a useful "fault" to exploit regarding mucked hands

I am fairly certain that you can do this at Poker Room too.

To reiterate what Ben is saying this can only be done with hands that are mucked after they have been called all the way to the river.

So, if you call, lose and muck, yes someone else can review the hand history and see what you called with.

Yup I have seen this happen on Stars.. happened on a hand I had 4 jacks on, while the others had a full house and straight. Was quite wild actually. 4 callers all mucked at showdown.

Not sure on UB, I havent paid attention.

wooow!!? Seriously...i didnt have any clue but thats pretty sweet

Thats awesome, I tried it and it ended up giving me a few dollars in a sit and go. I wouldnt have called someone, but I saw what he was doing. Great heads up. Thanks guys!

just for the record all poker sites that allow you to request the hand history will show you what an opponent mucked as long as it was mucked at the showdown. Obviously, if they fold you can't see what they had.

So it happens for sites like, UB, Party and affiliates, Pacific, PS, Criptologic (sp?) sites and any others that do hand histories.

Can anyone clarify what sites this works on?

I agree with the other person that commented, if I muck a hand it should stay
mucked. I didn't realse that some sites will show others what you have anyway if they just look at hand history.
What is the point of giving the "muck" option if this is the case?

Cheryl

I've read that the reason PokerStars does it (I presume that other sites have similar reasoning) is to allow players to detect potential collusion situations easier. For example, say you are playing at a table and someone calls big bets all the way down to the river and then mucks to someone's queen high. You could look in the hand history and find out that he called down with 32o and didn't hit a 3 or a 2 and had 5 overcards on the board so no possible way he could win. So this guy is either really intelligence impaired or he is chip dumping. So this might be a case that you want to report to the site so they can examine this guy's hand history and see if there is anything unethical going on there.

I don't know how much it really helps for that purpose. Anyone who is really colluding could easily fold to a river bet and avoid having their hand known.

On the other hand it is extremely useful information to have. And at the lower stakes almost no one knows about this. On PokerStars there is a link to the hand histories in the top left of the table. When you click on that it will give you show you all the hands that have been played since you sat down. If you are observing a table you can see all the hands that have been played the entire time you've been observing, but you don't get see mucked cards. You have to be dealt into the hand to see the mucked cards.

At the end of the day poker is a game of small edges. You gain edges against your opponent by deciphiring how they play so that you can better gauge what possible cards they might have. You lose edges when opponents discover how you play and are able to determine possible hands you might have. Seeing the mucked hands gives you assistance in determining how your opponent plays. This edge is magnified when other players aren't aware of this feature and this is knowledge only you are obtaining at your table. I never fail to see what players mucked whether I was in the hand or not. I want to see what they called with or checked with or bet with. This gives me information that most people at the tables that I play at don't know about and the ones that do know about it don't always take advantage of. It's not a big edge, it's a very small edge. It won't mean the difference between winning and losing a tournament, but it might help me make the right call or fold or bet in a critical hand. And the more small edges I have, the better my chances.

__________________
Nobody is always a winner, and anybody who says he is, is either a liar or doesn't play poker. -- Amarillo Slim

You say how could I make that call? How could you make that bet? We're playing poker, not solitaire. -- Doyle Brunson