One type of player that annoys me is the guy who constantly shows his cards when he is the last to fold or wins a pot without showdown. Fold to him in the big blind and he shows you he had 9-5 offsuit or laments his luck while he shows you aces. If you get him to fold, he’ll show you that he can make a tough laydown when he folds top pair, top kicker. I just want to reach over, grab his cards before he can turn them over, and whip them into the muck. This kind of guy is all too common.
I don’t mind someone who shows his hole cards every so often, though. There can be legitimate reasons for doing so. Do I ever show my cards? No. Why give my opponents free information? I’d much rather just keep them guessing. The more confused they are, the more wrong decisions they will make. Having said that, if I were to show my cards, there are a couple of situations where I might consider it.
The first is in the middle stages of a tournament as I prepare for play on the money bubble. Once we get to the bubble, I want to try to grab as many blinds and antes as I can from players desperately trying to score a cash. The tighter my opponents think I am, the more likely they will be to fold to my raises. Even if I know I am a tight player, I want to make sure that everyone else knows too, which is why during the middle stages of a tournament, I might go ahead and show a few strong hands after everyone folds, especially if I was the primary aggressor. If I can plant that seed in their heads, the one that makes them believe that when I move my chips in, I have the utmost confidence in my holdings, even the big stacks may decide to steer clear of me on the bubble.
If I am a short stack on the bubble, this tight image won’t work for me as well as it would if I were a bit fatter with chips. Players will be more willing to take a shot at knocking me out even if they suspect I might have a premium holding. I would also be more likely to do this in a sit and go than a large multi-table tournament since I know that I will be sitting with the same players long enough for my programming to be effective.
Along similar lines, I might think about showing my cards if I have had a streak of a few hands where I raised everyone out of the pot. We’ve all had it happen – you go on a sweet run where you get high pocket pairs a few times in a row or keep flopping sets and, while you might not win huge pots, you are still winning. The problem is, after a few of these hands, players doubt that you actually have hands worth raising. That’s when I would consider showing. By revealing that yes, I do have premium hands when I show aggression, I can keep the others from playing back at me.
If I am in the right mood, there is another situation where showing my cards could be both profitable and fun. If I have a guy at my table who has been having a rough time of it, getting sucked out on left and right, and is doing everything he can to keep himself from going on monkey tilt, I have a duty to help him out; it is my job to push him over the edge. What better way to induce a tilt death spiral than to show my cards after I run a nice bluff on him? Get him on tilt and watch him spew chips.
If you really feel that you have to show your cards, in whatever situation, then by all means, go ahead. Don’t expect me to follow suit, though.