Sharecentric

I discussed slow playing earlier and said, for many situations you probably don’t want to use it. There is a pretty good alternative to actual slow playing online that works effectively against many players. That is the “literal” slow play.

Say I am a preflop raiser with AJs in late position with 3 other limpers. The flop comes and I flop trip Aces. Everyone checks to you. At this point, some say you should probably slow play this, maybe wait until the turn to see if you pick up some more action. You are also giving up some cheap draws when you do that, to a flush sometimes. And it wouldn’t be advisable. There is a way to get your cake and eat it too! It involves a psych out.

When you are in a live card room you can look at your opponent, exam exactly the way he is breathing, moving, etc. You can, perhaps, tell from his tells that he has a big hand, or not. Online, we have no tells. However, many poker players online seem to love the idea of tells. What is the one thing that you can see online, one of the most notable things when a player makes a decision? The time it takes him/her to make their move.

When a player takes a really long time to make a decision the natural thought to everyone at the table is .. this is a hard decision for the player to make. If the board is scary, by that logic, he must not have whatever the board says he probably has. He may be bluffing. Although this is highly speculative, you will be surprised how many players probably have this going through their heads.

Exploit this tendency! In the above example, when it is checked to you, wait until you hear the game beep for a move. Perhaps around 15 seconds or more, use much of your time until the game beeps. Then throw that bet in there like you had to think hard and long to make this crazy bluff. Hope that the other players saw this (and aren’t multi-tabling) and they think you are full of it. When they call (or even better raise: some very aggressive asses will raise you after you do this play!) you have just, perhaps, squeezed a few bets in that you may not have gotten had you bet really fast.

It’s the little things, and in my experience this play works more often than not. The best time you should try it is when you flop a great hand, but do not want to give any free cards by slow playing.