Who shows when someone calls all-in on the end?

[Siegmund]

The hand that provoked the incident actually occurred online, but since the B&M forum is the one which is frequented by real-life floormen.

I am in a limit $2/4 game, shortstacked. I have AA, and by the turn, it's just me and one other guy, and I have $10 left.

He bets, I raise, he calls. I have $2 left.

On the river, he bets $4, I call $2 all-in, he takes his other $2 back...

and now *my* cards are faced, and *his* are mucked without being shown.

I inquired of support as to whether this was a bug, and received a polite reply: "Thank you for your email. I have had a look at the hand in question and would like to state that the other player has the option of mucking his cards as he was not all in."

Is this normal? First time I've seen it. I guess it only comes up if someone calls all-in on the river specifically, since otherwise both hands would already be face up.

[Photoc]

Actually, in live poker, last aggressive action (bet or raise) player must show first.

[youtalkfunny]

[ QUOTE ]
"Thank you for your email. I have had a look at the hand in question and would like to state that the guy who wrote our software knows a lot more about software than he does about poker--but I would get fired if I stated such a thing, so I won't. I mean, we could get that fixed, but that would take time and money, so why should we bother?"


[/ QUOTE ]

[_TKO_]

[ QUOTE ]
Actually, in live poker, last aggressive action (bet or raise) player must show first.

[/ QUOTE ]

This indicates that the other player should show first. The bug in the software could be that you going "all-in" was considered the last aggressive action.

[Warren Harding]

I think a key fact in online poker is that one knows instantaneously, before cards are shown, whether s/he's won or lost. So, you can muck all losers if you chose (many check the box to do just that).

[ReptileHouse]

You can't look at the hand history and see what he had?

I haven't played online in a while, but I know at least on some sites you used to be able to see all hands that went to showdown in the HH.

[lossage]

[ QUOTE ]
I think a key fact in online poker is that one knows instantaneously, before cards are shown, whether s/he's won or lost. So, you can muck all losers if you chose (many check the box to do just that).

[/ QUOTE ]

Most of the more highly regarded sites don't use this omniscience to just expose one hand. They do what one would do in a B&M cardroom: table the hand of the player who made the last aggressive action, then muck or show each next hand to the left according as it loses to or beats the last one shown.

So, if you bluff-raise on the river in Hold'em, and you get called and lose, your hand is exposed (even if you've enabled the insta-muck option), even though the computer could theoretically have tabled the winner's hand first, since it had a priori knowledge about the winner.

The behavior the OP describes is a bug, insofar as it doesn't match commonly accepted practice in live card rooms. This is important, since at least a few sites don't allow one to see mucked hands in the hand history.