Why can't I stop slow playing!?!?!?!?

I have been playing online poker micro's for around a year, 6 months ago I really decided to make it a more serious hobby. Even if I am not making enough $$ to quit my job, winning makes it a whole lot more fun.

That being said, I have come to terms that I am my own biggest enemy.

When I flop the nuts, or so I think, I can't fight the urge to slow play and or attempt to trap. I can look at any bad beat I have taken and usually chalk it up to just that.

Am I alone?

And no, not telling you my screen name or where I play!

What kind of situations do you mean? You flop straight and villain gets there in the river with flush? In that situation you need to make the villain pay for the next card as you are ahead but might not be after next card. But if you flop a boat you might be able to slow play it if you know you have the absolute nuts.

It's good that you notice this. Work on mistakes by honing and improving your skills. I also notice a lot of things in my game that I did wrong, and I always try to polish my skills.

This made my game so much stronger! And the number of mistakes is minimized

hiker5878 said:

I have been playing online poker micro's for around a year, 6 months ago I really decided to make it a more serious hobby. Even if I am not making enough $$ to quit my job, winning makes it a whole lot more fun.

That being said, I have come to terms that I am my own biggest enemy.

When I flop the nuts, or so I think, I can't fight the urge to slow play and or attempt to trap. I can look at any bad beat I have taken and usually chalk it up to just that.

Am I alone?

And no, not telling you my screen name or where I play!

Click to expand...

I have an identical problem. As a result, I stopped playing a lot of poker. I guess it's a mental problem.

KozakAlex said:

I have an identical problem. As a result, I stopped playing a lot of poker. I guess it's a mental problem.

Click to expand...

Yes you're right. It is a mental problem. I use to do the same, but not anymore. I am cured .

Slow playing the nuts is a good move, not an addiction.

Check if you have an aggressive player in position. A lot depends on the flop cards and the types of players behind you.

If you flop the "joint" lets say top boat or top set on a rainbow dry board - and there is very little possibility that your opponents can catch up - it is not a terrible strategy to allow your opponents to possibly catch up a little on the turn - so they have something to call down with. And if you have a super aggressive opponent that will ALWAYS BET if you check to them - it is not a bad spot to slow play a monster.
But other than those two select situations, I'd say it is mostly a bad idea to slow play. You give your opponent opportunity to catch up - true - but possibly catch two random pair versus your monster AAs - and then - cracked!

I find it quite joyful seeing a player get his monster hand cracked because he decided to slow play them rather than play the hand strong offensively.

As a suggestion on how to improve playing strong hands - when you either flop great, or have a strong holding preflop, you might consider watching some of Lex Veldhuis archived youtube content. That man is a master at playing - and I have picked up some great information from his content, believe it or not - some that is even useful at the micro/low stakes. Keep in mind - he is playing against some of the best players in the world - so a lot of what he does - will not translate to the low stakes, but watching him play monster hands is truly like watching an artist paint a chapel or a master pitcher throw a no hitter in the world series. Great stuff.

No free cards!

Always charge your opponent to draw.

Don't scare them off.

Bet sizing is an art.

Practice!

hiker5878 said:

I have been playing online poker micro's for around a year, 6 months ago I really decided to make it a more serious hobby. Even if I am not making enough $$ to quit my job, winning makes it a whole lot more fun.

That being said, I have come to terms that I am my own biggest enemy.

When I flop the nuts, or so I think, I can't fight the urge to slow play and or attempt to trap. I can look at any bad beat I have taken and usually chalk it up to just that.

Am I alone?

And no, not telling you my screen name or where I play!

Click to expand...

Hello Hiker,

Thank you for posting. First of all, well done for recognising that you have a leak in your game and that not every "bad beat" is purely down to bad luck. That said, don't come to terms with it, fix it!

