here's the links to the 3 Bob Ciaffone articles on the subject:

part 1
part 2
part 3

he doesn't seem to know the answer to the what was it ORIGINALLY there for, but it undermines the "collusion" argument. If bob wrote the rule, and bob doesn't think the rule is there to combat collusion...

although BC isn't really inventing these rules, he essentially just jotted down a set of rules that he observed in general practice.

here's a clip:


So the RROP "privilege" is a revision of the traditional "all hands must be shown on request".

THats intersting reading part 1. I didn't think there could be so much talk on the subject. Maybe I belong to another school of thought. I would say you show in order and either table your hand or muck it. If I had to change a rule I would ban the use of IWTSTH except if you suspect cheating. And on the other hand, if you had to table your hand , so be it. I just don't beleive in table talk to detrime who has to show.

I agree with you about IWTSTH, and I don't even allow it if you suspect cheating, as I do not believe this is why that rule exists.

But as to the other bit here, I think this is a different way of viewing. You use the phrase "has to show" which right there sets the tone. Nobody ever has to show. The probable winner is encouraged to show, no matter the order of betting. Between people who understand and respect the process, often going outside of "proper showdown order" results in a faster resolution to the hand.

But a little bit of knowledge is dangerous, so between the 0-level thinkers and the 4-level thinkers, we get those who are all, "I don't know what I have, what do you have? Well, I might have this, do you possibly have that?" It's like a teenager getting used to social interaction, but still stuck on "No YOU hang up first!"

Muck your hand whenever you want.

Overall I just don't get why all this panic over revealing cards at showdown just in case you happen not to win it. This is such a tiny part of the overall play as to be nearly insignificant.

I find FAR more value in the information that people give me that isn't at showdown. Many players like to show me what they have (when I'm out of the hand), then explain to me after the hand why they folded or called or raised or whatever else. Or if I'm in the hand, afterwards they'll talk about why they did what they did in reaction to my bets, or why they bet me off, or whatever else. And all sorts of other stuff. It's a never-ending stream of information.

When I'm in a hand at showdown, even if I'm the caller, I almost always table immediately. In fact, I'm saying what I have before I show the cards. "I call, I have two pair." Or if I've bluffed and the other person has called. "Nice call, can you beat 7-high?" And since I don't cause others anxiety at the showdown, they're more likely to share with me all that previously mentioned information at other times. That, to me, is worth the occasional time I make it to showdown and don't scoop the pot, but have revealed that super-secret information about my cards anyway.

One gets to showdown so rarely in NLHE, and there are so many other factors around the play of a hand, so how much could one little hand possibly be worth, especially since my range will be considerably narrowed by this point, and narrowed even more if I muck to a superior hand. I consider myself pretty good at adapting to the history of the table and to what others say and think about me, so this is just one more piece of the puzzle.

The information train departs from the tongue, not from the cards.

Here's the best history post (shameless plug) that you're going to find on these forums:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...4&postcount=65

Long story short is that every old rulebook says "turn your hands over, period" and might even include a penalty for not doing so.

But the "missing link" between those rules (which many old timers agree was the law of the land) and today's IWTSTH is what eludes us.

I've intended to order a few more "ancient" poker texts, but haven't found them cheap and plentiful yet.

I don't see a problem with IWTSTH, personally. If you think it's a "glass tapping" thing, then, well, keep that in mind when you do it.

I guess maybe I look at it differently.

You and I are in a pot, you bet the river I call. You show first and I beleive strongly in this. I don't want you to start asking me if I can beat two pair or hit my flush or anything else. Just table your hand thats all I ask.

I also beleive you should be able to muck and give up the pot. I don't think anyone has the right to IWTSTH. You want to muck and give me the pot, I'm happy. Kill your hand first into the muck and I will gladly table my hand.


All this mexican standoff at showdown is just plain stupid. Every so often I'll get asked at the local tounrey, can you beat a pair and my standard answer ( most of the time)is , I don t see a pair ( with a smile). I do this to prevent slow rolling or anything else. But of course If I hit a monster hand, I'll table it right away.

i don't know how you think these articles undermine the collusion argument. there is nothing in the article that suggests that the rule wasn't designed to prevent collusion. he says he doesn't know, and he offers his opinion that the rule should exist for other reasons (and this is a point aI disagree with him on).

I think we're talking about different things, really.

I agree completely.

I agree. Among the unsophisticated, yes, this can become a slow and arduous process. But among people who are comfortable in the game and have been playing with each other for a while, it rarely becomes this. "Can you beat a King?" "Yeah, two pair, let me table it for you." "Okay, I muck."

In fact, heck, maybe this guy misread that his kicker flushed, or that there was a pair on the board, or whatever. Maybe he'll muck a winner! Isn't that the best result possible?

So I do agree with you that these standoffs are silly, but in a well run game they don't happen that often anyway. But I disagree that it follows that leaving the "showdown order" as the backup plan (as is suggested by RRoP) automatically leads to this. In a home game, there are plenty of reasons not to force people to show, even if you were the caller. Any mild information lost (or revealed) at showdown is more than made up for elsewhere.

