Another way of sharing inappropriate information

A couple of weeks ago I was playing at the Venetian, in seat 10, to the dealer's immediate right. The first card he dealt me was an 8, but it accidentally landed face-up after bumping into my chip stack. My second card was also an 8, so I would have had a nice pair to start with. I received a lousy 4 to replace the exposed 8, making my hand essentially worthless. Oh well--these things happen, and a replacement card is, on average, just as likely to improve as to degrade what my hand would have been, so it's not something worth getting upset about.

Anyway, when it came my turn, I was just about to show the dealer the other 8 he had given me, just to give him a little good-natured needle about the error. But at the last second it occurred to me that that action would effectively tell the rest of the table that I was folding another 8, because there is no other card that I would bother showing the dealer in that situation; no other card would have significance in light of the 8 that had previously been exposed. It would be wrong to show the table the other 8 I was folding, and therefore it would be just as wrong to show it just to the dealer, since everybody could easily infer what the card was. So instead I just mucked the 4-8 without fanfare.

I bring this up now because of a small incident on last night's "Poker After Dark." Phil Laak bobbled his cards while folding from early position, and a 9 was inadvertantly exposed. The dealer dutifully showed it to everybody. Jennifer Harman folded next. Then it was David Benyamine's turn. He had a J-9, and well might have played it, were it not for having seen Laak's mucked 9, which meant he had fewer ways to make a decent hand. He showed his cards to Harman with a smile before folding.

To his credit, a few seconds later he realized that he had, in effect, just informed the remaining players that he probably folded a 9, because why else would he do the "give me a little sympathy" display for Harman? He tried to cover it with a little song-and-dance, explaining what else besides a 9 he might have been showing--but it wasn't very convincing.

There are all sorts of ways of revealing--intentionally or unintentionally--to the table what cards you are folding or have folded (see here, for example), and they're all wrong. I'm glad that Benyamine realizes that, even if the recognition came a little too late in this instance. Information is the most valuable commodity at a poker table, and players have to learn to manage it properly, not giving it away when it is out of line to be doing so.