I used to do this and maybe say something like "show or muck sir" to speed them up. But now if they say that I'm good or say something like "I have a King" and I have a hand I just fastroll it. I think people sometimes feel embarrassed about making a bad call and I don't see the need to see their specific hand every time.

I have a relatively large player pool though and they're not good and I'm putting into maybe 200 hours a year. So if it was serious money, I'm paying the bills with it, or a small player pool who don't like to show, yeah it would be different.

My rule on it is that if someone has ever angled on a showdown I do proper showdown procedure 100%. Usually regs are not doing any funny business at showdown so if they say “you’re good” I just show my hand. If it’s a rec/fish/whale that doesn’t want to show their hand, I’ll show just to make them happy.

This is probably my candidate for dumbest rule ever. I get not disclosing your hand. But the fact that you can disclose your hand dishonestly, or the fact that someone can ask you what is in your hand, and if you give a non-neutral answer that gives away your hand, or the fact that you can say things like 'I got it, you should fold' but can't say 'I have AK, you should fold' just makes this one of the most pointless, useless, and exploitable rules on the books.

That story keeps going around but is not true. WSOP added a poorly worded rule one year that implied that but it was fixed the following year and it is not in the TDA.

In recent years every casino I have played tournaments in (including in Vegas) don't allow you to describe your hand at all before showdown whether you are telling the truth or not. They also don't allow you to speculate about your opponent's holdings.

Some places (like Foxwoods) don't even allow you to say things like "do you want me to call?" or "Do you want me to fold?"

But at showdown, in tournaments it shouldn't matter. I don't care what my opponent says they have, I am still not turning over my hand even if I know I have a winner. The new TDA rules allow me to win the hand without showing if all of my opponents muck at showdown. So I will always wait until my opponent shows their hand.

As to cash games where people mis-declare their hands at showdown, most rooms don't allow it. They will give a warning and if it happens again, a penalty. However at Bay 101 I was playing in a 20/40 LHE game with an off duty Floor playing and a guy pretended he had two pair at Showdown. I waited and my pair turned out to be good. I called the active Floor over and he refused to deal with it (like it was OK). And the Floor who was playing said nothing during the entire conversation.

Having said that, I have seen clever angles where people say things like "flush" in a way that could be interpreted as a question and then when forced to showdown their hand they have a pair. When asked why they said "flush" they said they thought the other player had a flush. To me its an angle hoping to get a muck at showdown. But I haven't seen it addressed as a rule violation.

I actually deal in this game sometimes. We used to have a dealers choice game and every one dealt their hand, This was many years ago, but I got a reputation as a fairly competent dealer. So I now get called every now and then to deal if all his temp dealers are unavailable. I also sometimes give the host a break for a few hands. So I am sometimes asked for my opinion on the situations that arise and that was my take on this situation, someone had to show.

From the comments in this thread I believe now I was wrong as it seems mostly room dependent and most rooms would not require it. If it occurs again I would not make him show.

On a side note, I have ran the game a few times and had it last 8 to 10 hours. It gave me a new respect for dealers that have to do that day in and day out for a living, god bless you.

Who you gonna push the pot to if no one shows?

Well in this case one player had released his cards and threw them in , so only one player had a hand that could win. The reg had held onto his cards until he was sure he was getting the pot, he just wasn't going to show unless forced to.

If the first guy had thrown in his hand and said I can't win, or whatever, and then the second player then threw his cards in as well I guess that would be a trickier situation

I've asked that question several times and the answer is always along the lines of:
Dealer is instructed to protect the muck so the last player with cards can't discard them. Dealer is also supposed to tell the player he has to show if he wants to win the pot an if he refuses, call for the floor. Floor tells the player he has to show to win and the game won't continue until he does.

No idea what would happen after that because apparently it never gets that far.

Legally I don't see how anyone but the last player with a hand gets the pot.

Early in my dealing career (before the turn of the century)
I was that dealer trying to make a player show to get the pot.

He looked me square in the eye and said
"Who you gonna give it to?"
I thought for a second and pushed him the pot
and decided right there that if only one player has a hand, we are no longer at "showdown".

Showdown = The showing of hands to determine a winner.