Poker's Biggest Thrill - Slow Playing
By Stephen Todd, Sat Dec 10th

Poker's Biggest Thrill - Slow Playing

What is Slow Playing?

Slow playing is a strategy used to deceive your opponents intothinking that you have a weaker hand than you actually have.

By initially playing a weak hand, you are giving confidence toyour opponents that they may have stronger hands.

You are therefore encouraging your opponents to bet into yourwinning hand. The end result is a bigger pot for you to win.

The Thrill of Slow Playing

Part of the thrill of playing is the opportunity to createa deception by slow playing a hand and taking a large pot ofchips from under your opponent's nose.

There is no greater satisfaction when playing than beatingother players, by surprise and deception.

Good slow playing takes time to perfect - it's a game ofpsychology. Stalling, checking, raising and playing cards otherplayers are surprised you are playing.

Slow playing is about sending a message out to other playersthat your hand is weaker than it really is and giving them afalse sense of security.

A satisfactory conclusion to a slow playing hand is, youropponent bets into your winning hand, the pot gets bigger andyou take it! There is no greater satisfaction in than this.

Slow Playing Requires Discipline

Slow-playing is used for one purpose only - winning more chipsin situations where being too aggressive from the start will notachieve this.

Slow playing a hand needs to be used sparingly to be effective -only when the circumstances are right.

The Four Circumstances that are Right for Slow Playing a Handare:

1. You must have a very strong hand to consider the play.

2. The free card you are allowing other players to get must havegood possibilities of making them a second-best hand.

3. That same free card must have only a small chance of makingsomeone a better hand than yours.

4. You must be confident that you will scare other players outby showing this aggression, but you still have good odds ofwinning a big pot if you don't.

5. The pot should not be too large to start with.

Maximizing Profits on Your Premium Hands and a Caution

Slow playing is a way to get better value for your premium hands.

You need to be aware though that you are giving away a free cardto your opposition; so you need to make sure that even if youropponents hand improves, you are still confident that your handis still strong enough to win.

Slow playing is an art and if you get it wrong you will suffer,play it right however, and you have one of the major traits thatmake a top player.

You get an extra bet into the pot and make a good player staywith a marginal hand longer than they should - that's what agood slow play achieves.

Practice Makes Perfect

You need to decide

how to play your hand based on building alarge pot while increasing your chance of winning it. This isnot as easy as it sounds and takes experience of knowing whenthe circumstances are right and the discipline not to use slowplaying too often.

Get your slow playing strategy right though and you will enhanceyour profit potential considerably.

As with all strategies it takes time to perfect and theold adage practice makes perfect applies.

About the author:To find out more about poker playing strategies and how to win more oftenvisit our web site: www.Win-At-Online-Poker.com