Several online poker sites are going to show the hole cards of final table players in their bigger events. There are several reasons for this and several mechanisms for revealing the hole cards.
The first reason, that no online site is going to admit to, is security. After the fiasco at Absolute Poker last month, everyone wants to be bending over backwards to make it clear to the online players that everything is fair and secure. What better way to do that then to show every player's hole cards.
Now the "reason" the online site are giving is that it makes following a final table more interesting but that runs into a snag because you cannot show the hole cards in real time. (If you don't know why, stop reading now!). So the hole card reveal must be on some type of delay, which takes some of the fun out of watching the final table live. The WSOP encountered the same issues with its ill-fated Sequestrium this past summer.
So either the entire final table is shown with hole cards after the table play is complete OR there is some type of delay. The problem with just a delay is that players still at the final table can get information on how another player is playing hands in nearly real time.
So far the only sites using the hole card reveal are doing it with a delay until after the event is concluded, which takes us back to our original argument about this being all about security and very little about entertainment for the cyber-railbirds.
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