Case No. 1: Omaha –
All Four Cards in a Showdown?
Lots of people who play pot-limit Omaha insist on seeing all four cards their opponent is playing when it's time to show down the hands. They say things like: "You need to show four cards, not two," or, "I want to see all of your cards. If you have three cards, you don't win, and if you have five, you don't, either." While it is true that any winning hand should consist of four cards, there is no need to see your opponent's cards when you are winning, especially if your hand is vulnerable. I have been playing pot-limit Omaha almost exclusively for the past three years, and I cannot count the number of times my opponents have misread their hands. Therefore, when I'm in a showdown, I don't care about my opponent's cards unless my hand can't be beaten – in which case I might want to see what my opponent holds, what persuaded him to go all the way to the river. I recently was playing in a game with two extremely inexperienced players from France who couldn't tell the difference between a royal flush and a busted hand – yet a number of regular players kept insisting that they show all four cards in a showdown "because that's the rule." In my opinion, this kind of thinking is rather silly. A friend of mine who was in that game and who was one of the guys asking to see four cards every time said: "If they hold the best hand, they should win, period. I don't want to win the pot on the end if they hold a better hand than I do, even if they don't recognize it themselves." While this is an admirable attitude to have in a big poker game, I cannot agree with his opinion. Poker is not about holding the best hand, it's about convincing your opponents you hold the best hand – by sometimes indeed showing the winner on the end, but also by betting (bluffing) the best hand out of the pot. If someone doesn't know he holds a better hand than yours on the end and he hasn't opened all four cards, there's no need to investigate his hand because maybe, just maybe, he might have overlooked a winner. What's more, your opponent might be embarrassed to win the pot when the dealer or one of the players sees a winner he hadn't recognized (for example, a flush in his hand when he thought he had missed his straight). He might conclude that he doesn't know the game very well, and pick up his (your!) chips and leave, whereas if no one had looked at his hand in the first place, he might have just felt unlucky to have missed his straight and put some more money on the table to try to recoup his losses.
Let me tell you what happened about a year ago in one of the biggest money games I had ever played in at that time (pot-limit Omaha, $8-$8-$16 blinds, $800 buy-in). I was in a hand with aces single-suited and made my standard preflop raise. I got reraised by someone who had never played the game before (and who had made a big raise before the flop earlier with 9-4-4-4 offsuit, won the pot by catching a 4, and was thrilled about "having quads"), there were three callers in the middle, and I reraised full pot, making it a heads-up contest. I had 70 percent of my stack remaining and bet all in on the flop, which my opponent called immediately. The final board showed K-Q-9-8-5 with a flush possible (three spades were on the board), about as bad a board as you can get with unimproved aces. Still, I showed my hand immediately, saying: "I've got two aces," indicating that it might very well be the winner. My opponent looked at his hand, at the board, and at his hand again, anxious to find a winner; in fact, it seemed almost impossible for him not to find a winner in his hand. The casino's brush, who hadn't been at our table the entire evening, walked over to our table at that moment. When my opponent was in the process of folding his hand, pushing his cards facedown toward the dealer, the brush spoke up, saying: "Open your cards, please. You always need to show all four cards in this game." Having said that, the brush then opened my opponent's cards, which already had crossed the yellow line facedown (in Europe, there is a yellow line on the poker tables; when you put your cards facedown across this line, you indicate you cannot beat your opponent's hand and your hand is considered dead), to see if maybe, just maybe, my opponent might have overlooked something. When I spoke to the brush afterward about his horrible decision, he didn't understand why I was mad – after all, I won the pot, right? (My opponent indeed couldn't beat my aces, his hand being J-J-3-2 offsuit). It's hard to keep your cool when decisions like this are made; sometimes it seems that the people who are supposed to know what the game is all about don't have a clue. This particular pot contained more than $3,000, and the interference of a third person who had no business interfering in the first place might easily have cost me this amount when my opponent had already folded; but in a showdown you need all four cards, right? The thing is this: Only the winning hand should consist of four cards; the losing hand can consist of one, two, or even 10 cards, because it's just not relevant. The losing hand can be a busted king-high flush draw or quads, for all I care. If my opponent doesn't want to show down his hand when I've shown mine, I don't want to know about it; why then should players who are not even in the hand (or, as in this case, the brush) want to know?
Case No. 2: One Player to a Hand?
In my favorite casino in Vienna, Austria (people who know me or have read my works know that I consider Vienna to be my "second home"), there is a rule that states: "Whenever you open your hand or show it to somebody else when there is still action possible, your hand is declared dead." This rule was brought into play for two reasons:
1. The casino wanted to protect honest players against possible angle-shooting. If you share your hand with a neighbor who has folded, you might get some important information about the quality of your hand, whether it might be good or not. For example, the board shows A-A-4 and you hold a high pocket pair. If you share your hand with your neighbor, he might react to your "friendliness" by telling you he folded an ace, making it more likely your pocket pair is good.
2. To prevent arguments that may arise if an all-in player shows his hand prematurely when other players are still in the hand. Let's say there are two players on the end who still have money left; a third player is all in. Player No. 1 bets the pot on the end. He has a good hand, but from player No. 2's perspective, he might very well be bluffing, so player No. 2 is thinking about calling the bet. If the all-in player now opens his hand prematurely and player No. 2 can't beat the all-in player's hand, there is no way player No. 1 is going to win any more money, which he might have won otherwise (and which, of course, he was entitled to). With the new rule, the hand of the all-in player is declared dead, because he influenced the outcome of the hand by opening his cards before it was time to do so – even though he may have had the best hand, and therefore would have won. It's a good thing the house tries to reward the people who play by the rules and punish the people who don't. Still, while the thought behind the rule is OK and enforcing it in cases like these would be appropriate, in reality, it doesn't always work like that. What happens is that if a new player gets into the game and shows his hand to his neighbor (or to a railbird, or to his girlfriend) with no intention of picking up any information whatsoever, his opponents can have his hand declared dead, even if he holds the nuts and they hold nothing. If the brush is called for a decision, he has no other choice but to rule this player's hand dead, because it is the rule – even though the rule was intended to protect against angle-shooters, rather than reward them and punish those who are just trying to be friendly.
Some Final Words
While I'm no authority on rules and don't claim to have more knowledge on them than anyone else, it sometimes seems that the people who are in charge (the ones who should be enforcing the rules) don't seem to know much, either. In my opinion, rules are there for two very simple reasons: (a) for the sake of honesty, and (b) to enable games to run as smoothly as possible. When there's a dispute at the table, the brush should take a close look at who is most likely to profit from any decision he might make. He has to analyze whether the player who made the mistake might have been trying to gain any kind of advantage by his actions or was just unaware that he was actually doing something wrong. He should then make his final decision by taking all of these factors into account, rather than simply point to the rulebook and enforce a rule that was originally intended for a totally different reason – a rule that seems to cover the problem but in fact doesn't.
In the first case, the brush interfered without knowing why, stating, "A player needs to show all four cards in a showdown," when the rule actually reads, "A player needs to show all four cards in a showdown to win." In the second case, a rule was implemented that penalizes people who are unaware they are doing something wrong, and who have no intention of breaking any rule and are there just to have a good time. Any rule that does this is not good for poker, if you ask me.