06- 1-05, LearnTexasHoldem:
Do I Ever Show My Hands
Do you every show your cards either after a hand win or lose? I very rarely show my hand and if I do it is only when I have won a hand and have a good hand. I never show when I am bluffing. However, I like to show every now and then if I win with a strong hand, which I feel may make someone re-think calling or raising a bluff I may throw out later on. Just wondering what your thoughts are on revealing hands.
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Answer: There is a time and place for everything and I show my occasionally show my hands when I don't have to. Let me go through a few reasons why I would do this. Number one, I'll show my hands to weak players so they don't think that I'm playing differently than they would in the same spot. For example, let's say I keep raising a bad player's blind. If it was a good player, I wouldn't show them anything, because the deception is valuable. On the other hand with the bad player, the last thing I want to happen is to make him/her think I'm trying to bully them.
I find that in many cases it is better to keep the game lighthearted; they are going to lose either way, but I don't want them to leave feeling worse than they have to. Making someone think you are singling them out can sometimes give them enough reason to tighten up (which obviously doesn't work to my advantage). The next reason, in no particular order, is just to show a player that they can't push me around. Now I don't recommend doing this often, but it does have its place.
For example, I was playing in a game recently where I was on a big dry spell -- no playable hands. The player to my right, a good solid upper limit aggressor, saw this and began to take advantage of me, probably assuming I was a weak tight player. In these types of games, it isn't a good thing when someone is pushing you around. It isn't possible for me to do well by just trying to trap him, I needed to put him in his place so he would respect me more and stop trying to run over me. So what I did was play two hands exactly the same way against him; one hand a good play, one a total bluff.
The first hand I had AQ and flopped an Ace out of the big blind. I called his bet and then check raised him on the turn. He was a little perplexed that I could check raise the turn with only one pair, but it won. For the next hand, I check raised him again from the turn and bet the river, and he folded, at which point I showed him the bluff. That both shut up his loud mouth and taught him the lesson that I wasn't someone that he could just lean against all day and expect me to not play back. Again, I don't recommend doing this in most games, but it is necessary in some.
The next reason I would show my hand without having to is as a complete advertisement. Let's say I wasn't getting any action in a game. I might intentionally show a bluff, like 9 high on the river, to instigate new action and to change the player's view of me. Lastly, you can show it just for kicks (like you mentioned). Let's say you raised AA preflop and flopped quads. No one calls. There is nothing wrong with flipping it over and having a little fun when everyone says, "wow!!" Times when I wouldn't show my hand include those when I get bad beated.
Some players actually will call the river bet just to flip over their AA or KK to complain. I never do that. I'll just muck my cards and move on. There is no benefit in showing someone how lucky they got. That might actually make them second guess trying to suck out next time (which is the opposite of what you want).
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