Well, because people tend to point to Robert's Rules to back up IWTSTH, and here's Robert saying "what has collusion got to do with it? that doesn't make any sense". It's not that he suggests something else, so much as that he doesn't suggest a connection.

As I said above, Bob Ciaffone doesn't really consider himself the author of the rules, so this is no evidence that some other motive exists. It's just that if anti-collusion were the intent, here's a guy you'd expect to know about it.

The quote I provide in the next post seems to align very neatly with Palimax's theory that "everybody shows" was shifted gently to "you can muck if everyone says it's ok".

I didn't get from it that he doesn't think it makes no sense as an anti-collusion rule. I do agree with him that it is not the most effective aanti-collusion measure.

Do you then require the other player to show? Or can that player collect the pot without tabling the hand? And is the same rule used for cash and tourneys?

The old rules seem to support the conclusion that any player, whether in the hand at showdown or not, could request to see the hand of a player who refused to expose his or her cards at showdown. The "cards speak" aspect of the rule supports the conclusion that the rule is to ensure that the pot is awarded to the best hand and for the benefit of any player who has misread his or her hand.

The rule calling for a penalty of ten chips to the player who doesn't expose his or her hand is an odd rule. If the expose all hands rule is for the benefit of players who have misread their hands, it seems odd to me to penalize them for not acting in their self-interest. The penalty seems more in line with an interpretation that the expose all hands rule is for the benefit of the other players at the table -- to give them information about the holding of each player still in the hand at showdown. Yet I can't think of too many poker rules designed solely to make that kind of information public at the table.

I sincerely doubt that this was their intent. Old-time players looking to make sure that a folded winning hand became the winning hand?
I'll have to read the articles and see what you saw...

Seems to me that it's intended as a penalty for the same idiocy that motivates the IWTSTH rule- people trying to screw around and not show, when they should show.

But, again, I'll have to read and interpret. I'll get back to this, another time, with a followup.

I was commenting on the rule as stated in Hoyle, not on anything in the articles by Ciaffone. In fact, I found his articles unsatisfying in explaining the origin of the rule or the reason for the rule.

I am interpreting the rule as written. Why "old-timers" followed it will never be known, but we can look at the rule and try to determine, based on what it says, what it was trying to accomplish. Just looking at the words in the rule, the intent seems to be to award the pot to the best hand at showdown, even when a person misreads his or her hand. You could certainly have a rule saying that cards don't speak and that a player is bound to the value of the hand that the players calls. But that isn't the rule. So the rule seems to protect players who misread their hand after showdown.

As was mentioned elsewhere, somewhere along the line, players got into the habit of mucking their hand instead of tabling it if their opponent exposed a better hand, and the penalty rule was not enforced. Players could have developed that habit to expedite the game -- terminate the current hand and get to the next hand as soon as possible -- or because they did not want to reveal information about their holding and how they had played the hand.

Got to run to work. Will check back later.

I think you can go according to Hoyle for practically any game out there.

... except poker.

The original "Hoyle" died about 240 years ago, but rules books with his name on them have been in print ever since.

The reason I used "Hoyle" books in my tiny, tiny, tiny bit of research was because they recorded the game as it was being played. The guys at Hoyle didn't make up the rules, inventing games for us to play -- they documented games as others were playing them, and codified the rules.

I'd like some older poker books, but the good ones are expensive.

...but, it's been a good week here at the salt mines, so I'll order a few turn-of-the-century books now

....and it's a shame that "Poker as it Was Played in Deadwood in the Fifties" [that's the, uh, 1850's] published in 1928 is out of stock

...ooh, it is available in 6 university libraries!
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/6300427

Oh, wow, I want to read that Deadwood book! And it's at University libraries near me, even. Hmm...

Certainly, Hoyle is useful for understanding the history. And I haven't read the current Hoyle on poker, tho' I have a book of Hoyle's rules for hundreds of other card games (somewhere...). But in today's day and age, when I want to go "according to Hoyle" for poker, I look up Bob.

The book is currently in the Northern Regional Library Facility, and I've requested it to be transferred to the public access library of UC Berkeley. It should arrive in the next few days, and I'll do what I can to photocopy (or digitally photograph) as much of it as possible.

Thanks for bringing my attention to this title!

This is awesome - I run into this problem once or twice every week, usually because of the same guy. This line will undoubtedly get him to show faster AND put him on tilt. A twofer!

Nice - please post what you find!

Awesome. Scan it all I won't tell.

Er, I mean, it's for academic purposes, right?

I pulled the trigger on the 1897 Hoyle - the first to contain poker as such...

Heck, if the book is in the public domain, I may transcribe the whole darn thing.

Well, it was printed (and presumably copyrighted) in 1928. Books before 1923 are out of copyright. Books published 1923-63 had a 28 year copyright, but could be extended another 47 years(!) -- but presumably if it had been extended, it'd be in the Stanford Copyright Renewal Database, which it is not.

It is my non-binding non-legal opinion that Poker as it Was Played in Deadwood in the Fifties is out of copyright.

Commence scanning!