I apologize, I looked everywhere for a thread about this...couldn't find one as most threads were about showing cards after the action....

Anyways, this happened last night. I was not involved in the hand. all I did here is take a side. So All I will do is just explain what happened.

Please tell me who is right here.

1/3 NL Holdem

Player 1 - Named Ed. LAG player with about 500 in front. He is UTG.

Player 2 - Larry - Loose player with about 200 in front. Mid Position.

(Stack sizes don't really matter as this is not a question about strategy, just setting the image).

Ed bets out $25 pre flop, Larry Calls. Everyone else folds.

Flop comes Ace, 8, 5.

Ed says "I am all in". Larry sits there with a stunned look on his face not sure what to do.

Ed, smiling and happy, says "can I show you a card. ..will that make your decision easier?".

Ed then asks the dealer: "Can I show him a card or is the hand dead if I show a card?"

The dealer, kind of new to dealing, has no idea. She waves to the floor supervisor. He comes on over and Ed asks him if he can show his card.

The supervisor says " No, If you show a card during a hand, the hand is dead".

So of course Ed does not show any of his cards.

Just then, Larry flips over a card, it's an ACE.

Ed says "He just showed a card..that's a fold".

Larry calls the all in Bet. He is holding Ace-jack. Ed has Ace-6. Ace Jack holds up and Ed loses $200.

Ed completely and utterly freaks out. Starts screaming. "I want my money back!!" Bangs the table. Supervisor has to tell him to calm down. Full tilt and not pretty.

2 older gentlemen sitting at the table say " the caller can show his cards, he can do whatever he wants..the official rules of poker say the better can not show his cards but the caller can."

This just doesn't seem right to me.

I take Ed's side. He did his part. He asked a supervisor for rule clarification.

Half the table agree with me, the other half agree with Larry. We start to argue and the table gets pretty animated.. There's a break in the action and heated discussion continues for 5 minutes before the dealer says we need to get back to playing. Then things calm down.

Who is in the right here?

I have been in exact same situation. Bet the flop and got reraised all in and the reraiser showed me a card and his hand was definitely not dead.


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Generally the rule is you can't expose cards whilst the hand is active.

I would side with you that by exposing a card before making their decision they are folding, otherwise by flipping over a card they can get a reaction out of the person who bet. I'd argue Ed showing a card is much less worse than Larry showing a card because Ed has made his decision already but neither should be allowed.

In all seriousness (especially when the floor supervisor is there) the hand ruling should happen on whether he is folding or calling before the hand goes any further, i.e. when Ed says he exposed a card that's a fold. Especially when that's a huge huge tell.

I don't understand why the supervisor was called over for the clarification but when the table kicked off nothing happened and you stopped when the dealer told you to carry on, a ruling should have been made.

All that being siad it's up for the house to enforce what they see fit so if they came over and said no that's fine, as much as I think that's stupid, that's what the rule is.

Ed should learn not to raise A6 UTG for 8x. Ed should also learn to keep his mouth shut instead of basically saying you want to get a fold. If the ruling is the hand is dead, he can ask for that ruling after the action is over.

Larry is an idiot for showing a card after the floor just explicitly told Ed that when you show a card the hand is dead. If I'm the floor I'm killing the hand instantly and give a warning on top.

The two older gentlemen should know there are no one set of "official rules of poker", it varies from place to place.

Floor should go **** himself after declaring the rule and then being inconsistent two seconds after that.

Wish someone would have done something right.

So there is no official rule about showing cards right.. it’s a house decision?

I don't think many well-run rooms will have this rule. It's a really bad rule. Killing a hand should be the absolute last resort and almost never used.

Most rooms it's still disallowed to show cards during the hand, the punishment just won't be quite so severe.

Everyone in this hand is an idiot, and the floor handled the situation really badly. He never should have allowed the dealer to run out the board before making his decision. I hate the rule, but I guess Larry's hand is dead as it would be ridiculous for the floor to explicitly tell Ed that his hand is dead if he exposes, just to have Larry do the same thing. There can't be any perceived or actual double standards.

Some places allow almost anything like this IF it is HEADS UP only. Other places obviously don't have that policy. Likely in some places the ruling can vary from dealer/floor as to what they will allow. Usually depending on who is who at the table and connections and relationships! So the answer is always that the house or the individual floor makes these descisions and they can vary a lot.

