Quote Originally Posted by brianh111
My arguement stems from the fact that if he flips his cards and I see them, he'd be able to see my reaction and have the extra advantage of seeing if I reacted and gave away a tell .
I believe I read somewhere that, exactly for the reason you stated above, this can be a good strategic move. I can't cite a better source than the previous posters have, but I believe the move is legal, and his hand is not declared dead.

I wouldn't think you'd want to do that much in a friendly home game, and I couldn't imagine it would be very popular to make it worthwhile in a low stakes game either.

Looking at all the above posts. And disregarding my personal home rules. I guess it can be safely said that the hand is live until a declaration is made by the player regardless of wether cards are face up or not. The next time you guys play. There should be some groundrules laid out.

Playing the devil's advocate, it is also a breech of poker etiquette to touch any chips in the pot until it has been officially awarded. And since he never made a verbal declaration.....you get the picture. So maybe download a copy of the rules to keep handy, and at the beginning of the game, tell all players that any action must be preceeded by a verbal intention.