I haven't played online since BF, so maybe I'm misremembering the details or things have changed, but my question is simple..

If I'm heads up on the river and win the showdown after getting called and the losing player mucks, I can go in the hand history afterwards and see his mucked cards. Why?

If you call and lose a showdown live you don't have to show, so why is online any different?

now I think only the winning player can see the mucked hand in the hand history, not everyone else, but I could be wrong on that.

Can someone either correct me or give an explanation?

Im pretty sure you can request to see muck cards at many places live as well if you choose. I believe its not done often simply because its considered not great poker etiquette.

Imo it helps finding out collusion, chip dumping etc. And yeah you can ask to see players hand before mucking but it's bad etiquette. Don't play live so just guessing but isn't it when you are last to act when you can ask that before showing your own hand?

In the last meeting of casinos, poker online providers, etc. -whatever the name of this organization is- in 2015 it was agreed that you can no longer muck hands. They said to keep poker as a mental game and stop the trend of gamblers and bluffers that are making of the game coin flip matches. It might have something to do with that.

OP, your question actually goes somewhat against the grain - many 2+2ers are fairly put out by the sites that don't show mucked cards. Such sites are very much in the minority now.

Right. Commonly known as the IWTSTH (I want to see the hand) rule in live poker, it's meant to be used when someone is concerned about collusion, but is often abused and thus frowned upon. I believe some casinos/card rooms have actually stopped allowing it.

If you are last to act (usually determined by who made the last bet - they are first to act), then you are last to act - first to act needs to show their hand. But this has nothing to do with IWTSTH, which is invoked when someone mucks at showdown after they see they're beat.

Wait, what?

I think that showing mucked cards online is good for the game simply because rec players like to see what happened in a hand even if they don't actually use that information in any constructive way. Reg players never admit it, but I think that they often want to see the mucked hands purely out of curiosity also. Showing mucked cards simply makes the game more fun for a lot of players.

There's a social aspect to live games that makes those games fun. Online games need all the help they can get to make those games enjoyable.

I had the exact same reaction when I read that.

Two reasons I will check what opponent had 1 to see if my reads were correct when I win and villain mucks 2 after wft happened when I win. So i guess it's kind of curiosity.

Yeah this is interesting, and all makes sense. Was simply curious rather than thinking one way was better than the other. The history of the development is interesting as well, as I'm sure when poker was first starting to be played on river boats and in back rooms all cards were shown without much hesitation -- that is, if they weren't cheating.

I can't imagine old school riverboat gamblers were very keen on showing their mucked hands.

POTY

Just because I didn't see this specifically replied to, everyone can see the mucked cards, not just the winner.

ACR doesn't show mucked hands, if your looking for a site that doesn't allow it

at the very beginning... they needed to learn the rules after all

If you play on winning poker network op you will not need to speculate.

Sites decided to do it that way. Live, you can ask to see someone's hand also ... but the reason for that is to prevent cheating, so it can be considered rude to ask to see if you do not have any reason to suspect cheating.

I suppose that rather than building the ask thing would have just been more complicated, slowed down the game and someone would have asked just about every hand anyway.