I don't play a lot of live poker so I wasn't sure what to do when I saw my opponent's hole cards. This player was sitting directly to my right and it had folded to him at which point he limped. Prior to seeing his cards I had planned to raise and isolate him but was unsure of his stack size. He had his hands over his cards which were directly in front of his chip stack so his arms were blocking his chips. I leaned back slightly just to get a glance at his chips and when I did he rechecked his cards and I saw that he had K4o. I just happened to have a suited king with a better kicker.

Normally I would assume it's up to each player to protect his hand but in all fairness I had to look from an angle where his cards should have been safely hidden. It was my mistake.

There was still half the table to act after me so I didn't know if I needed to tell him I saw his cards, limp along or just fold. What would have been the ethical way to handle this situation?

I decided to just limp behind and figured if we found ourselves heads up I would then make it known and ask him or the floor how we should deal with it from there.

That seems fair.

For a one off event like this, particularly one you were kinda responsible for, As long as you're acting as you would have anyway had you not known, no need to say anything. If one or both of you end up folding, don't say anything. But Once that becomes impossible, let him and any other opponents know you accidentally saw them, but don't say what they are. Then act as you need to, and apologize after the hand is over again.

By contrast, for people who are just lazy about protecting their cards, some people will give one warning, some will give none, few will give more than 1 or 2 before just using it to their advantage. If the player is elderly or otherwise disabled, I might go out of my way to avoid looking in the spirit of sportsmanship and just general humanity.

There's lots of threads about this subject in this forum although usually the OP doesn't admit to adjusting their chair and seeing the cards that way. Normally there are several options but in this case the right course of action is to let the dealer know that you saw the other person's cards as soon as you saw them and identify them to the table after the dealer askes you to do so. The reason is that your movement allowed you to see his cards that you wouldn't ordinarily have seen. That gives you an unfair advantage over the other player, but also the other players left to act.

There may be some players angry with you but just explain you didn't mean to do it, it just happened. Whatever you don't, don't try to put the blame on the other player.

Tell that you saw his cards, then play on as intended.

I never understand why people think that the only being harmed in this scenario is the guy whose cards you saw? You gain an advantage over all players .... So you should let them all know

It's important, as dinesh did, to emphasize the difference between diifferent types of events.

If you had to put in effort to see his cards, you should act differently than if you didn't put in effort, and in turn differently if you've actively tried not to but saw them anyway.

In this scenario you (OP) should take plurality if not majority blame.

What you do to make it right is kind of up to you and your god. In the more common scenario where people hold their cards in front of them, I usually warn them once (usually I look away and make the "brush back" motion with my hand) and if they get pissy about it or don't care I ruthlessly exploit it. Most people are pretty receptive, people on the Internet claim people get really mad but I haven't seen it.

In this scenario, I'd probably just fold.

Well my original intent prior was to raise, but then I opted to limp since I had him crushed. Granted had I raised whether I saw his cards or not he probably would have folded. What I wanted to avoid was raising, having him call and now he has more invested and I would have felt like a POS if I got in a spot where we're in a raised pot and then tell him I know his cards. Especially since it was completely my fault. Unintended, but it was on me.


Probably not relevant to your point but I didn't actually adjust my chair or make an exaggerated movement to see his chips and inadvertently his cards. We were so close together I simply tilted my head to see behind is arms to glance at his stack.


This is actually a really good point, one I hadn't processed when trying to figure out what to do. Even if he folded and I was in the pot with someone else I have information I'm not supposed to that they don't. It's like when somebody mucks their cards and one flips over the dealer makes sure everyone sees the exposed card.

Same here. It's only one hand.

Just take your one hand advantage and use the information of seeing his cards to your advantage, no need to be a good Samaritan here. You weren't intentionally trying to sneak a peek, and he was careless with protecting his cards, so just take this slight +EV in silence and move on imo.

So you didn't tell anybody you saw his cards, including the K4o limper (and seriously if he limps K4o he probably has no clue about his surroundings), and then limp behind to ensure he sees a flop and you can exploit him in position? That's pretty brutal.

