This is a pet peeve of mine as well and I disagree with the majority of advice from the 2+2 community. Poker is a game of incomplete information, so I want to see both of their cards so I know how they are playing pre, why they made a bet on a certain street, etc (I obviously won't say all of this at the table). Simply asking the dealer to enforce the rules shouldn't be viewed as uber competitive or bad for the game.

I also always show my hand first and fast when required, even when I'm bluffing. Not only is it the right thing to do based on the rules, but I don't mind the advertising since most of my bets at the low stakes I play are for value.

the wild west showdowns where they are just staring at each other are the worst lol

I've personally gone from being embarrassed to show monster bluffs to being eager to show these. The puzzled looks you get from people who "know how to play poker" is awesome, and you can see them salivating over taking my money because they think I'm an idiot. Then I become the guy who "gets lucky" because I know they can never fold top top to my big river bets. I flip prominently and sometimes call out my hand. "6 high!" It's fun and I recommend it to anyone reading this.

I've always felt that you should show your bluffs proudly. Slap the cards down on the table, either declaring your hand loudly, or just letting the others take it in.

"Oh crap, I thought I had a club. lolol"

Whatever gets me to the next hand quicker is what I support.

I think someone challenged this earlier in the thread, but can you list the last 10 hands that the opponent of greatest interest has showed down to you?

You don't have to post the actual hands here, just say (honestly) whether you can.

Because I (and I think others) suspect that you can't. You play a lot of opponents and the last 10 showdowns against a specific opponent might span weeks of real life time. I think people are intensely curious about what an opponent has (I am too!) but if you think about it as a long term strategy, you'll realize that eventually all you're left with is vague impressions and the exact hands don't matter.

You don’t need to remember the exact hands to quickly grow a rep for “this is how he plays a flush draw” or whatever. I always fast roll in both situations but I don’t mind the rule being enforced.

i could understand this against good players
with fun players just show and keep them happy

at least you turn over your bluffs fast so you aren't being a hypocrite.

Exactly.

So when he declares "K high" and you have no reason to doubt him, you have all the information you need.

You don't need chapter and verse.

That reminds me of a hand I played at 10/20 or something like that at the Wynn. Lots of history vs. villain and I knew he was playing with scared money. I 3 betted big preflop in cutoff with JT. Villain tank cold called like 20bbs out of SB. First raiser folds. Flop J72(or 3 or 4) rainbow. He led after a while, I jammed like 200bbs effective being basically certain he had no 77 and 22 in his range because I knew his set mining range rule was 20x. I was also pretty sure he had no KK or AA because of history. I also had reasons to be pretty sure he folds KK/QQ and maybe even AA in that spot.

He snap called and I was like you got a set of Jack's? Dude said nothing and that only made me more sure. Roll 8 and 9. We started talking at the same time. I was like I am so sorry and he was like what you got? I tabled and flipped the 10 and started apologizing for sucking out.

He wasnt listening. He flipped JJ and said something along the lines that he had the nuts.

I was so surprised he had the nuts, I was like you got QT? Because I got a 10, while pointing at the 10 I flipped over. This was really early in my poker career and I genuinely felt bad for the guy once I saw the cards he flipped over but the rest of the table was laughing.

Finally the dealer asked me to show both cards. Then waited for a while longer to tell the poor dude I had him covered.

Moral of the story: dont play with scared money. Even when you "catch" the idiot, you might end up losing the pot.

Isn't it pretty obviously useful to know if someone is opening a hand like K3o vs KQs? Or if they had any draws or backdoor draws?

If you're playing against someone you see a lot, you will find that stuff out eventually anyway. If you are playing against a random, lol sample size.

This.
If I'm playing against a table full of unknowns, I don't go to my phone, and I do watch every hand carefully. But against people with whom I've played for many hours over many sessions, I have a pretty good book on how they play; I don't really need to pay attention to them on every single hand, and it's hard to maintain that level of concentration over a long session, anyway.
FWIW, there are some players whom I will force to show or muck, for various reasons. But vs. the majority, if they announce K-high, etc., I don't think it's worth it .

It's silly to claim that the information couldn't be useful, as it clearly can be. But still I agree that it's best for the game not to insist on the bluffs not being shown, and like several others I would never insist on them being shown unless the player had a history of either requiring that himself or of angle shooting behavior.

The only time in recent memory I insisted on seeing V’s cards after I called and he tapped the table but didn’t show was when he check-raised me otf and shoved the turn for 100 bb when I had AA on a Q-high flop. He was a regular winning player and so the information was extremely valuable to me.

The only time I have announced my hand as a bluff (“jack-high”) and the V waited for me to show or muck when he had a pair, I must say put me on big time tilt. I had to leave the table. I still remember the V and the hand to this day. It was a limped pot, and I bet like $10 on the river when I missed my draw. I thought it was a poor choice to enforce the “show or muck” rule that hand since the stakes were so low and we’d never played together before. Just seemed like he was being a dick for no reason.

After I showed, I called him out on bad etiquette and to my surprise several players and the dealer sided with V. Since then I simply muck when called on the river when I know I’m not good.

I'd say in spots where there's no ambiguity this is poor form. I'm not totally against it in the case of some regs to needle them a bit, but against a fun player you shouldn't do this......

Im on board with you here. If a player is first to act then they should show their cards first, plain and simple. This would solve all of the problems. Why should the player who bluffed and got called down receive the added benefit of seeing your holdings when it should be the other way around? Ass backwards logic.

This is the tradeoff:

You get to see the exact cards to understand your opponents range vs. you get to not show when you are bluffing. With the added bonus of speeding up the game.

If you always show your bluffs and never have a hand where you want to not show, then knock yourself out.

But that is at odds with the argument that there is valuable info to get. If that is true then it follows that there is valuable info to hide.

Also consider this:

When you see your opponents cards you now have info on one person. When you are forced to expose your bluff, nine people gain info on you.

For the reasons stated above:

I always immediately flip my cards over when an opponent announces a hand that I beat. If he/she is lying they are always lying in the direction of having a worse hand (i.e., they are trying to maintain complete hiddenness of their cards).

There is one added bonus for showing immediately:

Every now and then a villain does not read their hand correctly and they are about to muck a winning hand without showing. I have seen this happen.

Edit: I should also mention that for the most part the exposure of villain's hand will not extend their range. Either they have a hand that is part of a semi-bluff or they have two overcards to the board when they last bet/called. And even when they have a hand like K3o which widens their expected range, for the most part we already know that this type of hand is in their range because they are that bad. However, there are exceptions. Like its a new player so you just don't know or its a really good player completing in the small blind with a really bad hand which tells you he thinks he can outplay you OOP. But even in these cases I flip immediately. To give the illusion that I could care less about what they have. That the only two cards I care about are my own...

I've been playing PLO more lately, when the other guy is first but doesn't want to show his bluff/air, I'll usually just table my two cards that play. It's amazing how many a**hats there are that want me to show all four before they muck, like I'm doing you a courtesy by showing out of turn, just muck your hand or table it if you really want to see the other two that bad. I'm almost to the point of wanting to be that guy who refuses to show first if it's not my turn.

It depends. There for a long session? Are you and the villian deep stacked? Will the cards actually tell you something important about his play? I find annoying people without a reason at the table is a mistake. Unless you want to be the table ahole, which can be interesting and get you calls when you otherwise don't.

if someone verbally concedes a pot to you, then you should show and take the pot. anything else is just wasting the table's time.

I understand why you would say the bolded, but it assumes that others pay equal attention to whats going on as hero does, which hopefully for those following this form, is false.

it all depends on what is best for you in that game