Show One Show All.

[craigdunn2 0]

Daniel et al,I was curious about the references you made to the various rules of tournament poker from your May 14th entry. In it you discuss your support for your ability to be able to show one of your hole cards to an opponent in heads up play, and I agree entirely with you, it's an intrinsic part of Poker, but you go on to say:

Has anyone ever heard of a poker player getting upset, and thinking it was "unfair" that an opponent, in a heads up pot, showed him a card either during or after the hand? Are you kidding me? It's time that we rethink some of the rules and ask ourselves if they really make any sense at all. This one, the "show one show all" rule, clearly doesn't.

Now, in my opinion whether or not you may show a hole card to an opponent, and the "show one show all" rules are quite different - one discusses the mere action of showing any other player your hole cards during a hand, the other is distinguishing between showing just one player and not the rest of the table (after all, with your hand with Sammy that you discuss, you could easily have shown Sammy your 10c by flipping it over so everyone else could also see it). The latter opens up a can of worms as by revealing one or both cards to one oponent during or after a hand but not to other players is giving valuable information to one player whilst the other players have no way of gaining it thus creating an unfair advantage for your opponent over the other players at the table and could be perceived by some to be border line collusion since you have deliberatley given advantagous information to one single player. I'm curious if this was just the wording you chose or if you actually disagree with the "show one show all" rule?On a secondary note, what is the difference between showing a player a card in heads up play, or showing the whole table your card pre-flop? - I mean, it follows the same logic doesn't it?;)Cheers,CraigPS: Finished reading "Hold'em Wisdom for all players" yesterday, great book - I'll be reviewing it somewhere soon

[looshle 6]

he's referring to the bellagio rule, which is show one card, show both

[craigdunn2 0]

he's referring to the bellagio rule, which is show one card, show both

Ah ok - might be an anglo-american translation thing - here in the UK I've only ever heard the term "show one show all" being used for players, not cards. Certainly here I've never seen a player pulled up for mucking one card and showing the other after the hand, but I've seen a couple of variations for showing one card while in play.Makes more sense now

[13CARDS 0]

Here is a classic example from my boss as to why you cannot show your cards in multi-way pots:50-100 Limit Hold Em. Very loose table. Often capped pre-flop with 4-6 players. Hero has been beating Villian consistently all night. Several times Hero has laid bad beats on the Villian and Villian is truly steamed up at this point.Hero is UTG and raises with A-A. One fold and then Villian (after just losing yet another pot to Hero), loudly yells "Damn It!! Raise..." and TURNS OVER POCKET KINGS.Now, what do you think happens to the action with 7 people left to act??? Right, it folds all around to the Hero.Exposing cards in multiway pots is bad ettiquette. It either kills action or supports collusion. ********************************************************************************************************************************Now, in HEADS-UP situations, I believe all is fair. Show cards, talk, move chips around (careful with this one!), etc etc etc.

[PairTheBoard 0]

Daniel promotes changing the rule in tournaments. When it comes down to the last two players in the tournament, I don't see any reason not to allow the showing of 1 or 2 cards. But prior to that stage, even in a heads-up situation, I imagine there are situations where it could lend itself to soft-play or tourny strategy collusion-type use that would damage the tournament's integrity.Not sure what would be good examples though.PairTheBoard

[DanielNegreanu 141]

That was the other so called "reason" for this rule, but the idea that people would show each other cards as a form of collusion is easily shot down by logic. Does anyone REALLY think that if two players were cheating or colluding, that they would show everyone their cards and let them all in on the fact that something shady is going on? Cheaters would never do that as they have many other options for signalling each other as to what they want their opponent to do. In fact, by showing a card sloppy colluders could actually be exposed where otherwise it would difficult to detect.

[13CARDS 0]

I had quite a discussion with Amnon Filippi, Brad Booth and Jason Sagle last October about this/these rules. Chris Bigler had been very vocal to me during the 2006 NAPC in Niagara Falls about exposed cards. He felt there was never a situation where one/both cards should be allowed to be exposed. Our TD had already agreed with the staff to allow card(s) to be shown when it is heads-up. After talking with Filippi, Booth and Sagle, they all seemed to agree it was a pretty standard rule now but they would prefer it not exist. Our TD decided to be different, and therefore better, and NOT change our stand.