair might be good. sometimes the top of your bluffing range is ahead of their calling range

This. Only exception would be if I really didn't want the table to know I'm capable of bluffing(ie I've been running over them all night).

I can't speak for higher limits but as a strongish 1/2 player I agree with the above. I think about it like this: there are 2 types of players at the table; those who can use information they recieve from seeing your hand and ones who can not. Most 1/2 opponents would not know what to do with the information if you showed them all of your holdings let alone just an occational bluff. But if I am at your table I am making a lot of mental notes about you at all times in my head. You show a bluff and you just gave me a huge HUGE piece of information. I'm not even in the hand with you and it doesn't even look like I am paying attention; but I am.

I have to assume there are plenty of other thinking 1/2 players out there that, like me, get huge value from seeing what you hold in any given hand. Don't help them get this information. And ANL states the exception might be when your actions send another player on mega monkey face tilt. But remember this comes at a price because you didn't show this bluff to your opponent - you showed it to the entire table. Often the - EV from the solid player seeing your cards outweight the +EV you get from tilting a monkey.

That could actually be a really lowly angle. Happens very rarely but there are no limits for some people.

Yeah, I will agree that stuff like trying to get the V to show first when you're actually the one who has to show first very often works. It only works because Vs don't know any better. And a lot of people try to do that. I personally feel that trying to get the other guy to show first when you have to show first is not the right thing to do. When I have to show first I show immediately without the song and dance. On the other hand I will not show first if I don't have to.

LOL. Man this is so tempting bbut goes against my principles.

What's a "thin" hero-call?

The only thing about trying to get the opponent to show so you can muck is that, well, it's kinda lame. People do this to me so often and wait like 5-10 seconds which is really annoying. Usually I just don't say anything and wait them out. I'm not sure how to deal with it actually. I want to be friendly about it but I don't want to show my hand when they don't show theirs and I don't have to. And it seems like their's some "etiquette" thing among regs where if you have a decent hand you flip it over and let the guy muck. I want to be friendly (and at the table I am friendly), but I really don't like this unspoken rule. Maybe a friendly "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" would do the trick? Who is being the jerk here?

For those of you who try to get the other guy to show, how much time do you spend doing this before you think it slows the game down too much?