Show one, show all drama in the Borg $2-5 NL

[AKQJ10]

Prologue
I admit it. When it comes to show one, show all (SOSA), I'm a nit. Maybe it's because I keep flashing back to high school and thinking all the cool kids on the other end of the table are leaving me out of their clique. Or perhaps it's because it drives me crazy that, by trying to hide their hand from me but not from others, my opponents are affirming the value of information but also claiming the right to selectively distribute it. Regardless, I keep getting myself in situatinos where I stupidly make a big deal about SOSA, when the value of the information (though real) is tiny compared to the negative value of putting the whole table on edge and marking myself as a nit.

The drama
This situation from the Borgata $2-5 NL yesterday is a good example. (As usual, the irrelevant details may be slightly fuzzy.) I picked up AA in late middle position in the 10 seat with a stack of about $300. Seat 7 raised UTG + 2 to about $25. I reraised to $75, the BB called, and Seat 7 thought for a while, showed his neighbors, and folded. I asked the dealer to set aside his cards so I could see at the end of the hand, which she did.

The flop was two-suited so I bet $100 or so and took down the pot. Seat 8 now asks me to show my hand. Possibly out of pique I promptly shove them into the muck, which of course is my privilege since I hadn't shown anybody anything. At that point all hell breaks loose.

Seat 7 reaches over to his mucked cards, which the dealer had been protecting (obviously not very well!), and tries to wash them into the muck. Because she was holding them to her left, he had to reach all the way across the board to do this. Pissed off, I react impulsively and reach in to stop him and flip up four or five cards including his hand, which I made out to be AQ. The floor is standing nearby anyway, and I start to tell her the whole story, but figure it's best left for away from the table. Realizing that this episode has probably ruined the atmosphere of the table, I ask for a transfer.

Fortunately after we trade a couple of verbal barbs -- and he insists that my asking to see was against poker etiquette -- things calm down and get really silent for maybe an orbit or two. Before I get my transfer, the table appears to be back to yukking it up, so I don't think this dispute ruined anyone's vacaton or anything. Still, I'm glad to get away from that table.

After I get my transfer, I speak out of earshot with the floor. She supports me on every point up to where I reached into the muck to counteract my opponent's reaching into the muck. (I know this was an impulsive mistake on my part, and I admit much to her). "Why didn't you explain the whole story to me then?" she asks. "I could have given him a penalty of time away from the table!" I explain that I didn't want to increase tensions at the table any more than we had already done.

Epilogue
I don't blame people for treating the contents of their mucked hand as precious information. What I don't get is, given that it's precious information, why don't you grasp a rule that entitles me to the same precious information as your neighbor? If it's that big a deal to you, don't show him! Or even so, given that you don't really understand SOSA, once you get it explained to you by me, a dealer, and a floor, why do you go to such lengths to insist that we don't understand poker etiquette? (Human nature not to admit error, I know.)

I'm not without fault here -- reaching in to stop Seat 7 from washing the muck was clearly a no-no, and calling the floor instead of reacting would made it crystal clear who the offender was. But more to the point, I'm not sure at what point invoking SOSA makes me the table nit and turns -EV. Should I never have asked to see his hand?

I'll write up a few other observations of my AC weekend in a separate mini-trip report, but this was probably the least uninteresting anecdote.