- When I hear the word “showdown,” I tend to think of two bad hombres with their hands twitching. In the same hand, since in poker we try to avoid actual physical torture.
- At most live poker rooms you have to show your hand to win - but the losing player can muck their cards. If you show your hand first then it is pointless to ask to see because other player.
- If, after the river card has been dealt the person who makes the last bet or raise is the one required to show his hand first. If there is no bet on the river, the hand is over. If players pause or hesitate to show their hand, typically the dealer will get impatient and say something along the lines of “Somebody show me a winner.”.
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- Who Shows Their Hand First In Poker
In Texas Hold’em, the person who starts or goes first is dependent on what stage of the hand being played. Before the flop, the first person to act is the player seated directly to the left of the Big Blind. This seat is often referred to as Under The Gun (UTG). After the flop, the first person to act is the player seated in the Small Blind (SB) position. Thereafter, the order stays the same for the rest of the hand through the Flop, Turn, and River.
What Is the Exact Order of Play?
The order of play is based on how the players are seated at the table. There are typically 6 seat names in poker. UTG (also known as first position) is divided up into multiple seats (UTG, UTG+1, UTG+2) for games larger than 6-handed.
Here is what a 6-max poker table looks like. In the chart, the seats are called Under The Gun (UTG), the Hijack (HJ), the Cutoff (CO), the Button (BTN), the Small Blind (SB), and the Big Blind (BB).
The most common rulebook used is Robert's Rules of Poker. Chapter 3, THE SHOWDOWN Section, rule 8 lists: If everyone checks (or is all-in) on the final betting round, the player who acted first is the first to show the hand.
Pre-Flop Order
Before the flop, the last player to act is always the Big Blind.
On a 6-handed table, the order of play would be UTG, HJ, CO, BTN, SB, BB. Once the first player acts, play continues around the table in a clockwise fashion until it reaches the Big Blind, who acts last on the first round.
On a 9-handed table, the order of play would be that the UTG starts followed by UTG+1, UTG+2, UTG+3, HJ, CO, BTN, SB, BB.
Post-Flop Order
On the Flop, Turn, and River, the last player to act is always the Button.
Accordingly, on a 6-handed table, the post-flop order of play would be the SB starts followed by the BB, UTG, HJ, CO, and BTN.
Are There Any Exceptions?
The post-flop order never changes. However, the pre-flop order of play can be slightly altered if there is a player who straddles. A straddle is when the player seated just to the left of the Big Blind (usually UTG) posts a double big blind bet in front of him prior to the cards being dealt.
Essentially, he is buying the right to act last before the flop. In the case of a straddle, the person seated just to the left of the “straddler,” goes first pre-flop once the straddle has been wagered.
What Is the Dealing Order?
The first person to act after the flop is also the first person to receive a card; the small blind. The easy way to remember this is that the dealer must always deal clockwise to his or her left.
Who Goes First in Heads-Up Play?
The pre-flop order also changes in a heads-up match. Instead of the Button acting last before the flop, he or she acts first instead. The easy way to remember it is that the Big Blind always goes last before the flop. And, in the case of heads up, the Button is the Small Blind, and therefore acts before the Big Blind player.
During post-flop, nothing changes heads up. The button still acts last, even though technically he or she is the Small Blind.
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Dealing Order For Heads-Up Play
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In heads-up play, the Big Blind is dealt to first and the Button 2nd. The button always receives the last card when dealing no matter how many players are seated at the table.
What’s the Order of Play Three-Handed?
The same rules apply whether there are 3 players or 10. Before the flop, the player to act first is just to the left of the big blind. In the case of three-handed play, that would be the button. After the flop, the small blind acts first as always.
Who Bets First?
After the flop and before action is opened, any player can perform one of two actions. They can either bet or check. Of course, the person who acts first has the first option to bet.
When Does a Poker Hand End?
There are a couple of ways that a poker hand can end. First, someone can bet and all the other players fold. This can happen on any street. The second time a hand can end is when the action closes on the river and showdown is achieved. In the latter case, all live hands are revealed and the winner is determined.
Who Shows Their Cards First at Showdown?
Once the hand has ended on the river and showdown has been achieved, the order that each player reveals their hand is exactly the same as the post-flop betting order. The first person to reveal is always the first person to the left of the Dealer and the last person to reveal is the player on the button.
Of course, if a player only has to show their hand if they want to. Many players will choose to “muck” or throw away their hand instead of showing if they are sure they have no chance of winning the hand at showdown. This is sometimes a wise choice in order to not give away information about your hand.
Is It Better to Act First or Last?
Being in position (acting last) is much better than being out of position (acting first) in poker. Poker is an informational game and the person that gets to act last has more information than everyone else. I wrote a detailed article on position; check it out for more details.
What Is the Best Position at a Poker Table?
Since we have established that acting last is most advantageous in poker, the Button would be the best seat at the table. However, in reality, the seat name is irrelevant, as long as you are acting last. Therefore, let me refine my definition slightly: the best seat in poker is any seat that has you acting last in the current hand on the current street. For example, if it is blind versus blind after the flop, then the player in the Big Blind has the best seat possible for that hand.
Why Is It Called the Dealer Button?
When poker began the players had to deal the cards. In order for everyone to get equal opportunity to share the burden of dealing, the moving dealer button was born. Today, in casinos and even in some home games, there are dedicated dealers to speed up play, enforce the rules, and lessen the likelihood of cheating.
Why Do the Blinds Act Last Before the Flop?
