03- 1-06, LearnTexasHoldem:

Intentionally Exposing Your Hand

Question: I host and run a big poker league with 50 person NL tournies running every Thursday. Deep into tourny 9/50 players remaining I get dealt pocket Queens, and send my 7000 chips into the pot. One guy calls, and another is pondering the decision. I figure my best move at this point is to show him before he makes his decision that I have pocket Queens. I wanted to discourage him from coming in to the pot. It worked, and he backed out because I showed him. I beginning to love this move more and more with Pocket KK and AA. It's not really risky because if you have QQ or KK, and they have KK or AA, you were probably going to loose all you're money anyway. Most people seem to back off knowing that they're calling into bad odds?

Is this move legal? Is it ethical?

I love it.

Jesse

AKA TheJazz

Top 3 Beginner Rooms

Answer:

There are rules are in place that if upheld provide an even playing ground, which is ethical. As long you are playing within the structure of the rules, then you shouldn't have to worry about if a specific play is ethical or not.

This particular play isn't within the rules. Number one, that is considered an angle. Secondly, there is a rule that states you can't act in such a way that encourages or discourages action behind you. By showing your cards you are intentionally trying to discourage someone from calling, which is violation of the rule. Tournaments are strict about this.

Cash games aren't as strict. Sometimes someone will give an opponent a pity show so they don't call (like if they caught a straight on the river or something). It would be really unfair though to show one player and not the other, which violates another rule: No one at a table should be privy to information that others aren't. So when you show your hand to one player after the other guy already called without the knowledge, that is definitely unfair and illegal.

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