Flashing your hole cards to your opponents. Legal?

I read that Jamie Gold seldom flashed his hole cards to the other players of the table. Is this legal?

i think it is stupd .don't know about illegal.was it intentional? where did you read this? i would like to read it.

I think it was intentional. I forgot the article's website and link, sorry.

It depends on the situation. If there's more than 1 in the pot then obviously not.

If someone has gone all in and your last to act its a diff story. In a national UK tourny at Aspers in newcastle, someone went all in and the guy to my right showed 3-3 before he acted.

The guy who went all in instantly kicked up a fuss. This showed he weak and the guy on my right called. The original guy was bluffing.

Lots of debate went into it and it was said by the director its awful etiquette but it is legal....

Usually though when you show your hand during play it means your hand is dead and any chips youve committed, you lose, no matter what hand you have!

I'm not sure why on this occasion its different but hey, there ya go.

thanks killer.lol. it makes more sense to me now. but it is awful etiquette. maybe he wanted to stir up controversy to get his name in the news a bit.

Lol he's got his name around enough and most poker players hate him.

He made a deal with his mate to give him half his winnings if he won.

He won. Did he give his mate half the winnings? Nope. Now Jamie Gold has spent the money apparently, and his mate is now taking him to court for his half as it was a verbal legal contract. So jamie gold is soon to be bankrupt

a poker idiot.

here's the rules as Set Down by the California Gaming Commission - I don't think its any different in most other places, but I'm not 100% on that.

It IS illegal to show one or both hole cards to any player in the hand, and the dealer/floorman may decide it is an automatic muck.
The exception to this rule is if you are either heads-up OR the only hand which isn't all-in already.
It comes down to collusion: showing your cards if anyone else is left to act gives information to some players, but not necessarily all (so you're cheating by selecting the information given). On the same vein, the information may be more helpful to some players than others, and hence affects the betting unfairly. A great example: UTG holds AK and flops a straight, and bets. MP shows KK, and raises. Button (with T9) just lost 2 of his outs for his open-end, and his 2nd pair chance, and folds. The information from the exposed cards affected the betting, and could be considered collusion.

Also - and I see this one all the time - it is illegal to ASK what an opponent has except heads-up or last all-in, for the same reason - collusion. I see this ALL the time, though.

Precisley good answer killer...But as every1 nows.When ur about to start a tournment ur r given the rulz before u hear shuffle up n deal...Breaking the rulz if a conflict, the dealer must call out "Floor" for a supervisor to give a final say.It could cause a dead hand for both players causing the conflict.(In this case 1 guy in hand shows another guy that is also in hand)I have shown people my hand before i act that was not in the hand.Never caused 1 on any table i have played on.Really no conflict in that because ur not asking for tips ur just showing some1 how u play ur cards..It could go many different ways,better off protecting ur hand...People u show can get a lil read off u by showing cards...Seeya around...Brandon

Thanks for the praise Brandon

Zebranky. Asking what an opponent has is perfectly fine. I have no idea why you think asking is illegal? Maybe telling is, but people are allowed to talk. Its standard basic poker chit chat!?!?!?!

Any single poker show on tv every hand you see "hmm what have you got?" and other person saying "o the trips" or watever.. sometimes lieing sometimes not.

Yes its collusion if its happneing every hand with someone saying their cards, but there is no way its illegal to ask a player what they have when they're in the pot lol.

It's considered illegal (as collusion) in a multiway, no all-in pot. Basically, if more than one person is free to check/bet/raise, then just like showing cards, it is "illegal" to fish for information verbally. Almost universally, pro players only ask "what have you got - have you got Aces" and that sort of stuff heads up, where collusion isn't a factor.
I do agree that it happens all the time in multi-way pots, but it is outside of the rules (but if you play live games, you know how many rules/etiquette gets broken regularly - rabbit hunting, stack-bluffing, acting out of turn, etc.) I could write a small book on all the rule violations and bad etiquette I see every day. Mostly, because no-one objects, nothing is ever done about it.