Auto Mucking in Internet Poker
In addition to being able to play multiple tables at once on PokerStar, as well as being able to find poker games without leaving home, one of the main advantages to playing online poker is that players provide their opposition with no physical information. Physical tells such as shaking hands, a sweaty brow, or an increase in blink rates cannot be seen when one plays poker on the internet. Because players cannot physically see one another, they have to rely on information like betting patterns. Additionally, players use information like how long it takes a player to act or make a bet in determining how strong or weak their opponent is. Because information is much more limited in internet poker than it is when playing live poker, it makes sense to do everything one can to limit the information that you provide to your opposition.
In internet poker, every pokerstar room has a feature that allows players to throw their hand in automatically when it is not the winning hand at showdown or when they take the pot down uncontested. This feature is known as auto muck. When an internet poker player turns on the auto mucking feature by checking the auto muck box, their poker cards are not displayed when they do not have to be. Auto mucking reduces the amount of information a poker player shares or reveals to the table. If a player fires a turn bet, causing the rest of the table to fold, the cards are automatically folded when the player rakes in the pot without providing any added information to the table that would reveal what you were firing into the pot with.
When a hand goes to showdown, many Internet poker rooms include the hands that made it to showdown in their hand history file, regardless of whether one mucks or shows the hand. However, by activating auto muck, a player will only have shared his hand with those who have looked at the hand history file. Thus, players who do not look at hand history or have poker-tracking programs running in the background will not be privileged to this information. As a result, they will not be able to utilize this information to their advantage.
Internet poker star players should provide their opposition with as little information about their play as possible. Auto mucking helps players minimize the amount of advertising they do. Internet poker players are wise to activate their auto mucking features so that only those players who review hand history files will be able to see what kind of hands they are showing down.