Should you show your bluffs at the table? Should you show your monster hands? While the answer is normally "no, only show your hands at showdown" - there are times when tabling your cards on earlier streets can actually benefit you.
In this video, SplitSuit answers a question sent in by John regarding showing bluffs, Aces, and WHEN to do it. The discussion revolves around poker as a game of information, why giving information for "free" is typically a bad idea, and what good players are........
Comments
Showing bluffs is stupid. Showing monsters, however, seems to me like a decent idea. It's much easier to play with a tight image; a tight image allows you to pull off some easy bluffs. Whereas playing with a lose image is a much harder task: it becomes harder to bluff, you end up having to actually wait for big hands, I see so interest in it. It's so easy to play tight, show that you did have the nuts when you make a big bet and had it, and establish as 'nit image' and use that image to pull off some nice situaltional bluffs later on. This way you can sit on a cash game for hours, while maintaining your stack even though you're card dead (which, let's face it, is about 90% of the time when you play poker...) and eventually you will get a good run of cards and at that point people will pay you off anyway.
Pretty much spot on - if you don't have a game plan in mind, just never show when you don't have to. Different players will react differently though - you never know if person X at the table is going to think "they were bluffing; they might be a bit looser!" or "they showed that they were bluffing, so they're trying to make it seem like they're looser - which probably means they're tighter". I believe in video gaming this kind of 'layers' of thought is referred to as yomi, and it's basically cyclical; you could think that they're going to read you as a bit tighter if you show a bluff (due to the thought line above), so you could show a bluff and actually be playing a little looser against that particular player. So, ultimately, if someone does show you a bluff - and you haven't read them as a total fish - you can't necessarily read too much into it either. I'm not saying ignore the information, but don't let it change what you're doing too much.