End of Probability: Preparing for Showdown

The river is home to some of the toughest decisions you will make—hero calls, triple barrel bluffs, agonizing folds and everything in between.

- Upswing Poker

Welcome back, poker crushers! In the previous chapters, we covered the basics of poker strategy. We learned how to make smart decisions preflop, how to play the flop, and how to handle the turn.

All of this has been building up to the final stage: the showdown poker. In this chapter, we’ll focus on what you need to know to make the right moves when it matters most.

Let’s go!

The last round of betting in Hold’Em and Omaha is called the river, which occurs after the fifth and final community card is dealt. During this round, players either check, bet, or call. If all bets are called or the action is checked through, the game proceeds to the showdown.

At the showdown, players reveal their hole cards, and the player with the best hand wins the pot. It’s a process that concludes the hand before moving on to the next one.

So, do you have to show your cards in poker? You only have to show your cards if you were the last to bet on the river and someone called. In that case, the rules say you reveal your hand first.

When you’re the one calling the bet, you only have to show your cards to win. It’s the only way to prove you have a better hand. Otherwise, you can keep your strategy or lack thereof secret by mucking your cards.

A muck player is someone who folds or, at a showdown, concedes after the aggressor reveals a stronger hand. The term "muck" refers to the pile of discarded hole cards that remain unseen by other players.

With these basics in mind, let’s get into some strategical knowledge and tips!

In previous chapters, we discussed equities drifting apart from the flop to river. While the worst hand or range on the flop still has odds to improve, those odds decrease on the turn and become either zero or one-hundred on the river.

Sure, rarely the pot will get chopped, but even in those instances, there’s no hope or threat of one player suddenly jumping ahead to make the best hand. This makes nut advantage the most important factor in showdown poker strategy.

Before we decide whether to bet, call a bet, how much to fire or how much we’re willing to call, we must understand which player can have the best hands and which one cannot.

On the river, someone’s certainly the winner. The only issue is the players understanding who that someone is.

For one, given the most common stack depths, the river bet will either be an all-in, or close enough that only one raise will get you there. So, when playing for stacks, we want to make sure we know who can showdown nutted hands most often.

Evaluating nut-advantage, and knowing what to do with or without it, takes some practice and cunning.

The final card, the river, solidifies which hand will be best should the betting action yield a showdown. Furthermore, the pot will always be largest on the last street, so tense decisions that jeopardize entire stacks must be made.

The strategy behind showdown poker on fifth street relies on nut-advantage. Professional players consider who can have the best hands on the river before making their decisions.

Stay tuned to learn actionable steps you can take with this new knowledge!

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The following links are recommended resources related to this section’s theme. Don’t stay in doubt--dive in! 🔔

• Hand Rankings: Never stumble on the fundamentals of best hands at showdown.
• Ranges: Learn how to calculate & use poker ranges.
• Pot Odds: Learn how to calculate pot odds for online poker.
• Discord Community: Join the coolest poker community, don’t be shy! Use it to ask questions and interact with other poker enthusiasts and professionals.