A couple of days ago I was playing at a micro no-limit table on Poker Champs and while sitting in the BB I was dealt:
2 callers around the table and I check to see a free flop:
I’ve flopped a gut shot straight flush draw and a high flush draw and figure it’s worth a bet, the pot is small (3 big bets) so I bet the pot. The opponent directly to my left raises and everyone else folds. At this point I put him on the jack and decide it’s worth a call (you could argue to re-raise at this point, but he had me out-stacked and I didn’t want to risk him coming back over the top) to see the turn:
If my read that he’d hit his jack on the flop was correct I really didn’t see him having the ace also (why limp preflop?) so I decide to push him a little more here and bet the pot again.
He folds.
This is where I make my only mistake of this hand, I flip over my cards to show him my semi-bluff and I immediately regret it.
In the heat of the moment with that “Show Cards” button in your face it can be so easy to click, but what does it achieve really? In this instance it achieved nothing for me, but revealed a great deal to ALL of the players at my table. They now knew I would possibly raise UTG on a draw, they knew I was likely to cold call a re-raise and they knew that I may try and push out of position without a made hand.
I’d let them have all of this information for nothing. If I had just mucked my cards they all would have been guessing and hopefully guessing wrong.
Truth is by showing my cards and then realising the amount of information I’d given away my game play actually suffered because of it, I stopped betting my solid draws/strong hands hand started waiting for monsters. My table image had gone from tight to loose and I was struggling to get respect from my opponents. In the end I had to leave an otherwise profitable table due to the games I played on my own mind!
Upon reflection of this little mistake I’ve come up with the following guidelines for showing your cards on-line:
- In general don’t show your cards after a bluff unless you are 100% sure it will put your opponent on tilt. Don’t forget you are showing the whole table your cards and the people that didn’t play the hand won’t care that you bluffed someone out of a pot. On the flip side this can be a good way to setup your table image as a loose player, which can work to your advantage in some circumstances. Use your best judgement.
- Don’t show your cards when you win with a made hand, keep them guessing… you want them to think you’re bluffing here.
- Don’t show your cards on a semi-bluff, as I wrote above you are just giving away too much information.
- You may show your cards when you make your monster hand (straight flush or quads), the awe factor alone is enough to make these worth showing.
- If in doubt, check the “Muck all losing/uncalled” button and simply never show. That will keep ‘em guessing!
In summary keep ‘em guessing and they’ll never know what you’ll be up to next and you’ll never be giving away more information than you intended.
