Lost Information in Lowball

Where am I?

In the Village

What do you want?

Information

Whose side are you on?

That would be telling. We want Information

You won't get it

By hook or by crook, we will

Who are you?

The new Number Two

Who is Number One?

You are Number Six

I am not a number – I'm a free man!

- "The Prisoner"

In lowball, I often see someone make a bet, get called, and immediately ditch his hand, effectively surrendering the pot to the caller. Obviously, when someone makes a bet like this and dumps his cards, he's bluffing and knows that he can't win if called. That is almost always the case, but the bettor is still losing something very important: information.

When I get caught bluffing, I figure that I at least gained something for my otherwise wasted bet, and that something is information. I learn what hands a particular player calls with for the situation. Did the caller have an 8, and thus made a call anyone would have made? Did he call with a rough 9? The latter is useful information, because it means I can bet more eights for value. Did he call with a 10 or facecard? Or, did he even call with a small pair? If the last, I need to be careful of trying to bluff that player. You may not think you learn much from seeing a player pass and then call with an 8, but you do. If you see this player calling after passing only with eights, you can infer that the player does not pass and call with nines and worse. You can also see that the player does not bet eights. From that you can infer that when this particular player bets, he must have a 7 or better, so you don't have to call as often with eights and nines – and worse. But you can also bluff this player more often than the player who proudly shows down a pair of aces when you show the pair of eights you bet.

Oh, and why don't you get that information? Because frequent practice in lowball is that when someone concedes a pot, the other player doesn't bother showing his hand and just takes the pot. That is perfectly fine, because the dealer pushes the pot to the only player still in possession of a hand (since the bluffer mucked his own cards), and the caller doesn't have to show his cards unless he wants to. Many players do show their cards in such a situation, but some don't. Of course, if anyone, participant in the pot or not, asks to see the caller's cards, those cards must be shown, according to the rules in almost every cardroom. But, as I said, in practice, when the caller dumps his cards unseen, rarely does anyone ask. Everyone just assumes the caller had a "must-call" hand, something like an 8 or 9. But if you don't spread your own hand, you lose that (virtually) free information. You don't even have to actually show your cards; you can just say, "I paired," and hold on to your cards. Then, the caller usually spreads his own cards. I say "usually" because technically he doesn't have to show his cards until you show your whole hand. That is, the rule is that on the showdown, if there is a bet and a call, the bettor shows first. If there is a bet, a raise, and then a call, the raiser shows first. But, again in practice, when you say you paired, the caller usually just shows his hand, and then you can dump yours. Hardly ever does anyone ask to see your hand in such a situation. Sometimes someone does ask, of course, and then it is a "called-hand" situation. When that happens, sometimes the bettor gets annoyed and deliberately tries to conceal his cards unshown among the discards, but doing that is strictly against the rules, and can earn the rules violator a lecture from the floorman. Frequent offenders can be asked to leave the table.

Contrariwise, by the way, when I call someone and that someone just dumps his cards unshown, in the manner described, I often do not show my own cards unless asked. The first player throws his cards away without waiting to see mine, and I just quietly slide my hand facedown over to the dealer. And the reason for this is just the opposite. I do not want to give away information if I don't have to. Of course, if I want to make a point of having called with a pair or a king, I do show the hand. I might do this to keep someone from trying to run over me. But I might not want to show my cards to encourage a frequent bluffer to keep on bluffing. If he thinks I had an 8 or something, he'll just think he was unlucky that I happened to make a calling hand. If he sees that I called with a pair, though, he'll be afraid I have a read on him, and be less prone to try again.

Some players just dump their cards when called in the manner described because they know they're beat, and are in a hurry to get on to the next hand. They don't want to waste time unnecessarily in showing both hands when it's obvious to them who the winner of the pot is. Others don't want to be embarrassed showing that they opened in early position to draw to a 9 and then paired nines, and compounded the first mistake by betting the pair.

Another reason not to just dump a losing hand is to take advantage of its advertising value. You got caught, fine; now show how loose you are by having drawn to a rough hand from a middle position. You'll be more likely to be called some other time when you have the nuts; more so than if the players suspect – perhaps because you haven't played many hands, and those that you have played indicated that you are playing solidly – that you drew to a wheel with the joker and paired one of your small cards.

And still one more reason not to dump the hand is that the caller might not have you beat! I wrote a column a while back about when I opened on the button and stood pat on a garbage hand as a bluff. My hand happened to contain a pair of deuces. The player who called, who had come in on the big blind for a two-card draw, had read me nicely, but had called with a pair of threes. That is, despite his thinking that I was bluffing, he couldn't beat my bluff! He later said he had been hoping that I would just dump my cards and he could then dump his sight unseen. He had reason to think I might do this because once before when he called me in a situation in which it was obvious that he had passed an 8, I actually did dump unseen the two pair I had bet. But that was in a multiway pot, where he wouldn't have passed in first position and then called with a pair, so I knew what his hand was without seeing it. Apparently, I had inadvertently set him up to make the play of calling with a pair in the hopes that, if I was bluffing, I would just dump my cards. He said that in years past, he had called some players with big pairs, knowing that when they were bluffing, they never waited to see his cards. (Parenthetically, that reminds me of one of my favorite cardroom sayings/precepts: "Don't call someone for a bluff if you can't beat a bluff.")