The exact reason that the blinds act last before the flop has been lost to history. However, one could deduce that the reasoning is simple. Since the blinds are the only players to pay to play a particular hand, it only makes sense that they should be rewarded by being given an informational advantage via acting last. This theory is bolstered by the existence of “straddles” where one can essentially “buy” position before the flop.
Who Goes First in Pot Limit Omaha?
There is no difference between Texas Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) when it comes to the order of play. In fact, the order of play is the same for every poker game that has two blinds and a dealer button.
When I hear the word “showdown,” I tend to think of two bad hombres with their hands twitching just over their holstered six-shooters in the streets of Laredo.
Fortunately, that sort of thing happens very rarely in your better casino poker rooms these days. If that’s where you are when you hear “showdown,” there’s no need to take cover, as you might have done in the Old West — it’s just a reference to two or more players who are in a poker hand all the way to the end, at which time a winner must be determined.
At first it may seem ludicrous that there are rules and procedures to such a simple process. Can’t everybody just turn their cards face up and be done with it?
Well, yes, they could — but they don’t. Unfortunately, a substantial percentage of poker players possess a pathological aversion to showing their hands unnecessarily. They’d sooner reveal the nation’s nuclear launch codes than their down cards. You can only get these stubborn players to show by making bamboo shoots grow under their fingernails.
The showdown rules and procedures were developed to keep the game from grinding to a halt whenever you’ve got two such people in the same hand, since in poker we try to avoid actual physical torture. (Psychological torture is just part of the game, of course.)
Showdown Rules
There are two different procedures, depending on whether or not there was betting on the last street.
If there was no betting on the last street, the procedure is blessedly simple. The showdown goes in the same order as all other actions, starting left of the button and proceeding clockwise to the button. The first player still holding live cards turns them face up. Then each subsequent player can, in turn, put his own cards face up, or, if he sees that he is not the winner, just pass them back to the dealer face down.
However, if there was betting on the last street, this all changes. In that situation, the last player to take an aggressive action — defined as either betting or raising — is obligated to reveal his cards first. Then the showdown proceeds around the table clockwise from his position, without regard to where the button is. As in the previous paragraph, each player in turn can choose to show his cards or just muck them.
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That’s the basics, right there. However, I think it’s worth knowing some additional nuances and etiquette.
The Showdown Needn’t Be a Standoff
As I said earlier, there are some players who just won’t go along with the program. They like to gain an edge by playing a waiting game. If they delay long enough, they figure, everybody else will get nervous or impatient and show first. Then they can keep their cards secret unless they see that they have the winner.
This especially happens when a player has had a bluff called. He’s embarrassed to show it, but also doesn’t want to just throw his hand away, in case it turns out that he was bluffing with the best hand. (It does happen.) So he just sits there, hoping that you or one of the other players will take the pressure off of him by showing first.
This is terribly rude, as it unnecessarily slows down the game, and makes a tactical advantage out of being willing to be a jerk. Never be one of those guys, and don’t let them intimidate you into letting them skip their proper turn to show. The dealer should enforce the standard procedure, but in reality, many dealers care more about getting the hand finished quickly than niceties of procedure. You can, and should, politely ask the dealer to require the players to either show or muck when it’s their turn. Don’t let the bullies take advantage.
There’s No Rule Against Showing Early
There is no prohibition on showing before it’s officially your turn. In fact, it’s usually best for everybody if all the players still holding live hands when it’s time for the showdown just flip them face up immediately — no fuss, no muss. The procedures described above were developed to resolve that potential standoff when nobody volunteers to show first.
Don’t Slow Roll at Showdown
If you have the stone-cold nuts, or a very strong hand, and yet you make everybody else show first just because that’s what the procedure dictates, you may well come under criticism for “slow rolling.” That is a social faux pas, even when you’re just doing what the rules require. It’s considered polite to show your cards quickly — even if it’s not yet your turn — when you’re holding a hand that you have good reason to believe will be the winner. You can hope that other players will show you the same courtesy when they have the monster.
Where There’s a Side Pot
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Sometimes there will be a side pot. This happens when one player is all in, but two or more others have more chips and keep betting and raising. The all-in player is eligible to win from each other player only the amount that he put into the pot, so when others keep putting in more chips beyond that, they get kept physically separate — a “side pot,” because it’s literally off to one side of the table.
When that has happened, the dealer will always request to first see the hands that are eligible for the side pot. The reason is to get that pot awarded to whoever has won it before turning to the main pot. If it isn’t done in that order, and the all-in player has the best hand, it’s too easy for the dealer to make a mistake and push all the chips to the all-in player, including those that aren’t rightfully his.
(Fun homework assignment: Watch the 2006 James Bond film Casino Royale again and spot the moment when a poker dealer does this procedure incorrectly.)
If in Doubt, Just Show
Finally, until your derriere has logged a whole lot of hours in a poker chair, it’s probably wisest to just always show your cards. Even highly experienced players will occasionally misread the situation and muck the winning hand, and novice players make this mistake a lot. (I’ve done it at least half a dozen times, realizing soon after my cards were in the muck — and probably a few more that I never realized.)
If you always elect to turn your cards face up at showdown, even if you’re sure you hand is a loser, you may give away a little information that you didn’t have to, but you’ll never risk losing a pot because you misread either your own hand or that of an opponent. This is especially true with two-pair hands, which tend to be really tricky and throw people off.
Keep these pointers in mind, cowboy. And leave the six-shooters at home.
Robert Woolley lives in Asheville, NC. He spent several years in Las Vegas and chronicled his life in poker on the “Poker Grump” blog.
Who Shows Their Hand First In Poker
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