at any casino,

are you allowed to intentionally expose your hole cards to your opponent on the river (or during the hand) in order to get your opponent to fold or prevent your opponent from raising and trying to bluff you?

sometimes when you have mediocre hand and you think it might be good, can you expose 1 hole card to induce your opponent to check after you or not reraise you?

Your hand may be ruled dead depending on the room, who is working and their mood.

I saw a guy ask a dealer, "Can I show him a card?", she smiles and says sure, he did, she pushes the pot to the other guy while explaining that exposing a hand kills it. Floor backed her up. Weird stuff happens.

In other rooms, heads up, you can just about do anything.

Its up to you to protect your hand.

Not that I think what you are proposing is a good idea anyway.

what is the point?

if you have a mediocre hand and you show it, i will raise you knowing you cant call

It depends on the card room if its legal to show your cards. Its a bad idea to show since your opponent can play optimally vs you (raise your marginal hand.)

This happened to me at a casino where it is illegal to show your cards during the hand in a cash game (even heads up.) It wasn't on the river so different situation. On the turn, I make 3/4 pot bet. (we are deep 200bb effective stacks, he covers me by a lot, I have 130bb behind after the bet.) My opponent deliberately exposes his cards to "get a read" on me he says. He has TPTK + nut flush draw. After about a minute, he turns his cards back over and calls. I say to the dealer that its illegal to show your cards. Dealer and players say no its not when its heads up cash. I say NO you are wrong at this casino. Floor comes over and agrees with me. The ruling was a warning to the player. His hand is not declared dead.

At this point he has me beat. Due to my image, he likely puts me on top 2 pair or a set. I decide if the flush does not hit on the river I'm in a good spot to bluff since he will only have TPTK and can't call a large bet. The river bricks and he checks. I shove a little less than pot. He asks for a count, thinks for a while, and then folds.

If he does not show his cards, the hand could play out much differently and he likely wins the hand. But since he showed me that he only had 1 pair, I was able to bluff him.

I show him my bluff and he gets very tilted. The very next hand vs a different opponent heads up, he ACCIDENTALLY exposes his hand on the turn showing top 2 pair. His opponent shoves. The guy is tilted and frustratingly calls only to be shown the nut straight.

It depends on the casino.

The only time exposing your hand makes sense is when faced with calling a river bet HU.

Any other time and you're allowing them to play perfectly against you. They know your what your cards are! If you have the nuts they fold. If not, you're the one in trouble, not them. What are you going to do if they raise you?

People do it to try to get a read. Mostly it's just hollywooding, and it's usually a fold. You might induce a call if you find a way to look like you're bluffing without looking like you're acting.

You don't want to give your opponent information while they still have decisions to make. This puts you at a disadvantage.

I had an old lady do this to me repeatedly. It never worked. I took such thin value on her every time. She would show her hand, usually a weak one pair type hand in hopes that you would check on your river action. 100% of the time she did this I would make ridiculous bets. The first time I bet a little over pot, the second time she did it with a full house when I had quads I just said all-in... insta call...ship it!

Or playing a guy who would always show 1 card, you can deduce you can't be beat. Like you have Aces and are scared he sucked out on you on a KQ 678 board. The guy flips an ace and asks if it scares you. You know the best he can have is Ace King...so just go then I guess we're chopping....All-in! Ship it again.

This might work on noobs, but anyone with half a brain will valuetown you EVERY time.

ohhh sure...riiiiggghhht. this really happened huh? If this occurs to anyone outside of your imagination, simply say "call gaming."

Why does anyone think "call Gaming" is the answer to disagreeing with a floor call? They won't do anything other than ask the casino what happened (maybe) and then write a report. I've never heard of a gaming changing a floor call that didn't have to do with the BBJP

I could be showing my mediocre hand to you precisely to make you spazz. I actually thought about this a lot after reading a couple of threads about accidentally exposing your hand with some action left, and whether you should bluff that player.

I came to conclusion that it's not such a simple situation, and automatically betting against the player who prematurely reveals a mediocre hand is not necessarily the best thing to do. I also came to conclusion that against certain players it may actually be +EV to show your hand when first to act, because they would be likely to make a big mistake while trying to abuse you.

I'm not sure I agree. Knowing how to play perfectly when your options are whether to call or not is trivially easy. Knowing how to play perfectly when your options are to bluff or not is very hard, and requires knowing the mindset of the player as well as his cards.

I can think of one situation where revealing your cards can only be an advantage for you. Suppose it's the river, you're first to act, and you have a mediocre hand. You're also extremely confident that your opponent was on a draw that missed, and that he would not bluff when checked to.

Normally, no matter what you do, you stand to win the pot and nothing more. However, if you were to show your cards, preferably "by accident", you may invite him to bluff. This can only help you, because you're very confident about what he has, and thus you won't be bluffed out.

The problem is they can use all available points of information to come to a betting decision. They know your style of play, your past, and even your cards. Sure they might spaz sometimes, but more often than not they will do something leaving you in a bad spot.

dont be a tit-wad....the poster said a player asked the dealer if he could expose his card, she said "sure" with a grin, and when he did she killed his hand.

that is clearly something gaming would be more than interested in, in any state, any casino. And there is no way it occurred.

I'd be pissed. How can they agree that its the proper ruling then give him a warning and not muck his cards. Rules are rules and should not be broken for anyone. If he'd hit the flush I'd be looking for more than the floor to make the ruling.

Playing at the Showboat in AC after they changed their policy to disallow showing cards in cash games, this is how they did it.

First time you showed you get a warning, 2nd time hand is declared dead. I saw several people get warnings, never saw anyone's hand declared dead.

But I never saw anybody show twice, either.

Also never saw anyone make the correct read after showing, either.

That was over a year ago, however; they might have changed their policy since then.

--klez

Holy sh**. I'm not a violent person but if I was that guy I'd really have trouble restraining myself.

--

Grunch: I wouldn't expose a hand at all with action still left to go; you're really just giving your opponents better information and not helping yourself. If you're worried about getting bluffed after checking the river, if you really want, you can expose cards AFTER your opponent bets to see his reaction. But this is still iffy because you're showing your opponents how you play this particular hand and really drilling it in how far you'll go to defend your hand.

If they kill his hand, he would have to be given his call back since he exposed his hand (hence hand dead by rule) before calling.