Post-by-post this is getting pretty boring for (i'd venture to say) everything but the participants. In general, though, i find it a really really fascinating thread because it illustrates a huge culture clash in poker. You could very casually say it's between the "old-time poker mentality" and the "young hotshot mentality", although taking those stereotypes too far would be lamentable. I'm late 30s, playing since 2004, but try to internalize the "old-time" because that seems to be long-term more respected at the stakes i want to be playing.
I see value in both points of view, though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Lyons
There was a couple of dealers in the Fitz in Dublin who used to (jokingly) say "First to show wins the pot." at showdown, to egg players along.
Funny thing is, they were usually right.
That tilts me more than anything else ITT (except my next point), because it's a service professional who's either ignorant or disinclined to do his job. I probably wouldn't actually say this, but i'm very tempted to reply, "First dealer to run the game gets a tip!"
Quote:
Originally Posted by lawdude
(As for "low limit 1-2 loser", I can't emphasize this enough-- if you call and have no idea the range of hands your opponent has, you are not a good poker player. And if you DO know your opponent's range, you don't need to see the opponent's hand as the range estimate is more important than the actual holding.
In other words, you are asking for information that no decent player needs anyway.)
Quote:
Originally Posted by jack492505
While im in favor of just flipping your cards over, people keep saying #2 and its a little silly. Yes of course that's true. But where do you think we get ideas of what someone's range is? From seeing hands.
Discussed to death, i know, but the reasoning expressed by lawdude and some others is just atrocious, by far the worst rationale expressed for any point of view ITT. Mediocre "decent" players are happy to "wait for a good spot" and avoid scary river bets in big pots and all sorts of other stuff because they can win enough anyway. Experts are always looking to maximize value in all situation. If,
leaving aside all the very valid reasons that getting this information isn't zero-cost, you would refuse to accept information that actually is zero-cost because "decent players don't need it anyway",
decent probably isn't the word to describe your approach to poker.
jack492505 is right of course. Good players are able to come to a preliminary judgment yet still refine that judgment as new info comes in.
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Now to my longwinded point: At the tables, i tend to adopt a third way that's between the two extremes expressed here (and most similar to Ray Zee's post). From what i can tell, 90% of recreational players go by this same approach and just don't spend a lot of time fretting over the edge cases. I'm not eager to give away free info or fail to obtain it. If i call and don't think i have a winner, i'll wait a couple of seconds for the aggressor to table. If they don't, depending on my intuition about motives, i'll either take a non-conciliatory or conciliatory approach.
My conciliatory approach is just to say, "I have jacks" or "Two pair" or whatever. I still wait for affirmation i'm good; if it doesn't come, i'll possibly table the hand anyway (again, judgment call). If they show up with a better hand they didn't misread, i'll consider it a slowroll and try to remember to make them show in turn next time.
If the conciliatory approach seems inappropriate, I'll reiterate, "I call," with an intonation implying that they might have misunderstood the action and not know it's time to show. If that doesn't work, i might state, "I called
you" and let the dealer do their work.
Summary: I think either the strict or the conciliatory approach can be appropriate based on intuition about the situation.