Do you never show your hands or is it +EV to do it in some situations?Some examples:a. I´ve been raising 90% from bb (3x) and cbetting 90% (half pot). I have aa and 3x, villain calls, flopp is 39j, i cbet half pot and take it down. Is it +EV to show my hand here? I guess i could make villain a little more tight and less likely to check raise bluff, which is good for us in this case.b. Same as above, but we have Ah7h, flopp is 7s7s8d, we choose to cbet, villain folds. +EV to show my hand? Villain will see that we´re not slowplaying our tripps, and we will take down more of our 3bet, and it makes him less likely to checkraise hands like top pair, weak kicker. We can check back next time we flopp a really strong hand.c. We´re 7bb deep and shove kk, villain folds. Showing my hand will probably make him fold more from the small blind, which is good this short. We can limp aa, kk and qq if we want.d. I´m playing a very LAG fish, I´ve played very tight, but now I barrol bluffed him and he folded. Do I show my hand?e. We are 7bb deep with ak, villain seems too be too tight, and folds. I guess i don´t have anything to loose by shoving my hand here. If he´s a bad player he might think "oh, i folded q8s, I made a very good fold. And he´ll fold this type of hand the next time again. Or could it make a fish think "he can´t have it agian so i shove this marginal hand"?Is understand that is bad to show my hand too often when you have strong hands, because opponent will think you are bluffing when you don´t show your hand.
Well; the question you have to ask yourself is: how does it increase my EV?Breaking it down:a) this is a default play. he does expect it, why do you wanna show your standard line? It only might encourage him in folding a weaker hand, giving him more confort because he might the 'right' playb) the problem is: you do not know what comes next. maybe you are hitting trips 5 times in a row - who knows and he will allways give you the credit for it. You cannot influence the outcome. Regardless of what you show here, he never will fold his AA here. It might be different if you do connect it with a 'goofy' play (for betting 1/3 ps only when your normal CB size is 65%).c) irrelevant. he knows that KK is allways in your shoveing range. limpiong KK against an opponent who DOES NOT attack your limps is a terrible adjustment which will cost you plenty of EV in the long run.d) fish do not get the higher level thinking.e) he knows that you shove AK here. he knows that this is in your range. it is not interesting. it would be an interesting showdown if you openfolded AK. I have put a lots of tought in this myself and decided - for myself and in regard to turbo HU SNGs structure - that the only situation where I would show my card is if I am absolutely sure that I can bring my opponent on TILT AND i am furthermore 100% sure, that he will still REMATCH me. Otherwise, I risk that he fells humuliated, which is something most fish' do not like (well, this is not specific to fish).Other than that I believe that:1) good regulars do not get leveled that easily2) i might encourage / confirm one of my opponents play.There were plenty of opponents who show me when they bluffed me from a wet board. Usually they are giving up more EV than they are gaining. Why? I can adjust know. I have influence on that. They have no influence on when the 'set up' next will appear. Also; most of the times, I would had folded anyways, simply because my 9h4h has absolutely no value on a AdKdQc board anymore.
Hi.
I have deduced that there are 2 most common situations where villains show off their hands which could to certain extent affect my game. Though in both cases I sometimes have difficulty to decide wether villain is a fish or a thinking player, since its often hard to assume that LAG maniac is a thinking player.1. Villain checkraises me often on various streets and shows off with his incredible chain of premium hands when he gets a fold.Effect on my play: I will give credit to villain those few times later in game when he decides to check-raise me as a bluff. Ofcourse, downside for villain is that I may appropriately adjust to pot-control more hands and cbet only value hands thus thwarting his attempts to bluff me and inducing a spew.2. Villain checkraises often but in this case he shows off multiple times with trash hands that had absolutely no potential to continue with on a street or two.Effect on my play: I won't give villain any credit whenever he checkraises/floats etc, and will often call him down with marginal holdings like middle pair or so, especially on favorable boards. Downside for villain is that I can continue to play tight ABC game and let him hang himself once I get a actual hand. Still, some serious hand/board reading skills are needed to determine wether villain is just a maniac showoff or a solid player that picked up few reads on you and also picked up some good boards to bluff you. I think that is the most common type I've seen. Also there are some players that very few times show you how they played certain hand during a match (like set or flush draw), only to later on in match they play same hand type differently. This can be quite nasty if you don't figure out your villains agenda. :)
Against experienced players this won´t have much of an effect but I guess it might induce aggro donks into going even more aggressive so you can trap them with a hand. I basically don´t give much thought when a villains show me a bluff or a strong hand in a certain spot. Later in the match I think more about how aggro/random he is than if he showed a bluff or value hand previously.
Thou shalt not tilt.