The main thing to consider is how your opponents and your ranges interact with the board. If he has 4-bet you out of position, his starting hand is likely made up of only a few premium hands. If you've decided to stick around with T9s and flop the nut straight on a rainbow board, this is a good time to slow play, because he is likely going to think his AA, KK or QQ is good and will continue to bet for you and you can just call the flop and turn before raising him on the river and putting him in a nasty spot. This is perfectly fine because your opponent is drawing almost dead. Sure, occasionally he will hit runner runner for a boat, or quads, but the vast majority of the time you are going to win a big pot.

Equally, if you flop a set of 10's on a Th,9h,6s board, this is not a good spot to slow play. Any over card hits your opponents range quite hard and could leave you drawing very thin and that's before you start thinking about the flushes and straight draws available. Against a good player in this situation, you're not nearly as big a favourite and you probably think you are when you flop top set.

Good luck in your games.

Try switching to a simple rule:

"If I have a very strong hand, I will always bet/raise unless I can can clearly say a great reason to check/call instead."

Example of that great reason: You flop quads on 772. Someone bets out. A maniac acts after you. This would definitely be a spot to call instead of raise to allow the maniac to stay in the pot.

Apparently your problem is that you lack motivation. Perhaps the process of the game itself is more important to you than the money you can win, so you just have fun.

You're playing poker -- not pogs.

In other words all the strategies you employ are just a means to one end: the money.

In light of that, one of the mistakes a lot of poker newcomers make is slow-playing. Or slow-playing too much.

Slow-playing, for the most part, is counterproductive. If your goal is to get the most money in the pot, how are you going to do that by checking?

You build pots by betting your big hands -- not by lurking in the weeds with them.

I don't think slow play is such of a big problem. Rather the bets Id say, that's more important. I know many players that are slow players and they very profitable.

Harrington on holdem

hiker5878 said:

I have been playing online poker micro's for around a year, 6 months ago I really decided to make it a more serious hobby. Even if I am not making enough $$ to quit my job, winning makes it a whole lot more fun.

That being said, I have come to terms that I am my own biggest enemy.

When I flop the nuts, or so I think, I can't fight the urge to slow play and or attempt to trap. I can look at any bad beat I have taken and usually chalk it up to just that.

Am I alone?

And no, not telling you my screen name or where I play!

Click to expand...

The problem is if you slowplay too much, it becomes much harder to bluff.

I will verbatim post from Harrington on Holdem p.61 of volume 2

The hidden linkage between bluffing and Slow-playing

Although, many players are unaware of it, there is a linkage between the frequency of your slow-playing and the effectiveness of your bluffs. The more you slowplay, the less effective your bluffs will be. This is only partly a result of the tables perceiving you as a genuinely trappy player, whose every play may be viewed with suspicion. The main reason is you aren’t making enough value bets to establish credibility with your bluffs. The logic works as follows:

1. You only get so many high-value hands
2. In order for your bluffs to be credible, players have to see you bet for value, then turn over strong hands.
3. The more you slowplay your strong hands, the less often (2) will happen
4. Therefore, the more you slowplay, the less credible your bluffs will be.

If your a super-aggressive player, whose real goal is to win big pots with your legitimate hands, this shouldn’t bother you very much. You will be perceived as a trappy player, and you will make big profits on your legitimate hands. But if you’re a conservative player who wants to make the occasional effective bluff, make sure your slowplaying frequency doesn’t get too high.

Not all slow play is bad.
Everything depends on the situation on the place.

it really depends upon your image. If you have an image as the tightest player at the table who "only bets when he has it", then slowplaying is probably a very good idea for you. (but also note Pokerstudy's post quoting Harrington about the danger of getting a "trappy" image if you make slowplaying a regular habit).

however, if your table image is that you are a wild, loose, crazy player... then why would you ever slowplay? Checking will probably set off alarm bells with the other players, because it is so out of line compared to how you usually play.

and that is the very reason why we should always strive for an aggro image as opposed to an image of being a rock or a nit - because when we do flop a big hand, we don't have to worry about slow playing it and hoping we get paid off. Aggro players don't have these problems (they have other ones, but not this one).

hiker5878 said:

I have been playing online poker micro's for around a year, 6 months ago I really decided to make it a more serious hobby. Even if I am not making enough $$ to quit my job, winning makes it a whole lot more fun.

