I have a question purely about the rules regarding exposure of cards. I was playing in a home tournament, and I had A9 hearts. I was on the button and it was folded around to me so I put in a 3-bet. The small blind called and the big blind folded.

The small blind was a very weak player with some exposure to poker, so when the flop came A-7-4 rainbow and he went all-in, I had a dilemma on my hands. I was pretty certain that he wasn't on a better ace (i.e. a better kicker) because he probably would have raised (I believe this player would even have reraised with AT). I was most concerned about two pair, but in all probability I was winning here. the 4 was a heart so I even had the longshot out to a runner-runner flush if I was beat.

I had about 4200 checks remaining in my stack. The pot was now 1050 and he had added 1700. All other stacks at the table were 2000 or less at this point.

So, with only this player and myself left in the hand, I turned over my cards to see his reaction. Is this legal?

I know that most sites claim you can never expose cards intentionally, but they usually also include "to encourage or discourage an action." Well I was NOT trying to make him do anything here, he had already committed to an action. Secondly, this idea was NOT my idea in the first place, I encountered it when reading Super System. So if Brunson is recommending the action, then surely it is legal somewhere.

Can anyone advise on this or even better, refer me to an online explanation of the pertinent rules?

For your information and amusement, the player responded to my action by exposing his cards, and they were 55. As you can imagine this caused a big uproar at the table, where the players were already unhappy with my early success. When I responded "well, I guess I'll call," they were unhappy. In any event, I felt very bad about the play and offered to just split the pot right there (and I did).

For your further amusement: One of the guys at the table (a real instigator) decided to reveal the next two cards to come, and the TURN was a 5h. As you can imagine emotions flared even higher until the river came Kh and I caught my runner-runner flush afterall.

Cleee-shay

Two seconds til another stupid chuck norris joke.

Nice try.