February 9, 2006
My own feeling is that no one should be required to show a losing hand when playing online at Pacificpoker com. There are several pluses to this method. It's faster. It doesn't embarrass weak pacificpoker players, bluffers, or maniacs. And it prevents the problem of someone who shows his hand when requested having a winning poker hand. Believe me, this does happen, and when it does, a long discussion ensues as to whether the hand was dead, touched the muck, and so on. This always creates arguments and hard feelings, and in some cases can even break up a pacificpoker rooms game.
If you are playing in a game in which anyone can ask to see the losing hand, I consider it poor form to ask. When someone in a multihanded pot asks to see the losing hand of one of the raisers, it is often a thinly veiled accusation of cheating. Sometimes a nonparticipant in the pot will ask to see a hand, hoping to learn how someone plays or just to annoy him. How can that be annoying? Imagine losing a large pacificpoker .com pot to a two-outer on the river. You are trying to breathe deeply and maintain your cool, when some jerk across the pacificpoker com table asks to see your losing hand. (I'll save my First Amendment arguments for freedom of speech at the pacificpoker table for another column.) If you really are curious, ask a player if he would mind showing his hand. Quite often, someone is willing to show voluntarily, especially if you extend the same courtesy to him on future occasions.
Thirty-three players, mostly young, mostly goateed, cluster around three pacificpoker tables, playing a low-stakes tournament. The sounds of chips riffling through fingers and the joshing banter that surrounds card games everywhere fill the pacificpoker room. Posters for mob movies provide the modest decoration. The Sugar Bowl is on television in the corner.
There's one exception to the overwhelming crush of testosterone. "Clonie" Gowen sits wrapped in a black shawl, her purse in her lap. Her blond hair is a jolt of color in the thicket of baseball caps. She is a professional pacificpoker com player, the only one in the room but early in this tournament, she doesn't act like it. Gowen bets aggressively, plays bad hands and loses often. This Texas Hold'em Pacificpoker tournament allows rebuys and she takes full advantage; buying $160 more in pacificpoker chips on top of the initial $40 buy-in. The players joke about the steak dinner that goes to the player with the most rebuys and it looks like Gowen's going to eat steak.
