Showdown + showing hole cards

What is the standard rule of showing cards after the river?
Situation: Say you call and your opponent flips over a poket pair. You pair the board and flip over the paired card only. If you are the caller, are there any situations in which you must flip over both hole cards even if you say you are just using one card to make your hand or just playing the board?

In this situation you see that your beat so you can just show one card and muck your hand, if you like you can show none of your cards.

If you had a better hand you must show both your cards to be eligible to win the pot, even if you only using one of them to beat him.

Now if you were the raiser and he was the caller you would have to show both your cards first.

Originally Posted by seeC

If you had a better hand you must show both your cards to be eligible to win the pot, even if you only using one of them to beat him.

This was the situation I was most curious about. Thanks.

Not to mention that only flipping over only one card is poor play. Either you open your cards, or you don't. If you can beat your opp, show your hand and take the pot. If you can't, muck face-down and say "Nice Hand". What do you expect to gain by showing the top pair on the board? Sympathy from the rest of the table? You're just giving away valuable info to your opponents.

Not to flame or anything, but it's a personal pet peeve when a player slow rolls, mucks face-up, or only opens one card. Just bad table manners.

$.02

-Kes

The only time you can show only one card is when all the betting has been completed and you are mucking your hand. The only time you should ever show your cards (whether it is one or both) is if you think doing so will give you an advantage later on.

Originally Posted by Kessler

Not to mention that only flipping over only one card is poor play. Either you open your cards, or you don't. If you can beat your opp, show your hand and take the pot. If you can't, muck face-down and say "Nice Hand". What do you expect to gain by showing the top pair on the board? Sympathy from the rest of the table? You're just giving away valuable info to your opponents.

Not to flame or anything, but it's a personal pet peeve when a player slow rolls, mucks face-up, or only opens one card. Just bad table manners.

$.02

-Kes

Heh? Hold 'em is the best five card hand, not six or seven. If all you need to complete your hand and beat your opponent is one hole card, why must you be forced to flip over both and give away information if you don't need to? If there is a straight on the board and I can't beat it and I play the board, why should I have to flip over my hole cards if they aren't in play?

I'm not a big fan of giving away information when I don't need to and was curious about the ruling since it forces players to do just that.

Let's break this down nice and easy for ya.

If you are calling a raise, you don't have to show anything. You can muck.
If you raised, then you must show your hand first.

If you have the winning hand, you must show BOTH cards. The reason being is you must have 2 playable cards in your hand for it to be valid. If you were dealt a joker for instance, your hand would be invalid, and you wouldn't be eligiable to win anything. If you were dealt that joker you should have brought it to the attention of the dealer right away and the hand would be dealt again.

Originally Posted by AHiltz

Let's break this down nice and easy for ya.

It already was after the first response. But your response clued me into the possible origins and neccesity of the rule, thanks.