Just raise and let him fold for cheap, maybe give him his limp back if that makes you feel better. You really think he's going to call after you told everyone his cards? I mean what were you going to do on K53r, not get as many bets in as possible? Not raising costs him much more money.

Lots of threads about this subject. If a person flashes his hand to you , I suggest you speak up to the dealer and let the guy/table know what happened . At least the first time. That's fair to everyone. Since in this case your actions partially enabled you to see his hand you could do the same thing , but to keep things simpler and not waste time , you could just fold and say nothing. Next hand.

Folks who flash their hand to you over and over again is a different topic

Like I said, it's up to you and your god, but let me present a scenario why you may want to pass this up.

Over the course of your lifetime you will end up in a lot of borderline / grey situations. And what often casts the deciding vote is your reputation. If you have a reputation of being a guy who takes advantage, those close calls tend to go against you. If you have a reputation as a stand up guy who tells the truth even if it hurts, those calls go against you.

If someone sees you craning your neck, they don't know that you meant to look at your neighbor's chips, but they will definitely see the result of you pwning your neighbor, and there is a very good chance it gets discussed behind your back.

If you're at the WSOP ME final table, the expected value of this single instance probably outweighs the lifetime EV. I would definitely angleshoot, slowroll, and do everything within my power to win, with the expectation of never showing my face at a poker table ever again if I did. But a small stakes cash game? Your lifetime EV almost certainly outweoghs the EV of this hand.

Limping behind when you know there is a dead King with half the table still to act seems like the worst possible play IMO.

Bingo. It's weird that "one warning" became such commonly held wisdom. What about if another player (aside from you and the guy exposing his cards) joins the table or was in the bathroom? Aren't you going to give him one warning too so he knows you might know the other guy's cards?

Note that I have a troll in the Seattle subforum telling me I can point out a pitched card but then should let it slide if I can't identify it and the other player really wants to keep it, so.... yeah....

Ehm yeah if you're wrong about the card and he wants to keep it then stfu, that's pretty obvious?

I mean if I say I have the 3c and I have the Ad should I give that card up? I mean there is no reason I should believe you so either be right or keep quiet.

LOL, right. I'm headed down to the poker room right now to get all my opponents aces (which weren't flashed, yet somehow I know are aces) replaced.

Do you realize how silly the premise is that I can angle without knowing the cards?

Where does 2+2 find these people?

Next up in 2+2 Casino Poker:

"The floor wouldn't let me have a setup so I lost for two more hours. Can I make her refund me the $2k?"

Good thing there are some people who know poker here to cut through the noise.

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Go ahead and do it. You might even get your winrate positive actually.

Here's my understanding of Show One, Show All: if a player with further wagering decisions in the hand sees anything he's not supposed to see (opponent's hand, flashed burn card, etc.), that player has an affirmative obligation to disclose that information to the rest of the table immediately. If a player without any further wagering decision sees something, that player is under no obligation to disclose anything, but any player at the table has the right to see what that player saw, upon request.

I'm not actually sure if this is an accurate formulation, but it's how I approach these situations and it seems to work just fine.

I don't tell them if I do and I try not to look. If they do something like pick them up i'll tell them right away though

To me raising knowing there was a chance he would call with three immediate outs and knowing what those outs were would have been brutal and pretty scummy. Not really sure why you're implying I was trying to "ensure" anything when the entire purpose of this post from the beginning was inquiring about the ethical way to handle it.

If someone flashes their cards through carelessness, my policy is to tell them once and then it's their problem after that.

This is slightly different because the guy doesn't really need to be warned to protect his cards going forward. I think there's two right options, one is to fold and the other is to play as normal but tell the guy you saw them. I can understand keeping quiet though, it's not the worst thing in the world, but it's not squeaky clean either.

If you tell him you saw his hand, which is the ethical thing to do, he isn't going to call a raise. Or are you saying he's going to call your raise if you straight up tell the whole table what his cards are?

On the other hand when you don't tell him, which it seems like what you did, and limp behind he is for sure going to see a flop and with you knowing his hand this is going to be a lot more costly for him than just telling him you saw his hand and raise it up.