a couple of situations in a home game

[disko]

here are two situations that came up at our home game. i will tell you how i ruled on them after, but im keen to know what people think is the correct decision.

1. a player is put all in and has a decision to make whether to call. he announces his hand to the other player to try to get a tell. is this allowed? he may or may not be telling the truth of course.

2. same situation but the player flips up his cards, shows them to the other player and asks him if he wants a call.


what would you do if it was your game?

[Small Fry]

Cash or Tourney? Cash it's perfectly acceptable, tourney it's not. If in a tourney I would warn the player that telling or showing your hand while still in play is in violation of the rules and if it happened again he would be penalized, by sitting out for a period of time all the up to declaring his hand dead (bit extreme but might be necessary). If you announced this to the table for example #1 and then example #2 happened shortly after you would have no choice but to impose a penalty on the player as you just explained the rules. If Example #2 is a totally seperate incident then once again explain the rule and future penalty.

If this was my game (tournament) then I would impose a time penaly for both situations unless it was a player plying for the first time. All my regulars have had this rule explained and imposed several times so they know (I have actually declared a hand dead so they understand I'm serious about the rule of not telling or showing your hand.)

[disko]

it was a cash game. so there is no problem at all with either in a cash game?

[pfapfap]

You can generally say or do what you want when you're in a pot heads up, but people should keep a lid on it when there's more action pending with more than two people in a pot. Nobody who's not in the hand should say a darn thing, and things like "I can't beat a flush" when folding are also no-nos.

That said, a lot depends on the nature of the game.

If it's a serious game, then one player to a hand, and that includes things like, "do you have a club?" on a 4-club board, as it's up to a player to read his/her hand (or just table it and have cards speak, but you shouldn't encourage someone to do that either). I like to run my game somewhat seriously, and while there's a lot of joking around and craziness, we respect this aspect of the game.

I also play in another game with mostly crazy gamboolers and the tight-ish people who like to take their chips, and in that game anybody says pretty much anything, even theorizing as to what bets mean, etc. I don't mind this at all, as those talking tend to reveal more about themselves than anything going on, and most of the times they're wrong about what they say about me. Even if they're right, it's all helpful.

In other words, take the temperature of the game.

[Small Fry]

[ QUOTE ]
it was a cash game. so there is no problem at all with either in a cash game?

[/ QUOTE ]

Precisely. Cash game - do whatever you want. (We are assumeimg the hand is heads up, right. )

The difference between cash and tourney play is as long as a player is still in the tournament he has a vested interest in the outcome of every hand, whether he's in it or not, as players could be eliminated and /or chips stacks altered. So by a player telling / showing his hand he may alter an outcome. In cash the outcome of a single hand that you are not involved in has no impact on you (baring somebody else fleecing the fish before you can of course...lol)

Also, once a tourney is down to just two players left total, they can show their cards or talk about their hand.

[Taso]

[ QUOTE ]
it was a cash game. so there is no problem at all with either in a cash game?

[/ QUOTE ]

As long as its just the 2 of them in a hand, perfectly fine.

[Spurious]

I think in a homegame tourney its up to you, if you want to allow the players to show their hands in a headsup pot.
In big tournaments there is this rule, but i think in a homegame everyone can make their own rules :/

[psandman]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
it was a cash game. so there is no problem at all with either in a cash game?

[/ QUOTE ]

As long as its just the 2 of them in a hand, perfectly fine.

[/ QUOTE ]

One other thing to note is that a player flipping his cards should make it clear that he is not folding his hand face up. Either by announcing what he is doing or at leats by keeping his hand on the cards.

One common problem with hand flipping people is that they aren't clear and they toss there cards over and it looks like they are folding their hand face-up -- then the other guy tosses his cards in thinking he has won or flips his hand over to show because he thinks it is over.

[PantsOnFire]

In a cash game, players not in a hand don't care what happens during that hand. In a tourney however, all players are concerned about others and their stacks and whether they are close to busting out.

For cash games, flipping the cards over could be a problem. Player A goes all-in Player B flips his cards over immediately and says nothing. Player A then flips his cards over and says full house. You can see how this could be a problem. An experienced player can take advantage of a rookie here so you might want to head off something like that.

As for your OP, I see nothing wrong.

[Al Mirpuri]

If heads up both situations allowed.