Yes, players are stupid at times, and that's fine, everyone has to learn. But when it's dealers it just irks me to no end. To wit:

Playing a tourney (first mistake) at a local St. Pete greyhound track this past weekend. (Yes, Derby Lane, I'm looking at you.)

I've been betting 55 all the way on a K-Q-8 board and getting called by LP player. River is an Ace so I take a last shot at representing a hand. He calls.

I say "Good call" he (courteously) immediately turns over his A-10.

I toss my cards towards the muck. Dealer pushes them back to me and says "Turn them over".

Me: Why? No-one has asked to see them.
Dealer: You were called. You have to show.
Me: You're kidding me?!?. That guy over there is nice enough to show his winning hand, no-one is asking to see my cards and you're telling me I still HAVE to show them????
Dealer: Yes.

Then he picks them up, flips them over and then mucks them.

Me: Wow. Just.......frickin'.......wow.

I never could get clarity on whether this was the room rule (don't play there much) or a specific "rule" this dealer decided to create.

Seriously, room managers: Either teach your dealers some semblance of correct procedures, hire people who know what they're doing, or just give up and go run a Dairy Queen somewhere.

And dealers: If your room manager is clueless, please, for the love of God, educate them. Or alternately, just be really mean to them until they quit (hell, I dunno, give them wedgies every day or something), then tell the owners to hire someone who has a clue.

Well, you didn't get clarity. Is it the rule in the room or isn't it? If it is, then c'est la vie. If not, then ask the floor to correct his dealers.

Oh, and...just turn your goddamned hands over at showdown people. It solves all of these problems.

A strong argument could be made that in a tournament especially, the last aggressor has to show.

I'm not sure how I feel on that topic, but I understand the viewpoint.

This has nothing to do with IWTSTH. IWTSTH and related discussions are around making the CALLER show their hand. As the aggressor it is up to you to show or muck - not wait for the caller to show and then decide if you are going to muck. If he turned over A high would you still have mucked? I think not. If he had time to table his hand you had time to muck.

I have players tell me quietly that they want to see both hands at showdown in particular hands. Just because you did not hear the request does not mean that it was not made.

However, if someone makes the request and the player whose hand is being exposed objects I will tell them that the request was made, it was a called hand and he has to show his hand.

I really feel like to have a more legitimate complaint you should have asked for the floor to explain what happened to you before accusing the dealer of being stupid.

If the dealer was wrong, and he may very well have been wrong, you would have possibly prevented the same thing from happening to another player, like yourself.

If the dealer was right, then you would not have made an unfounded accusation.

House rules are house rules. Unless you know for a fact that you don't have to show your hand according the house rules (and seriously doubt you have read them), that's the way it is. There's no "higher law" that says that you don't have to show.

You 3-barreled bluffed and got caught. Move on.

Maybe the dealer was tired of the last agressor doing the showdown dance. When you get called turn your hand over.

its simple, just bury ur hand in the muck!

Or if you think there is some chance you are good and dont want to risk that then turn it over.

This all day, If you get to showdown flip the cards over, otherwise its wasting all of our times in blind levels that rise quickly enough anyway. These situations always feel so ridiculous when they arise, I can't possibly see how the "image concerns" could ever make up for the silly spots people get in because they don't want to show their cards. I wish people would spare us their "uber-metagame" in a $65 tournament, lol.

To answer some of the questions/points:

I never do the "show your hand first" thing. If it gets to showdown I always just show.

However, in this case I literally didn't have time. It was probably less than a second between the time I bet and he flipped his cards. I bet, he called, I instantly said "good call" and probably before the word "call" was completely out of my mouth he had flipped his hand, so there was no need for me to show. So I tossed my cards towards the muck.

Also, no one asked 'quietly' to see my hand. When the dealer pushed them back to me and told me to flip them, I asked him what I said above and as I indicated, no-one had asked. In fact the LP player was in the 10 seat, and I was in the 3. The 1 seat wasn't at the table so I was watching the only person who could have whispered to the dealer (the LP player) and he didn't say a word.

And I didn't stop the game to clarify the rule because I didn't want to be THAT guy - no point in calling the floor and slowing the game down when the decision has already been made and followed. (I should have checked later, but frankly was in a hurry when I left and forgot to.)

And for those who said if it was a house rule I should just do it and move on, the question is why? (I "moved on" so as not to slow the game down, but that doesn't mean I have to accept it as well.)

We have to accept stupid house rules (c'est la vie?) simply because they are "house rules"? Surely you jest?

Yes, you do have to accept house rules. You've paid your entry fee and by doing so have "agreed" to play by the rules of the house.

If you don't like it, don't play there.

The best way to handle this in tournaments is what we have over here.

When betting is complete the dealers says "On your backs" and all players have to turn over their cards.

Simples.

You don't like the rules. Fine. As said above, you don't have to play there. Or you can ask for a meeting with the room manager and explain why the way you want it to be would be better.

However, you presented it originally as, "these people are so dumb, they should be fired for making me show my hand." An above poster illustrates that it is not by any means universal that you can muck a hand at show down. Even in the US, it used to be that at show down, you had to show your hand, no matter what. It may not be the most common rule, but it is not necessarily "stupid." There's enough threads in this forum where some player complains after attempting to muck his hand that he really had a winner to make it understandable that a room might just want to avoid the problem completely by forcing everyone to show.

TBH, I don't care if someone doesn't show. Actually, I prefer it because there is a non-zero chance that the person could have a better hand than me and misread the board.

Fine, bad use of the word "accept". Obviously I accept it for that tournament, but what I meant was that didn't mean we all just had to shrug and deal with it going forward.


Clearly, a better plan, and the one I chose, is to come on to a message board and whine about it to a bunch of strangers in the hope that one of them would sympathize with my plight, go to the venue and talk to the room manager for me, so that I didn't have to waste my time doing it. So that's what I was doing.

(Also, I will continue to try to contain myself against the plethora of "On your backs" jokes which are currently testing the limits of my self control.....)