Is there any 'official' rule? If so, can you point me to a repositiory where these official rules live?

Understandable but the supervisor made his decision. He did not clarify if it applied to the bettor or caller. Therefore, Larry's hand is dead and Ed scoops the pot.

This is my point exactly..there is no official rule.

Some rules in NL holdem are universal. A flush beats a straight. The dealer is last to act each round. etc.

but many times it's a gray area...decised by the cardroom.

What constitutes a "string bet" is another example.

Showing your hand as the bettor kills your hand? These movie producers certainly didn't know that. And apparently this scene was based on a real-life bluff.

BLOCKERS

You missed the point. You asked:

"So there is no official rule about showing cards right.. it’s a house decision? "

As if this was a meaningful question or proved a point. There is no official rule about showing cards because there is no official rules about anything regarding poker. Every room has the discretion to develop their own set of rules. There is no official rule set, period. There are ones commonly used as a basis, but it is meaningless to try and make a point 'there is no official rule to support your ruling', as there are no official rules. full stop.

The rule is what the floor at the time says it is. You may be able to appeal to the room manager, but it would be highly unusual for him to override his floor man.

I don't understand. This was exactly my point. There are no official rules regarding showing of cards.

He is saying there are also no official rules about anything else. If you want to run a poker game where flushes beat full houses (like they do in short-deck hold’em) and you put that in your house rules, that’s the rule in your game. [Unless the local gaming commission says otherwise, but that’s a totally different issue.]

In the same vein, if you want to have the dealer act first preflop, you put that in your rule book.

As to OPs question, I would be livid and never set foot in that card room again. If it was in a casino and I was a big enough table games or slots player whose word had any significance, I would complain up the food chain about the floor. That’s either a ridiculously bad house rule that should be changed immediately or the floor made a decision that almost feels like he had some skin in the game. Let the players show their cards heads-up or don’t, but don’t pick and choose who is allowed to do it.

Very inconsistent use of the rules here, but you never know. There could be a house rule where the bettor can't expose his hand but the other player can. It hardly makes any sense though and I've never heard of anything like that, especially in a cash game.

In the end, the supervisor made the ruling and the ruling stands. (speaking to Ed now, not OP) If there is someone else higher up in the poker room, I would approach that person for a further explanation. Don't ask for your money back, but just an explanation. Do your best to know all the facts, such as time, table, seat #s, dealer name, etc so the manager or higher up can try to check with the cameras to see what exactly happened here and in what order. In an unusual world, but I've seen it done, a manager can make it up to you in the form of comps or even the money back from a drastic mistake.

The official rule should be that if a supervisor comes to the table and says "if you show a card your hand is dead." That when a player at the table immediately thereafter shows a card the floor should rule the hand dead.

(that being said I have never seen "The Official Rules of Poker" but I can't imagine they would say .... The Floor Person should be ignored.

There are official rules. Different rooms have different official rules.

Generally, I prefer either the bettor or caller being able to show their hand while it is heads up. Sometimes a guy thinks he has me beat, not realizing how strong my hand is, so I get confused by his tells, and showing him my hand or telling him what I have can help me gain some clarity on the situation.

The OP doesn't actually state what the supervisor said after the guy exposed his card and Ed said it should be dead. It quotes two old guys as saying the caller can show but not the bettor, because "official rules say so" but is that what the supervisor said? The supervisor must have made the ruling that the hand was live, since he was right there. So what did he say and how did he explain his ruling to Ed? If the supervisor said, yes, that's our rule, bettor can't show but caller can, then that's it, a house rule is a house rule. But I thought it odd the OP left out the supervisors explanation, considering the supervisor didn't make that distinction about bettor vs caller when making his initial ruling.

I prefer neither being able to show their hand while it's heads up because it just encourages players to hollywood and take even longer to act.

So Ed was going to show his Ace, hoping for a fold?

How come in high stakes games they are allowed to show cards?

Because high stake games cater to the players. If they want to be allowed to show their cards, they will be allowed to do that.

In lots of rooms showing cards heads up in a cash game is not a problem.

Quite honestly there is no poker reason not to allow it .... Usually the argument for not allowing is about issues of causing confusion, slowing down the game, and the fact that many players don't understand why cash games and tournaments may have different rules.