That being said, I have come to terms that I am my own biggest enemy.

When I flop the nuts, or so I think, I can't fight the urge to slow play and or attempt to trap. I can look at any bad beat I have taken and usually chalk it up to just that.

Am I alone?

And no, not telling you my screen name or where I play!

Click to expand...

IMO no pronlem with slowplaaying, just remember the main rule.
And that is to mix things up even if you have aggressive players on the table or only tight players, just mix it up a bit.

Its a tough spot if you are oop and you flop the nuts, here the mixing of the game will start, bet sometimes and check sometimes.

Especially if you have more aggros than tight players on your table its more wise to check a lot more oop and mix it also up with checking in position

Practice makes perfect as they say

Slow playing can be good early in wild freerolls, They may hang in there to the end anyway and still beat you. Getting a feel of the person behind you is important. 2 night ago, I hit quads and did not raise until they raised the river. They raised on each round. They were 90% invested and thought they had it. They both had pocket pairs and made trips. They thought the other 2 cards were just to complete their full house.

You need to be more aggressive if you see the board heading toward a flush or straight. - That is also my downfall.

The natural evolution of a poker player is to play to obvious in the beginning. Like when they flop very strong, they usually go for a big donk bet instead of letting the preflop raiser hang himself. Then after a while however most people tend to go in the opposite direction and slowplay to much. And I guess, its all about the feeling, that it sucks, when we have a very strong hand and dont get paid. But as you already found it, it sucks a whole lot more, when we let our opponent draw out of us for cheap and then pay them off.

So the first condition for even considering a slowplay is, that we are unlikely to get drawn out on. This is usually the case if we flop or turn a boat or better. So in those situations a slowplay can be considered. It can also be considered, if we flop a set on a very dry board like A82 rainbow. On such a board slowplaying top set should be our default play, because its difficult for our opponents to have anything good enough to pay us off, if we go bet, bet, bet.

We should be way less likely to slowplay middle or bottom set on A82 rainbow though, because when we have those hands, people can have a lot of top pair, and we want them to put in as many chips as possible. If we are not the preflop aggressor, it can still be ok to just call a flop C-bet though, because if we raise, we cant really represent any draws. So to a good opponent check-raising A82 rainbow might make our range a bit to face up as being always two pair or a set.

Whereas if the board is something like QJ4 2-tone, and we have 44 or QJ, then we should absolutely check-raise the flop and hope, they will stack off a hand like an overpair or top pair, because they think, we are semi-bluffing with a draw. Or that they have a draw themselfes and will choose to pay us off to see the next card. I hope, this little guide to slowplaying was usefull to OP or others

I never play slow. I like to play fast.

Stop slow playing, if you're losing more vs winning.. You're letting players hit a flush or a str8 or they are nailing 2 pair and or a set, by not betting the hand or re-raising the hand preflop..
Make your hand look strong, with betting, vs calling with it.

I don't know the exact answer! reasons for all and I have several at once !!! for some it is a tactic), for others it is the ability to play at 16 tables), for others - some kind of analysis)), some just scoff ...

I think slow play can only be when you are sure you have the absolute nuts. Otherwise, this is not advisable since there is a 70-80% probability that the opponent will have a better hand on the river.

My golden rule is if I decide to slow play I should be able to fold AA, KK or whatever it might be. Let's say you limped in early position with intension of raising when someone bets but... no one raised and now you're in limp pot 4 ways. Usually I don't even try to win this pot. Yeah there's good chance your aces are still good on the flop but if opponents don't fold I just give up. I mean it's just 4 big blinds do you really want to get involved and possibly lose a big pot?